Happy Friday, all!

This week started off with Alix Harrow’s Starling House, in which an orphan struggling to make ends meet for her younger brother discovers an unexpected legacy in the creepy house on the outskirts of their town where she takes a job as housekeeper for the reclusive owner.  But this house isn’t just a house and this town has some dark secrets….  But can she unwind truth from myth in time?  Like What Happens at Nightfall, this book is also a reflection on the sorts of stories we tell about women, and how we bend the truth to suit our preconceived narratives.

After that, it was more mysterious old houses with Victoria Holt’s The Shivering Sands, in which our widowed heroine takes a job as music teacher in the castle overlooking the archaeological site where her archaeologist sister disappeared some months before.  This has many of the classic Holt elements including teaching teenage girls, “is he the hero or is he the villain?”, and peculiar side characters, but it mostly made me want to reread Time of the Hunter’s Moon instead.

Tricia Ashley’s Singled Out took me from 19th century England to early 2000s England, and yet another creepy old house, in this case one visited by horror writer Cass, looking for inspiration, not realizing it is inhabited– and by a handsome and emotionally scarred foreign correspondent.  With quirky side characters, a hideous ex, and chats with the distracted vicar at the pub, this is classic vintage Tricia Ashley.

And then it was once more unto Taviscombe with Hazel Holt’s nineteenth Mrs. Malory book, Any Man’s Death.  I’m so sad that I only have two left after this!

I feel like I’ve fallen down both on my pre-Halloween reading (usually a big thing for me) and on my resolution to read more recent books, but there’s always next week, no?

What have you been reading this week?

In other news, in the lead up to Halloween, I’ve got more What Happens at Nightfall events coming up!  The event at Ocean House in Rhode Island on Sunday is sold out, but you can still join me at Desmond-Fish Library in Garrison NY in conversation with the wonderful Allison Pataki this Thursday!