Weekly Reading Round-Up
As the weather gets cooler and the smell of pumpkin spice begins to permeate my Starbucks, I find myself turning back to mystery novels and ghost stories, in particular my collection of Barbara Michaels novels: The House of Many Shadows, Someone in the House, Here I Stay, and Stitches in Time.
If only Miss Gwen’s gothic novel were done, I could add that to the reading queue!
Do you have any good haunted house stories to recommend? My Barbara Michaels collection will only hold me for so long….
What have you been reading?
Deanna Raybourn’s books aren’t populated by ghosts but they’re good mysteries. The 13th Tale has been recommended before, but it’s worth another mention.
And I had a total squee moment when I found out pumpkin spice lattes are back 🙂
Not only are they back, the billboards are in a white on black Halloween-y font. I’m a total sucker for stuff like that!
I’m reading Maybe This Time by Jenny Crusie, which has three ghosts in a remote house with a creepy housekeeper and orphans all waiting for Andie our hero. Lots of fun, and making me want to pick up Ammie, Come Home again.
I’m reading Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, the last of the Hunger Games trilogy.
I love “Ammie, Come Home”, J! And the sequels.
I am going through Lisa Kleypas’ Hathaway series right now. Not ghostly at all. The dead travel fast by Raybourn would fit that profile, as would Sleepy Hollow, which I find a good Fall story.
The Historian, for actually interesting non sparkling vampires. Also, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard book was written for this time of year, just perfect!
I’ve had to read for class lately…In my french class we’re reading L’Amant (The Lover) by Marguerite Duras, and its been confusing me a lot.
Not much time for fun reading, but I have been making time for Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare.
My favorite Barbara Michaels is “Ammie Come Home”.
Although not scary ghost stories, a few of my favorites are “Stardust of Yesterday’ by Lynn Kurland and “Everlastin'” by Mickee Madden.
I would second the rec for Deanna Raybourn.
Am right at the beginning of a re-read of the Miles Vorkosigan series by Lois Bujold in preparation for the October 19th release of “Cryoburn”.
Elizabeth, I loved The Historian!
I don’t really have seasonal reads, but it sounds like a reasonable idea!
I’m trying to finish The Picture of Dorian Gray, which I started on my way to Ireland last summer. And I have stacks of other classics that I never got around to reading to work on as well.
Ammie, Come Home has sequels?!? Which ones are they? I must have missed them this far. 🙂
my favorite ghost series is The Mediator by Meg Cabot. they’re for YA, but OMG! the witty banter and the hot ghost/teenage romance! totally recommend them. there’s 6 in all, but their only a couple hundred pages each. you can’t put them down so they’ll be fast reads.
~lAUra
http://www.megcabot.com/mediator/about.php
I have had little time to read for my own enjoyment since I am back to school. I have been reading The Time Machine and The Invisible Man. It is not really a ghost story per se but there is some suspense and creepiness and they are very short…
On the recommendation of the author, this week I read my first Amanda Quick book, Scandal. It was lovely. Possibly a good fall read. I think of September time to read school stories. Thoughts.
I like my ghost stories levened with humor. A Halloween tradition at my house is the old black & white movie(yes, not a book) “Arsenic and Old Lace”. But There’s also GH’s “Footsteps in the Dark”. It is one of her mysteries, and has a ghost called The Monk, creepy noises in the night, a seance, a skeleton (including a skull rolling down the stairs), a crypt, and secret passages. Also, since it is a Georgette Heyer mystery, there is a murder, some romance, and lots of witty dialog.
I read “Maybe This Time” by Jennifer Crusie this because I’ve always been a sucker for ghost and time travelling stories. “Maybe This Time” is good. Real good. Entertaining, good characters, and believable (ie not corny). Definitely recommend.
My Halloween book this year is The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (which I haven’t started yet because, well, it isn’t Halloween). Haunted houses galore! (Well, just one.)
This week I’ve gone back to Oscar and Lucinda. It’s really lovely but incredibly sad.
Warning Pam, I just read the Little Stranger, could be the worst book I read this year.
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice is one of my all-time favorite novels — ever! Deliciously spooky — so much so, that when I first read it years ago when I was single and living alone in a turn-of-the century home in New Orleans, I couldn’t go to sleep without the lights on for months!
The two spooky books that first come to my mind were both written by Agatha Christie. They don’t have ghosts or anything Halloween related in them, but they are unsettling, captivating, and a bit haunting. The first is called “And Then There Were None” or “Ten Little Indians” depending on the year of publication. I think the second is called “Sleeping Murder”. In “And Then There Were None”, ten people who each caused the death of another person are brought to an island where they are forced to face the consequences of their actions and are killed one by one. In “Sleeping Murder”, if its the right one I am thinking of, the main character witnesses a murder as a child but has forgotten it, then is almost murdered the same way by the original murderer when she finally remembers it. That may be the wrong Agatha Christie…there are so many! Both books make me nervous and I can’t read them when I am home alone. I’ve read each multiple times and they still have that effect on me!
Thanks for your recommendation of “The Magicians” and “Interred With Their Bones”. They were both wonderful books!
*Finally* finished Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series, which is really sad because I loved that family to pieces. Started in on Lisa Kleypas’ Wallflower series and also finished Philippa Gregory’s latest, “The Red Queen,” which was…well, not so good.