Books

Haunting Paranormal: Ghost Story Collection – Review of Series Openers from M.L. Bullock’s

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Have you ever ordered a sampler at a restaurant?  Let’s take the seafood sampler for example. There might be a couple of crab legs on your plate, some fried shrimp and tartar sauce.  Throw in some garlicky scallops, a lobster tail and you’re all set. 

I read a sampler a couple years back. I’m just getting around to writing about it now.  Don’t worry, I’m refreshed. Try refreshing two year old scallops though, that may not turn out so well. 

I reread and/or skimmed through the stories of M L Bullock’s Haunting Paranormal Ghost Story Collection, which is a collection of firsts from various series.  I saw this book advertised on Facebook at a very generous price.  Of course I can’t remember what I paid; perhaps a few dollars?  It was a kindle book.  Also, I can’t recall if it was an advert or if I was already following Bullock.  Whatever the case may be, the promotion worked on me (that rhymed) and I bought the book. 

Need I say each story contains a haunted house?  Mostly these are manors and each one has a story to tell, having hosted successive generations within their walls. Whether plantation  manors or mansions unassociated with a spread of land, they are houses of the American South.  Hence,   M. L Bullock is known as “The Queen of Southern Gothic”.  Don’t believe me?  Check out her website and see for yourself!  You’ll have to scroll down a bit.  She shows off this title in bold, colorful print. Guess I can be the King of the Houses of the Haunted if I just get my fonts right.  

 Bullock’s writing style is, well, it’s her style. Some will love it, others no. I’m somewhere in between. She’s overly descriptive  when detailing the heroine’s daily apparel or hairstyle choices. At least for my tastes. She is quite prolific, being the author of several long series. How does she pump out so much material?  For one thing, the books within the series are not very long (at least not the books that begin each series). Second, her works are very formulaic. 

Nevertheless, Bullock  is a good story teller, skilled at wrapping the reader in her worlds, both modern and historical. Had this not been the case, I wouldn’t have made it through these five stories (although with one of them I was tempted to quit).  They are:

Seven Sisters 

The Haunting of Joanna Storm

The Belles of Desire, Mississippi 

Wife of the Left Hand 

The Ghosts of Kali Oka Road

This article will touch on each story in brief, examining plot, and offering opinions. As to this last point, I will finish each succession with a “Yes”, “No”, or “Maybe”.  What are these? Well, they are answers, you see. This implies the preexistence of some kind of question, doesn’t it?   The question is: Does this introductory book entice me to read other books in the series?

First, let’s get the formula out of the way. This applies to most of the five stories, if not all.

A female protagonist finds herself in a new house or city in the American South.  Things in the new place are not exactly normal. They are, shall we say, “para” normal. Ghostly goings-ons are afoot. Sometimes the event is subtle, causing the heroine to dismiss it. Other times the event is striking, leaving no doubt the house is haunted.

A large chunk of the story will take place in historical times. Sometimes it’s half of the story, and in other cases only snippets of the past leak onto the page. In all cases, the protagonist experiences the past as if she were there as an eyewitness watching a haunting history unfold. Hence, there are two timelines, the present and the past, and the workings of the paranormal to connect the two. The means to this time bridge she crosses differ slightly from story to story.

In most of these stories, there is mystery surrounding the fate of a woman from the past who once resided in the haunted house. Either she disappeared during her lifetime or the final fate of the woman (who is a victim of some tragedy or loss) is lost to history. It is the duty of the protagonist to solve the mystery.

The protagonist’s appearance is described in great detail. Hair color or style, manner of dress, from blue jeans and t-shirts to grand dresses or yore. This description applies to her male love interest as well.  In every story, there is romance or hints at romance, earning these stories the genre badge of “Southern Gothic Romance.”

Finally, all these stories end abruptly.  It’s as if there is a built-in alarm that rudely blares, catching the reader off guard. Content with the story pacing, enthusiastic to complete the last stretches of the journey, then all of a sudden,  a hidden voice comes out of nowhere and shouts, “Last call for alcohol! Drink ’em up, we’re closing in 10 minutes!” Conclusions are fast, unsatisfactory, and forced, with many questions left unanswered. I guess this is where the reader is supposed to grasp quickly at the next book of the series. Hurry! Go to Amazon, buy and download. Damn! Slow wifi. OMG, does my device have enough charge? (As I write this, I  am reminded to charge my tablet. Seriously, I might have gone to bed with no power to read anything before sleep. The horrors!)

Obviously, I didn’t rush to buy any sequels, for as I stated, I’m going to reveal my yes-maybe-no answers concerning the prospects of continuing any of the series. However, I did finish this entire book, which means, despite how much I seem to be bashing these stories, I did discover things I liked.  I like the worlds Bullock creates, both past and present.  The characters are interesting. Bullock does take the time to build idiosyncrasies into their makeup.  And the stuff of ghosts and haunted houses are spooky and fun!  

Okay, enough of all that. Let’s explore each story in more detail, shall we?

 Seven Sisters

Carrie Jo,  just out of a relationship, is hired to assess the inventory of antiques inside Mobile, Alabama’s Seven Sisters Manor (former plantation), with the end goal being to convert the premises into a museum.  She is well qualified. She is a historian and has a team at her disposal to assist in renovation and research. She falls in love with Ashland, her boss, and the current owner of the estate.

She also has a special ability when it comes to dreams.  When she sleeps in the presence of artifacts, or inside an old house, her dream  transports her back in time, where she can witness the happenings from a long time ago. 

In her dream state, she is transported from  the twenty-teens to the eighteen-forties, where she witnesses the life of Calpurnia Cottonwood, the teen daughter of the former owner of Seven Sisters. Poor Calpurnia went missing sometime in the 1850s. Readers, through Carrie’s dreaming eyes, learn how she fell in love with a sailor who happened to be passing through Mobile. We feel for her when she is abused by her drunken father. The dreams tell us of other relationships from the past. How slaves interact with their masters, how slaves interact with each other. 

Carrie Joe, when exploring the manor in modern times, witnesses doors opening and closing. Could this be the activities of a Calpurnia’s ghost?

All in all, a very interesting piece of historical fiction with fine, ghostly elements.

Will I read on?  

Let me show you what I would be up against if I took on this task.

Will you look at this loooooong list?  Oh Good Lord!

SEVEN SISTERS

#1 Seven Sisters

#2 Moonlight Falls on Seven Sisters

#3 Shadows Stir at Seven Sisters

#4 The Stars That Fell

#5 The Stars We Walked Upon

#6 The Sun Rises Over Seven Sisters

#7 Beyond Seven Sisters

#8 Silent Night, Haunted Night

#9 Haunted Halls of Rosegate Manor

#10 Terror at Mossy Oak

#11 Dark Angel of Selma

#12 Silent Chapel

#13 Angel Terrible

#14 Tangled Garden

The Ultimate Seven Sisters Collection

Seven Sisters Collection Vol. 1

Seven Sisters Collection Vol. 2

Seven Sisters Collection Vol. 3

Seven Sisters Collection Vol. 4

Bonus Christmas at Seven Sisters

Bonus The Ghost on the Swing

I think it would be a more worthwhile experience if I just simply read War and Peace or Moby Dick.  As interesting as this story is, the answer is No, I shall not trudge in this field of overgrown weeds. 

The Haunting of Joanna Storm  (Book 1 of 3 in the Morgan’s Rock series)

It’s a house on the rock, overlooking the ocean, somewhere in Florida. Meagan, a writer, has leased the big, old house. There, she will work on her latest book.  It has several floors and a clocktower. Gotta love a house with a clock tower!

Oh, guess what?  It’s haunted.  Meagan sees ghosts in mirrors, hears disembodied shuffling. A mysterious maid shows up at her door one day, claiming to have been hired by Meagan’s agent.  Be wary of mysterious maids in haunted house stories.

Once upon a time, Joanna Storm lived at Morgan’s Rock.  A Hollywood starlet , Joannna lost her parents at a young age. Her father “accidentally” fell off the rock and into the ocean. In her time at Morgan’s Rock, she too heard disembodied shuffling, along with whispers. She had friends, colleagues, enemies and lovers who died tragically.  The strange thing is, no one in modern times seems to know what happened to Joanna Storm. History itself shrugs its shoulders and mutters, “Beats me.”

Meagan, as per Bullock’s formula, will visit Joanna’s timeline.  This usually happens when she encounters an item in the house that once belonged to her, such as a scarab necklace. In fact, when she dons Joanna’s dress, she becomes her! 

This story doesn’t grab me as much as Seven Sisters, but it is a mercifully short trilogy.  So, will I read on?My answer is Maybe

The Belles of Desire, Mississippi 

This story is from The Ghosts of Summerleigh, a four book series.  It takes place in Mississippi. 

Harper Lee, a dying patient at a resident care home, forms an attachment to Jerica, one of the employees of the care home. When Harper passes, she bequeaths her family home to Jerica. Jerica is now the owner of the Summerleigh estate, which includes a grand ol’ house with multiple floors, a large chunk of land, on which a small cottage stands.

There is a catch – Lee has tasked Jerica with uncovering the mystery of what happened to Jeopardy Belle, Jerica’s older sister, who went missing in her early teens.  It is more of a plea rather than a clause within the will. However, Jerica is sensitive to Harper’s wishes and will do what she can to solve the mystery.

Jerica moves in, but stays in the cottage, not the main house. Why?  Too many ghosts are floating about in there (don’t know if they are actually “floating”, my words, not Bullocks, not Jericas)  Who are these ghosts? Turns out, there are layers of ghosts, just like layers on a cake.  Ghosts of Belles, ghosts of family/residents before the Belles. And even Jerica’s own baby boy, who she lost in a car accident, appears (although his is drawn to his mother, not the house)

Like with the other books in this review, there are two timelines. First, there’s the modern day, which includes the whole Jerica storyline. This takes place in the twenty teens.  And oh, how can I forget, Jerica has a love interest.  He helps out at a restaurant in the nearby town and happens to be a handy maintenance man and Jerica could sure use a man like that to help restore the house. I’m sure he satisfies her in other ways too.  Okay – Love interest plot covered.  Let’s go back to the good ol’ days.,

The second timeline takes place in the 1940s. The four Belle sisters (or is it five? I’m forgetting) live with their mother. Father is away a lot. When he is gone, mother is mean, especially to the oldest girl Jeopardy.  Jeopardy rebels by hanging with the wild crowd, smoking, drinking and skinny dipping. One night she goes out and never returns.

How are these timelines connected?  Through Jerica’s dreams, she learns of the past,  much like the Carrie Jo character in the Seven Sisters story.  The difference – Carrie Jo possessed this dream time-travel ability before the events of the story. Jerica has no such superpower. But after Harper’s passing, she dreams of the life of the Belle sisters as seen through Harper’s eyes. I guess Harper’s spirit is passing the info along to her in her dreams.  Perhaps Bullock, knowing she already had a story about a “dream sensitive”, didn’t feel like using a clone character, so she decided Jerica would dream of the past in such a way to miraculously plot itself out like   chapters in a book.

The book’s ending is not as sudden as Bullock’s other novels. This is the best of the five books.  I really appreciate the different character traits of the Belles sisters. The mother, father, Jeopardy’s sort-of boyfriend, all fit into the story well. There was enough depth to convince me this was a real family (of course it’s fictional).

So, will I read on?  There is only three books total, so My answer is Yes.

Wife of the Left Hand

This is book 1 of 4 of the Sugar Hill Series.  For a change, let’s begin with the past. A wealthy son of a plantation owner takes Susana to be his wife. This is a morganatic marriage, also called a left-hand marriage. Simply stated, it’s the pairing of two people of unequal social class. In this case, Susana is from the lower social ranks. It falls on her to earn the privilege of being the wife of one of the most promising young rich men in the area.  But when she is accused of adultery because of a situation that is not her fault, she is ostracized by not only her husband’s family but by her own mother as well. However, the mother will do what is necessary to secure this marriage. In the end, they will use witchcraft to bind Susana to her husband. But this comes at a great cost.

All this takes place in Fontaine, Alabama somewhere in the mid 1800s. Fast forward 150-160 years, we meet Avery Dufresne, a famous  newscaster who is nearly murdered by an unknown assailant. He is still on the loose and she needs to hide. Coincidentally, she is invited to take refuge out of state and live in her family’s mansion. She was unaware that she had an extended family, not to mention a mansion to go along with them.  This is the same mansion that Susana lived in with her husband.  Her great aunt, the family matrone, places a ring on Avery’s finger, which signifies she is to be the new family head with powers to control the finances.

There are plenty of ghosts around the mansion creeping about and waking Avery up at night. Some ghosts disguise themselves in the skin of the living.  She encounters people and has long conversations with them only to find out they have long since passed.

Through  video tapes, her deceased great-great grandmother “interviews”  Avery. Somehow, even before Avery was born, this grandmother knew Avery was destined to be the matrone. These tapes reveal family history; history that even this  great-great grandmother would have been too young to have experienced.  This would be the history of Susana. Could Susana be haunting this mansion?

Did I forget to mention Avery is dating a rock star?  I did. Now it is mentioned. There – the love story is covered.

So, will I read on?  There is much substance to this layered story, and the mystery surrounding this huge and complicated family is intriguing. Why do they need an appointed matrone every generation?  

But it doesn’t grab me as much as The Belles of Desire, Mississippi. That series has a total of three books and this one has four, so my answer is Maybe.

The Ghosts of Kali Oka Road

Last and least, The Ghosts of Kali Oka Road is book 1 of 15 of Golf Coast Paranormal Series.  Unlike the other books in this review, this story takes place mostly in the present day (yadda-yadda 2012? 2013? 2014?). However, there are two events relevant to the current-day story that happened in the past.  Back in the awesome 80s (when little ol’ me was a teen), a jock takes a popular girl from school out to the woods, hoping for some hanky-panky (not an 80’s phrase, oh well). Needless to say, things don’t go his way.  Her refusal was not totally unexpected. What was shocking and downright terrifying was the thing from the sky that flew down and whisked his date away.  It looked like a giant owl. She was never seen again.

Jock dude was the last person to see her so he was the prime suspect in her disappearance . However, there was no evidence to charge him with anything.

About one hundred and forty years before this, a woman escapes from her abusive husband with the help of their male slave.  The slave is also her secret lover.  While on Kali Oka Road, she disappears. I do believe that owl-thing is involved in her vanishing.

Now for the present. Cassidy is blessed/cursed with a paranormal skill – she can paint things that happened many years ago.  She paints events with amazing detail. She captures things which only someone at the scene would know. She paints a depiction of the aforementioned woman fleeing down the road.  When she touches the painting, she goes into a trance and is transported back in time.

Cassidy joins the Gulf Coast Paranormal group to investigate the ghostly phenomena on Kali Road.  They explore the mansion the woman lived in, which is connected to the road via a wooded trail.

Oh yeah, the house is haunted.

Oh yeah 2, Cassidy has a love interest, some dude from the paranormal group.

Most of the pages in this story focus on the young men and women in this paranormal group. I don’t really care for these characters. Seems like this group of people was just mashed together with the hopes that something intriguing would arise from this mashing. Hint: this doesn’t happen.  This whole story, in fact, seems rushed and rough.

If the Seven Sisters series seems long, check out the list for The Gulf Coast Paranormal Series:

GULF COAST PARANORMAL Season One (featuring Midas, Cassidy and Sierra)

#1 The Ghosts of Kali Oka Road

#2 The Ghosts of the Crescent Theater

#3 A Haunting on Bloodgood Row

#4 The Legend of the Ghost Queen

#5 A Haunting at Dixie House

#6 The Ghost Lights of Forrest Field

#7 The Ghost of Gabrielle Bonet

#8 The Ghost of Harrington Farm

#9 The Creature on Crenshaw Road

#10 A Ghostly Ride in Gulfport

#11 The Maelstrom of the Leaf Academy

#12 The Ghosts of Phoenix No 7

#13 The Ghosts of Oakleigh House

#14 The Spirits of Brady Hall

#15 The Gray Lady of Wilmer

Bonus The October People (A Gulf Coast Paranormal Extra)

GULF COAST PARANORMAL TRILOGY

#1 Ghosted

#2 Haunted

#3 Spooked

#4 Dead

#5 Paranormal

Gulf Coast Paranormal Season One Boxed Set

GULF COAST PARANORMAL SEASON TWO (featuring Sierra and Joshua)

#1 The Wayland Manor Haunting

#2 The Beast of Limerick House

#3 The Haunting at Goliath Cave

#4 The Skeleton’s Key

#5 Death Among the Roses

#6 The Spiritus Mirror

Bonus Horror Ever After (A Gulf Coast Paranormal Extra) 

What an insane list!  So, will I read on?  My answer is NO.  Put more crudely, No fucking way!

My final thoughts

M.L. Bullock has plenty of fans. Just check out her Amazon reviews. She has found her niche within the Southern gothic and romance genre.  I prefer authors that don’t restrict themselves to  a certain sub-genre the way Bullock does. By doing so, it can come to a point where the genre itself dictates the story. Bullock’s books come close to this example. They rely heavily on formulas and overserialize the story, falling prey to the sterile ratio  “quantity over quality”.  (That’s my “q-tip” for the day. Ain’t I funny?) That said, the author has a knack for good story telling, character writing, and world building.

I promised to go forward, at least with the The Ghosts of Summerleigh series. This doesn’t mean I’m pushing aside other books on my reading list and diving straight into “Summerleigh”.

Summer is ending, folks, at least here in Chicago.  So give me some time, will ya?

One more thing – the author’s name is Monica Bullock. Such a pretty yet distinguished name! I prefer that to M.L. Bullock. Easier to remember and somehow more authorlike than the pretentious two initials/one last name bit.  That’s only my opinion.  Others will disagree.  Fair enough.  

Get ready, readers, Halloween will be here soon, and I will wanna do cool, spooky things here at this blog!

 

Ghost Summer: Stories – On a Summer Solstice

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“Summertime, summertime, sum-sum- summer time.”

It’s summer time!  As a lover of haunted house literature and other spooky things, there is nothing like a stroll down a wooded trail in the dusk of an evening.   A moon is up there in the sky; its light finding me through the hovering tree branches with leaves of red, yellow, orange and brown.  At the end of the trail is a spooky old house. Jack-o’-lanterns  decorate the porch. Candlelight flickers through their ominous, triangular eyes.

Wait a minute, I’m describing an autumn evening in October, aren’t I?  What happened to this summertime stuff?

Truth be told, summer is my favorite season. But fret not autumnal lovers, fall is a very close second. Just because the summer solstice has staked its claim, it doesn’t mean I have to “give up the ghost”, does it?  Of course not. Haunted houses can be just as welcoming in the warm months (provided there’s air conditioning. Bring out the coolant. Or should I say “Boolant?”)

I know I have written about summer haunted houses somewhere in this blog.  I might not have outlined them all in one place as I did here with winter:

A Season of Snow: Five Winter-Themed Haunted House Novels I Have Reviewed

Or maybe I did?  I’m old now; I forget things and fail at searching efforts ( I can’t even find glasses on my head now a days)

I know I reviewed Michael Mcdowell’s “The Elementals”.  Haunted houses on the beach beside an ocean – can’t get much more summery than that!  Then there’s Michael Fowler’s “Nyctophobia” that takes place in a sun-drenched village in  Spain.  I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Dan Simmons “Summer of Night”.  Preteens, summer break, bike riding, a haunted school. 

Just to make sure the concept of summer ghost stories exists, I typed into Google exactly that – “summer ghosts stories”.  The first entry was a near literal return of a title bearing that exact  phrase – Ghost Summer: Stories by Tananarive Due.  I needed to look no further!  A collection of summer ghosts stories – and by a talented, award winning author to top off the ice cream cone. Ohhhh boy!  I was suddenly hot with sunlit excitement.  What a great find to begin a summer!

Tananarive Due is a “leading voice in Black speculative fiction”  (www.tananarivedue.com/bio-contact) I read one item from her bibliography –” Good House” It was a pleasant and enriching experience so I was more than delighted to take another journey to places of her creation and meet such interesting characters born of her mind.  This time, I found myself in Gracetown, FL meeting a literal African-American family, as the mother is from Ghana.  Three of the stories in the book take place in Gracetown.  The book consists of several stories and the breakdown is as follows: (thanks to the Goodreads profile of Magdalena aka A Bookaholic Swede for this information.)

This review concerns itself only with Ghost Summer.  It is the story I jumped to first since, after all, it does contain  two of the three key words of my search. In addition, all the rest are short stories. Ghost Summer is a novella (or at least a long novelette.)  Like a thick burger right off the patio grill, I needed something hardy to quell my appetite.  I’ll get to the rest. Hopefully the summer of 2025 is destined to be long with plenty of time for reading breaks. Now, I might not review them all. I might not review any of the others. Remember kids, what is the theme of these reviews?  

Answer: Ghosts?  * insert a wrong answer buzz here *

No, silly, it’s haunted houses, which sometimes don’t even feature ghosts.  Ghost Summer does have a haunted house.  The nature of its haunting has to do with the topographical terrain and things pertaining to the land that once was. I’m not yet sure if the other stories feature such charming abodes.

Twelve-year-old Davie and his little sister are vacationing with their father one summer at the house of his parents in Gracetown.  It seems this house and its corresponding land is the only place he can actively engage in his favorite pastime – ghost hunting. Legends say Gracetown is haunted, but only children are able to see ghosts.  These would be summer ghosts.  In this story, it’s not autumnal air or the chill of winter that ushers in the spirits.  It’s those magical summer eves that churn out the hauntings. 

The grandparents think all this is interesting but fictional. With a video camera and voice recorder, he has had fun with this on previous visits, but with limited results.  That changes with this visit, the very visit the Due writes about.  What are the coincidences that little Davie and his little sister participate in ghost hunting sessions that are too productive for their own good and at the very same time the author decides to tell readers a ghost story! 

For most of the story, bro and sis don’t have far to travel when it comes to chasing ghosts.  Ghost Hunting Central Station is right there in the living room! I remember sleepovers as a kid. Often we would camp out in a living room or basement with sleeping bags.  With flashlights in hand and ears attuned to nighttime sounds, it was fun to try and scare ourselves. This story brings me back to those days.  

However, the kids in this story encounter things in their campouts that go way beyond the “hee hee hee’s” elicited by members of my peer group. While we giggled, these kids scream in agony and terror.  All we felt on our floor was soft carpeting. Davie and his sister feel rising water that drenches their legs, all  while the adults can neither feel nor see such water.   Where the house stands now there used to be a swamp. Does this bit of history have something to do with the phantom water?  Hmm.

Other things to look for: a late night phantom dog prowling the hallways,  sniffing loudly underneath bedroom doors, disembodied screams from the surrounding land, and three mysterious boys at a campfire deep within the woods. 

There are other things at play in this story as well. There are tense family dynamics. There is the stuff of history, which always provides clues to a modern day haunting. It’s a history of land disputes between black and white landowners, racism and lasting strife. Of bad blood. Of children that go missing.

Tananarive Due is an expert at merging realistic historical fiction with ghost stories.  I look forward to reading all the stories in this book

Review of Apartment 16

/ danielwalterc / Leave a comment

“1-Adam 12 to  Apartment 16!“  “1-Adam 12 to Apartment 16!”

Are you in the mood for a crossover between a late 60s/early 70s police show and a 2010 horror novel?  You’re saying “no.”  Oh.  Well don’t worry, I’ll lay Adam 12 to rest and just focus on Apartment 16. 

Apartment 16, where were you when I was working on my haunted apartment series? Your presence would have been a most worthy inclusion! 

(Apartment 16: “I was there. You said yourself that my book was published in 2010.  You wrote your article in 2018.  So let me reverse your question – where were you?”

Me: “Shucks. You got me there, Apartment 16!”)

There is something very fishy (not to mention downright eerie) going on at a high-end apartment complex in London, England. It should be no surprise when Apryl is a bit freaked out. After all, she has the new home jitters, having only recently inherited her aunt’s apartment within this complex. She’s not only new to the building and all its idiosyncratic noises, but being an American, she’s brand-spanking new to the city and country as well. We can forgive her for being on edge. But what’s Seth the overnight porter’s excuse? He works there, he shouldn’t be afraid of the clunky lift, the long, tiresome stairways and the shadows that appear on the accompanying walls.  He should just do his job , but at the same time, he should pay no mind to the noises coming from Apartment 16.  It’s an abandoned apartment, so yes, the fact that noises are coming from that location is at best weird. Let weird be weird!  But, no.  You have to get involved, don’t you?  This will be your undoing.

Apryl is morally obligated to get involved. There are mysteries surrounding her late aunt’s mental decline and eventual death.  Some of the clues to the mystery are right there in the apartment complex or in her aunt’s storage room in the basement.

Psst, Apryl!  There are neighbors who might know what’s up.  But these snooty old people don’t want to talk to you.  Same with you, Seth. You know how uptight these rich hermits are. You’ll find ways to piss them off. Or just ways to off them.

Apartment 13 is a story of the occult. Or dream people and the bizarre characters these dreams produce; creepy weirdos that won’t stay confined to dreams. It’s a story of obsession and vengeance from beyond the grave.

This is the second book by Adam Nevill that I have read. The first for me was The Ritual. The reviews for The Ritual fare slightly better than Apartment 13, but I think I like Apartment 13 more.  There is something about Nevill’s writing style that I like and dislike at the same time. He is very detailed.  Sometimes this detail brings me smack dab into the moment of the story. Other times it makes my mind wander.  A “for instance” concerning my wandering mind : A character in Apartment 13 will be approaching a threshold. He or she is thinking things, the description of the hall finds its way into several sentences. Meanwhile the character is still thinking and when finally s/he crosses the threshold, it’s five pages later and I had assumed the character made it into the room several paragraphs back. Things like this seem to happen to me more often in The Ritual, a book about four guys being lost in the woods.  Maybe woodsy environments in general cause more mind wandering than apartment halls or something, I don’t know.

Nevertheless, both are good books. Neville is all about style. His style.  You love it or hate it.  Then there’s me, who likes and/or tolerates his style but loves his overall stories. Except for his endings.  In both books, the story just sort of drifts away at the end, leaving the poor reader behind.  So I am ambivalent about his style, love his stories, hate his endings.  Oh but I love his characters.  Let me repeat –

Ambivalent about style

Love the stories

Love the characters (some withvery unique with interesting peculiarities)

Hate the endings

 

As for bad endings, I’m guessing you hate the way this article is ending. All these clarifications and repeats. Fine, let’s start over –  “1-Adam 12 to  Apartment 16!“  “1-Adam 12 2 Apartment 16!”

 

Review of Wylding Hall – A Novel by Elizabeth Hand

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Would you like to take a “Wyld” guess as to what Wylding Hall, a novel by Elizabeth Hand, is all about?  Or if “Wylding” is pronounced differently, would you want a description of the novel “wyld” upon you?  My “wyld” guess is that you would want the description “wyld” upon you rather than trying to figure out what the book is about all by yourself.  So, I will tell you what it’s about. 

Wylding Hall a story about mystery. It’s a story about intrigue. It’s a story about companionship and loss. It’s a story that asks the question “what really happened during those final days?”  It’s a story about the supernatural and its strange ways of manifesting. It’s at least trying to be a story about these things.  The effort is there and I give it credit for that. Even so, and I hate to admit it, but I was a tad disappointed with this book.  I had higher hopes after reading Elizabeth Hand’s excellent novel, “A Haunting on the Hill”, which is an  authorized sequel to The Haunting of Hill House.  It was on account of this sequel that I learned of Wylding Hall. Published in 2015 it precedes A Haunting on the Hill  by eight years. I guess it’s more ideal if your books get better as you go along, right?   

There is just too much going on in this relatively short novel for any of the concepts to really shine. So if luminosity is the measure of its greatness, I would say this novel is just above dim. , 

This is a fictional account of an English folk band’s recording of an album in a haunted house. Set in the early 70’s It has many of the staples of rock bios. It details the chemistries and friction between different band members  There are bursts of psychedelia here and there.. And there’s the charming yet mystifying star, which in this case is Julian Blake. It seems Hand is taking a hand (see what I did there?)  at creating a character based on the charismatic, mysterious male rockstar prototype. Real life subjects such as Jim Morrison and Jimmy Page come to mind.   The events in the book, pieced together from varying perspectives, also remind me of the movie Eddie and the Cruisers. Just like with that film,  the mystery surrounding the lead singer’s supposed demise is brought to light by the revealed memories of surviving band members.   

Unlike the average rock bio, there are ghosts in this story. Or, maybe not.  Perhaps this isn’t a haunted house at all. If not, certainly it’s a house of mysticism.  Oh what do I mean by that?  I don’t know, man, guess you have to read the book, ya dig?

I love the material, mind you.  I love bios of young, musical groups and standout personalities within such bands. I love reading about the 60s and 70s music era and I love haunted houses. It’s just that, in the end, something didn’t fully click with me.(Was there a partial “click”?  I think so)  And yet it’s not a bad book by any means. My interest was piqued all the way to the final chapter.  However, once I finished the book, the characters were forgotten, and any feelings of attachment to this story that I might have had fled abruptly. 

While the “stuff” of the story takes place in the 1970s, the narrative takes place in the present time.. The book consists of  fictional interviews of people once associated with the former folk band Windhollow Faire,  including the surviving band members themselves. One former member committed suicide. Or so it’s believed. The other,  Julian Blake, simply disappeared.

During his time with Windhollow Faire  Blake is enigmatic, soft spoken, contemplative, and perhaps sexy in his unique ways. He dabbles in the occult. 

As you might guess, there is plenty of mystery surrounding the demise of Windhollow Faire, which comes to a head on the final days of recording what would end up being their final album.  The album was recorded at Wylding Hall, which is the haunted house of the story.  The band shacked up together for one fateful summer in this house to prepare for the recording. The house and its external surroundings are also the subject of  eerie legends amongst the locals. Ghost stories if you will.

During those days, weeks, and eventually months, the band, besides working out creative musical arrangements, indulge in sex, drugs, and what I will call spiritualism.  During the final recording sessions,  Julian Blake mysteriously vanishes.  He had been seeing a nomadic hippie girl that suddenly appeared in his life. Her appearance was just as mysterious as his disappearance. Perhaps Blake was witched away?

The blending of  an epistolary account of a former folk band with ghostly folklore sounds like an intriguing mixture.  It could be. It should be. But the final result just didn’t intrigue me all that much. Reading the novel was a disjointing experience,  but not in a way that reflects the uncanniness of an eerie haunted house, which for me is a welcoming sense of disconnectivity. Genre blending is great if done correctly. But with Wylding Hall, there lacks a much needed unifying tone to ease together the disparate muses into one unique story. Moreover, too much of my mental energy was devoted to keeping up with all the characters and their varying perspectives, so much so that I wasn’t able to effectively absorb the ghostly elements of the story.  The truth is there weren’t a whole lot of scary moments. Oh there were some, here and there, but several of the haunted house story arcs seemed to have hit a brick wall. 

On another level, I was annoyed at how often  the interviewees incessantly compared modern modes of communication and technology with those of the past.  They would say something like “Remember, back then, it would take longer to contact our manager since there were no cell phones” or “Recording an album in those days was nothing like it is today”.  We get it. The  repetition of these observations was somewhat insulting to me as a reader As readers,  we don’t need to be reminded of the time-lapse variances due to the limitations of technology over and over again, nor the nitty-gritties of certain efforts that would eventually be replaced by the clicks of a few buttons. 

Overall, the book has its faults but it does have the elements of an interesting story. It wants to grab the reader’s attention, though at times it struggles with this. There is something genuinely good about this book  and yet I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is.  All my criticisms might just be an issue of pet peeves on my part that won’t necessarily trouble another reader.  So,  I don’t know, give it a try.  Read it and see for yourself 

Never Mind Those Enchiladas, Let’s Get Cooking With “Mexican Gothic”!

/ danielwalterc / Leave a comment

Deconstructing  a Gothic Stew

What kind of book do I want to write? Let me see…  

First, I want it to be scary and otherworldly.  It should take place in a big house where a rather  strange family resides. The family should be multigenerational and include in laws and other extended family members. This is a rich family, but secretive, especially on matters concerning their wealth and how it was accumulated. There are dark secrets spanning generations. 

This house should hover on a “high place” that looks down on the rural village below.  Along will come a city person, an outsider, skilled in the social graces of chic environments but totally unfamiliar with the rustic ways of country people. Certainly, this person will clash with the family up on the hill, who are strange even for rural folks.  Alas, this person will have to live with them, try to understand them and uncover unimaginable secrets. Of course, there will be some romance in all this

This sounds like a gothic novel.  Therefore, it is!

But most gothic novels take place in the UK with their passed-down castles and estates , or in the US in large mansions in the northeastern states, or on southern plantations. I don’t want that.  I am going to put my big house….hmmm….where should I build such a….I got it! In Mexico! In the 1950s Mexico.  The house will be called High Place.

Gothic Novel in Mexico =  Mexican Gothic!  That’s what I will call my book – Mexican Gothic 

************  

Yeah, so,  I am sure the above scenario was not how Silvia Moreno Garcia approached the construction of her novel.  I hope I didn’t sound too glib describing this fictional approach to fiction writing. Mexican Gothic is , afterall, a good book, despite some flaws.  It  does come off as too self-consciously gothic at times, and there are very few references to any historical/cultural events or mores. At least not in a real sense; history that takes place outside the novel.  This inclusion would have strengthened her story very much and helped readers settle into the two major dimensions of setting: time and place.

Yet, when reading the novel, I did feel as if I had traveled across both time and place to end up in Somewhere, Mexico.  If I felt that way, then certainly Silvia succeeds at many levels.

Plot In Brief

In the novel, Naomi, a chic urban young woman,  is sent to the country to live with her cousin Catalina, who in turn lives in her in-laws’ mansion “High Place”.  She has been sick and had written a letter to Naomi’s father, begging to be rescued from the house. So Daddy sends daughter Naomi to investigate the situation. When Naomi arrives, she discovers Catalina has no recollection of writing such a letter.  She is, however, quite sick, and spends most of her time confined to the bedroom.

She is not mentally well, the in-laws suggest, including Catalina’s husband Virgil, who turns out to be a real cad. The matriarch (dog gone it, I can’t remember her name) is a no nonsense, rules-must-be-followed, meanie. This includes arcane rules, such as Catalina is not to be seen by any doctor besides the one that has been treating the Doyle Family (by the way, that’s the family name of these High-Place dwellers) for years. The patriarch is the very, very old Howard Doyle (See, right there I said he was a “Doyle” That proves this is the Doyle family), who is bedridden and is rarely seen by the family except on certain occasions.  What are these occasions? You don’t want to know.

There is the nice boy, the sweet one of the family. Francis is Virgil’s brother. He is everything his brother is not.  Sadly, he is too docile and subservient to stand up to the rest of the family, who are constantly bullying him.  He has a thing for Naomi but is intimidated by her sophisticated ways.

There’s something odd about the house. Once people have lived there for a certain length of time, they cannot leave. Well they can, but once they do, once they travel a certain distance away from the house (in the next town, etc.), they find themselves dead. Happens all the time, for as long as the house has held members of the Doyle family and their significant others.  Many generations have passed through the house.  On the other hand, those that have stay, like the good ole’, evil Howard Doyle, live an unnaturally long life.

The Doyles own a lot of land and have grown rich from mining.  Over the years they hired local Mexicans to do the deadly dangerous work involved in the mining while the Doyle family kept the riches. In past times, some of the workers were actually slaves.

 Did I mention that the Doyles aren’t Mexican at all?  They are English. Howard Doyle is very into eugenics and preventing certain genetic traits from surviving.

High Place is haunted. Or is it? Terrible dreams haunt Naomi during her stay. Also, she succumbs to sleepwalking, something she has never done before. Her sleepwalking ventures after hours lead her into some very uncompromising positions. The House is trying to take control of Naomi.  What’s going on?

What’s Going On – Spoilers ahead

Fungus is going on. It exists in the mines as well as the house.  It has special properties. It kills many that are exposed to it. Alas, all those poor workers. But apparently The Doyles have developed a symbiotic relationship with it.  The fungus gives them unnaturally long life.  But once the people who have grown depended on it stray too far from its magical powers, they forfeit their lifeforce and die. 

The fungus grows under the house. It is inside every crack on the walls or the floors. It transmits messages through dreams. It can possess a person.

I don’t always venture into spoiler territory, but when I do it’s for a reason.  Remember, the purpose of this blog is not just to review books and movies, it’s also to analyze themes found in haunted house films and literature.  Can’t analyze themes without encountering a spoiler or two or three or four.

If you’ve read certain posts here at this blog, you’ll know I’m a fan of haunted houses that possess a special sort of uniqueness which causes the haunting in the first place. Something beyond “there’s a ghost in the house. Therefore, the house is haunted”.  Some examples include The Shining, a hotel that possesses psychic powers only project certain gruesome scenes from its sordid past upon the paranormal sensitives.  Or the apartment building in the Sentinel books, which serves as gates to Hell and therefore must be guarded at all times. Or how about those houses (there are many in several stories) that act as receptors to the madness unleashed upon them by unstable occupants. The houses are only giving back what they have received.

In Mexican Gothic, it’s the fungus that is the source of the haunting. Some reviewers aren’t satisfied with this  Goodreads reviewer Elle has this to say:

It’s the fungus. The Doyle family is tied to the house because they breathe in the black mold and ingest funky mushrooms in order to kinda become immortal. And they’re all connected through it and they can never escape from the house and the oldest patriarch is able to control his family’s actions because he is King of the Fungus.

Note the sarcasm in Elle’s “King of the Fungus”. Reading on, she opines that the big reveal of the fungus was a big let down. However Goodreads reviewer chai (thelibrairie on tiktok!)  offers a different take on the fungus:

…it’s a place consumed by a wrongness so old and so pervasive that it never truly leaves such places. It is embedded in the mold-covered wallpaper, wedged into the supports of the house, needled into every woundlike crevice, humming darkly inside the walls and in the places no one ever ventures.

This wrongness, the novel is careful to illustrate, is as deep-running as roots, spreading through generations like a species of fungus: the result of an endless, unbroken history of brown dreams wrecked and swallowed and devoured for the sake of white people’s wellness, of brown bodies poked and prodded for the innumerable ways in which they could be serviceably consumed, a relentless and hideous abrasion of dignity that is not unfamiliar to many people of color everywhere.

I had not thought of this. Chai’s insight has made me appreciate the book more. The fungus is deep-seated racism. People have lived long healthy lives on the backs of other.She describes it as it relates to both the book and racism better than I can. I love when a haunted house is a symbol for a deeper, stronger evil.

SUMMARY

When an author writes a haunted house story and does so by compiling a list of tropes, it can go one of two ways.  It can produce an entertaining book because it gives the reader what s/he expects, while leaving plenty of room for surprise and invention.  Or, it can get so bogged down with the familiar that the book is a bore. 

Along comes Silvia Moreno Garcia with her book that defies my binary analysis. Mexican Gothic has invention and intelligent symbolism (the fungus, thanks Chai), it wasn’t bogged down to the familiar.  Still, here I go with my phrase “Self-consciously gothic” again.  I can’t explain why I feel that way when other authors staple the staples of Gothic literature into their pages and I complain not.  In the end, I like this book much more than I dislike it, so maybe that point is moot.  If I was a giver of stars, it would be four out of five. More realistically 3.9 stars out of 5) Since I’m not a star kind of guy, you don’t have to worry about me slicing up a star into decimals. No supernovas were conducted at the time of this writing. 

A Review of Charnel House

/ danielwalterc / 1 Comment

Hmm…..

Oh shit, where’s my wallet?  Oh wait, I got it.  Holy Crap, I can’t find my phone!  Nevermind, it’s over there.  Now where the hell are my friggin’ glasses?  Well how about that, they are on my head. 

I must be missing something, though. Why else am I unable to appreciate Charnel House by Graham Masterton?

Perhaps I’m not appreciative of pulp fiction (aside from The Quentin Tarantino film).  Oh but wait, I like H.P. Lovecraft and he’s a pulpy kind of dude. Hmm…

Conceivably, I enslaved myself to my own expectations.  Sure! I was expecting to absorb some great haunted house literature and instead I found myself inside a story concerned more broadly with evil demons and native folklore.  Yet, I fell in love with many stories that ignored my expectations and gave me not a haunted house but a ghost story in general.

I got it!  I’m not giving this author a chance. That’s it.  I chose the wrong book, that’s all. But this book received an Edgar Award and many people love it.  Furthermore, I am trying but I am unable to garnish enough interest to purchase any more of his  books.  I’ll show you my efforts…Here I go…I am TRYINGGGGGGG!!!  PUSH out some interest! GGGGRUNT!!!!  Alas. Nothing. Inspiration constipation.

I have to face it.  I don’t like Charnel House and I probably won’t like any other books by Graham Masterson

Plot in brief (Heh-Heh, he writes in his underwear)

The book  starts off well enough. A man goes downtown to the offices of blah-blah ( ah, I don’t remember. Some department within the city government) to complain that his house is breathing.  How cool is that shit for a lover of haunted house stories! Alas, it all goes downhill from here.

The guy at the office that receives the complaint takes on the role as the protagonist.  He turns into some kind of wannabe detective and goes on to investigate the situation. He’s smug, he’s sexist; he’s irritating if you ask me. He partners with a native American spiritual Guru, who embodies every stereotypical notion of what a trite person might consider for such a character. Throw in some generic female characters and an awkward romance as a side plot for the hell of it. And then, discover the source of the mysterious breathing. It’s an ancient demon from native folklore named Coyote.  Only Coyote ain’t bogged down in myths. He’s real.  Really, a showdown with the Demon on the Golden Gate Bridge?  

Ho-Hum

At DMRBooks.com, the blogger has this to say about Masterton:

“Masterton has been described as “cheesy” and “pulpish”. He certainly doesn’t write ‘literary horror’. You know what? I don’t care. Here is why.”

I agree.  It is cheesy (VERY cheesy), and it certainly isn’t literary horror.  He doesn’t care, but I do, and these are the reasons I don’t like the book.  What I don’t care about are  the reasons the author doesn’t care.  I don’t care enough to read his reasons for not being bothered by the cheese and the pulp (sounds like some cheddar, OJ dink)   You can if you wish. Here’s the link

I get it though. His style is simple and he’s a master of quick-reading thrills (I guess), and for this people love Graham Masterton.  I don’t. Sorry.   . 

A Review of  “A Haunting on the Hill” – Sequel to “The Haunting of Hill House”

/ danielwalterc / 1 Comment

 

Let’s step back for a moment to recall our first experience reading Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. (If you haven’t read this yet, you will be sooo lost reading this article. Also, there are huge spoilers. So if you haven’t read it yet and you want to, stop being lost and get lost!) . Not only were we impressed with the style, the flow, and  the hidden intricacies within the narrative, but we were delightfully creeped out.  It’s an awesome book, isn’t it? 

Time for some comparison. Let’s imagine a different kind of scare, one that has the same power of fright but leaves one not “delightfully creeped out” but “sickeningly agitated.”  What kind of scare might this be? How about the mere idea to have a sequel to The Haunting of Hill House?  

I remember a CTA bus advertisement promoting the city of Chicago. It was a quote from Chicago film critic Roger Ebert that read, “Living somewhere else makes as much sense as a sequel to Citizen Kane”.  In other words, there are some works of art, whether they are sculptures, books, films, or compositions that are complete in their greatness. To add, subtract, or alter would only weaken the original.

What kind of pitfalls might there be trying to create a sequel to The Haunting of Hill House? First of all, Shirley Jackson passed away some time ago, so some other author would have to step in and fill the role of the late author. This is no easy task as Shirley is a tough act to follow. Second, we consumers of horror already suffered through film remakes of the original 1963 film The Haunting which was based on the book. If 1999’s The Haunting  taught us one thing, it’s  “don’t mess with the classics”

On the other hand, Michael Flannagan’s Netflix series  That Haunting of Hill House 2018  is pretty damn good. It’s a reimagining, not a retelling of Jackson’s story. As such, it is allowed certain liberties regarding plot and character changes.  So long as the tone and mystery of the original are not sacrificed, these changes are welcome.  And wouldn’t you know it, the changes made by Flannagan are not detrimental to the quality of the original.. If anything, they enhance Hill House’s overall eerie impression

Along comes Elizabeth’s Hands novel, A Haunting on the Hill . It is marketed as a sequel to The Haunting of Hill House.  Pretty damn gutsy of you, Elizabeth, to embark upon such a creation. Before writing the book, did you realize how many ways such an endeavor can easily go south?

Were you aware of the potential criticism if your work could not compare to Jackson?  Scathing criticism, mind you; the yuckiest raspberry in a basket filled with the most sour pickings of the crop.   Were you prepared to stand up for yourself against accusations of blasphemy?

Luckily for Elizabeth Hand, she writes a mighty fine story with A Haunting on the Hill. Seriously, it’s the best haunted house book I’ve read in a long time. Certainly it’s at the top of its genre when compared to other haunted house books written this century. Hand took a chance and it paid off. I have to “hand” it to Hand!

Why is Hand successful in her efforts?  I’ll offer an opinion on that. She doesn’t try to explain the mystique of Hill House. In no way does she try to “correct” the original story.  As far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t retcon. While she doesn’t duplicate Jackson’s engrossing writing style, that’s okay, and moreover it would be sinful to try.  Hand effectively pens in her own style but stays true to tone and mystery upon which Jackson “built” Hill House. Hand explores her own creative ideas and does not rehash the same plot. She gives just enough homage to the original story so readers know they are in familiar territory while at the same time uncovers areas previously unexplored.

Similar to the original story (yet not duplicating it), four people set out to stay at Hill House for a significant length of time.  The reasons for their stay are different from the reasons described in the original. The four from Jackson’s story do so in order to observe and document supernatural phenomena.  The quartet in Hand’s novel wish to hole up in the house to rehearse for a play. 

Holly Sherwin, the leader of the group and  playwright of  Witching Night , stumbles upon Hill House accidentally and is drawn to it. (Or is it Hill House that has found her?). She is attracted to its creepy vibe and decides Hill House would be a most inspiring place to rehearse her play, not yet realizing the haunted history of the mansion.  She meets Ainsley Rowan, who is in charge of subletting the mansion. Ainsley warns her that no one ever stays long at Hill House and tells her about rumors of its dark history, including the story of a woman who killed herself by crashing into a tree on the road that leads to the house. (Of course, this is a reference to Eleanor Vance in the original novel. How about that?  Eleanor, once a receiver of tales of the house’s dark past has now become part of its legend!) 

It’s all set. They move in for a one month stay. Will they make it to the end? 

The “they” includes:

  • Nisa, Holly’s girlfriend/partner, the songstress for the play.
  • Stevie, The sound engineer and voice actor
  • Amanda Greer, semi-retired B movie actress
  • And of course, Holly herself 

There are four of what I will call “outsiders”.  They are connected to the house in various ways but aren’t staying there. Certainly not after dark. They wouldn’t dare. These include:

  • Ainsley Rowan (I know; I mentioned her already)
  • Tru and Melissa, husband and wife, the cook and the cleaning lady
  • A Mysterious old woman who lives in a nearby trailer 

Tru and Melissa have a similar arrangement with the house guests as the Dudley’s had with the guests from Jackson’s novel. They do their best to provide the comforts of home for the guests, but in the end there is only so much they can do for the potentially doomed occupants. They are less hostile than the Dudleys (well…Tru is kind of a prick, come to think about it.  And the old woman in the trailer is such a witch! ((literally? Hmmm, could be!)) though they certainly have their misgivings about this whole arrangement.  These four; though I have labeled them “outsiders,”  when it comes to the goings on of Hill House, they are, to some extent, in the know. But they aren’t telling. In that way, they are truly insiders.

So, what happens to the four guests? Hill House works on all of them, that’s what. In certain places in the house, Nisa discovers she can sing like she never before. Her voice is enchanted. At a rehearsal reading, Stevie is ravishing yet startling and his acting seems all too real.  Little by little, the four clash with each other. They become mistrustful, sometimes solitary. All are scared yet they are united in their mad desire to stay at Hill House. Will this desire be their undoing? 

Ghosts of the Past /Phantoms of the Future

I would like to dedicate this section to a sentence from several paragraphs ago.  Here be the sentence:

She gives just enough homage to the original story so readers know they are in familiar territory while at the same time uncovers areas previously unexplored.

Examples are needed, don’t you think?  I’ve got it covered. First, we’ll explore the tropes that are present in both Jackson’s and Hand’s novels, albeit within different circumstances. Then, we’ll dive into certain “hauntifying” situations that are unique to Hand’s sequel novel. (“hauntifying;” I made that word up. I think it’s quite swell!).

Let’s do this!

(PSST. Some will say these next sections contain minor spoilers. I might not think or say that, but some might)

Revisiting the classical hauntings of Hill House in new contexts 

It’s the same Hill House, tucked away among the hills somewhere outside the town of Hillsdale. It has the same winding road that links the house and the gate.

What else is the same?

The spiral stairway in the library 

Clankety clank shakes this flimsy, metal staircase that leads to the top of the tower/library in Jackson’s novel.. It was not safe for Eleanor to climb but she did so anyway, putting herself and her rescuer Luke in danger, resulting in her banishment from Hill House.  Why is this ladder so alluring? The library is off limits to the guests in Hand’s book, yet one makes her way to this stairway, and the result is…..wait a minute!  Aha! Now I see. This relates to the end of the book when she….(she who?  And what does she do? Never mind. I’ve written too much already)

Blood

Seemingly from nowhere, here comes the blood.  Blood mysteriously soaks Theodora’s clothes in Jackson’s novel.  In Hand’s novel, what at first seems like wine spilled from the tipsy Amanda’s glass somehow turns to what could only be blood. It ruins an antique table cloth.

Rabbits

In Jackson’s original novel, these hares, to be more precise, make brief appearances here and there.  Eleanor and Theodora see such a creature outside the house.  If I’m not mistaken, they try to chase it but it disappears.  Luke and  Dr Montague spot one in the house and they follow it and it leads them outside.

In A Haunting on the Hill,  hares are more prominent.  They stand on their hind legs and seem to sneer at trespassers. They are certainly more aggressive.  And they’re not above dropping into the house via the fireplace (well in one sense, they are above if they get in through the roof!) . Fire itself is no obstacle as one of these creatures passes through the blaze, carrying the flames on its soon to be charred, furry, body, only to escape back to the outdoors.

The nursery

As with Jackson’s novel, the nursery room that Hand writes about is quite the enigma.  In both books it is literally chilling; those entering encounter a discomforting cold spot when crossing the threshold. Two grinning decorative heads adorn the doorway and they forever look at the room’s occupants whether they are coming or going or, worse, remaining in the room. They appear to be mocking these poor folks.

Nighttime noises

Perhaps the most memorable disturbance from Jackson’s novel is the wall-pounding noise. Okay, okay –  maybe this is mostly remembered from the film. But it happens in the novel as well, along with the soft whispers. Things that go pound, and things that whisper softly in the night.

In Hand’s novel, the pounding is absent, but someone hears whispers in the dark of night when trying to sleep. I think it’s good that Hand holds back on the pounding. She leaves this Hill House signature trait to Jackson so she can identify and imagine other haunting manifestations

What a great way to segue into Hand’s unique contributions to Hill House!

Discovering new hauntings of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House is sometimes described as a summer horror novel.  The events in the story take place in the summer as the characters walk the grounds of the house, admiring the brooks and dreaming of picnics.  This all happens in the 1950s.

The events in A Haunting on the Hill take place nearly seventy years later. This would be in our wonderful modern age of texting and vape pens. It is not summer. What goes down in Hand’s novel does so in the cold, dark winter. 

What else is new?

 

Images within the woodwork  

Nothing to see here. Just your average knolls, knots and swirls ingrained into the wall design. Or are they something more? Do they form images? Do these images reveal scenes of things to come?

Hidden tunnel  

It’s accessible only by crawling. There are strange lights and its end. 

Miscellaneous 

A stray billiard ball rolling across the floor, (there is a billiard room. That’s new…I think) .  Creepy shadows (are they silhouettes?)  are peering in windows. Oh what has the blizzard brought to Hill House?

Conclusion 

While writing this piece, I stumbled upon other books by Elizabeth Hand. Wylding Hall for instance. This caught my eye because the premise seems similar to A Haunting on the Hill: A group of young musicians take up residence in a mansion to rehearse their music.  Actors vs Musicians expressing themselves artistically while living together in a haunted house. Hmm, are Hand’s stories formulaic? 

Sometimes in writing, formulas are good, sometimes not.  Guess it depends on how much the formula dictates the story.  Too strict of an adherence to a reusable,  preconceived plot kills the story. 

I’ll tell ya what!  I’ll read Wylding Hall and report back to you.  Or, you can read and see for yourself: Wylding Hall

Or, skip it for now.  But don’t skip A Haunting on the Hill.  Trust me, it’s good. It’s true to the spirit of Shirley Jackson while allowing for Elizabeth Hand’s creativity to shine.

 

S is for Spite House

/ danielwalterc / Leave a comment

TheSpiteHouseSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!  

It’s Slade! It’s Spite! Slade or Spite, Spite or Slade.  Which house is it?

Last review was Slade House.  This review is all about The Spite House. 

Who knew there was such a thing as a spite house?  Let me guess, everyone but me, probably. Maybe I was home sick from school watching Green Acres when this lesson was taught, I don’t know.  

So, what is it? A one sentence description from wikipedia will do nicely – “A spite house is a building constructed or substantially modified to irritate neighbors or any party with land stakes”.

Author Johnny Compton writes about such a house. Built a long time ago to spite the operators of an orphanage, it stands clumsily on a cliff and towers over the site of the residential complex. Believing that the operators of the orphanage cheated him out of his land, the builder created this monstrosity to obstruct their view and intimidate them. Several stories tall, crooked in design, it turns out that this house is even more ugly on the inside. It is haunted and in a very malicious way.  

The story begins with a family on the run. We don’t know why Eric Ross has taken his two young daughters on a fugitive’s journey across the states. This mystery persists throughout most of the book, egging the readers to continue on, page by page. We get to know his daughters well. One is a teenager. She is quite protective of her younger sister, as is the father.  Both girls are quite mature for their age. They have to be.

To remain anonymous, Eric can only work jobs that are off the books. Here’s one for him – live inside a haunted house. (Pssst! This would be The Spite House. Betcha didn’t see that coming, ooooooo!). Document any paranormal activity. Report findings to the current owner, a mysterious old lady that seems over obsessed with tracking her vital signs. 

There’s a lot more going on in the story as well. Can’t mention everything now, can I? However, since this blog is not only about reviewing but analyzing as well, I’m going to bring up a couple of things that, perhaps, tread slightly into spoiler territory.  Please note, I said “slightly”; it’s not like I’m going to reveal Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father or anything like that. 

If you’ve read more than a few of my haunted house articles (can you give me a few at least? One? 😀 ), you’ll know that I love haunted houses that have special characteristics. By the broadest definition, throw a few ghosts into a house and..ta da…there you have it – a haunted house.  Those houses are cute and all, but I love me some houses with unique supernatural features.  The houses that feed off of people’s psychic energies, like “Hill House” or “The Overlook Hotel, from, respectively, The Haunting of Hill House and The Shining. Or the house that simply feeds on whatever boring ol’ natural energy you have, such as the house in Burnt Offerings.  How about those houses with portals to arcane worlds?  H.P Lovecraft has “built” a couple of these places. Or the house that is a phantom itself and only appears once every nine years. Hey, this was Slade House from the last review! Oh dear, I can go on. A house that represents and/or reflects the psychological struggles of the occupants, like in The Grip of It. Or a house that reflects social change and the trauma caused by such change – such as The House Next Door.

Wanna know what Spite House does? Well I’ll tell ya. It has the ability to keep a part of an occupant behind.

 Curious Reader of this blog: you mean like an eyelash, a fingernail clipping? You’re not talking about a whole finger or anything like that, are you?). 

Me: I’m talking about a part of their soul! Yes kids, I ain’t lying. 

Curious Reader of this blog: How does that work, exactly?  

Me: You’ll have to read the book for the details. But I’ll just say this, one of the themes of this book is blurred boundaries between the living and the dead. I’m not talking just about ghosts. I’m talking about…ah nevermind, just read the book. 

Another thing I like is when haunted house stories feature a certain uncanniness about a  physical feature within that house.  I have labeled these the “agents of the scare” in past articles. The child’s bedroom closet in the movie Poltergeist is an example of this. In the book The Little Stranger there is the tube, a 19th century tube communication device to call out to other rooms on other levels of the house.  In The Spite House, there is a bridge of sorts connecting two different structures. Scary things happen on this bridge. There might be ghosts there…or worse!

All in all, this is a good book. However, it comes to completion with several loose ends. I don’t know if Author Compton intends to write a sequel or not. As is, I was left with a mental state of “huh?” It doesn’t exactly end in a way that hints at a follow-up either. Perhaps it’s intended for readers to remain mystified over such enigmatic concepts as life and death and any gray areas in between. Humanity has been stumped by such things ever since it first spawned, and alas, I guess we must continue on with our confusion.

S is for Slade House

/ danielwalterc / Leave a comment

SladeHouseThe next two haunted house book reviews are brought to you by the letter S.  Ya see, the names of the houses in each of these two books begins with the letter “s”.  Is it Sammy and Sarah?  Sid and Susie?   Sucky and Spoogy?

Nah, nothing like that.  

More like Slade and Spite! 

Kind of has a “tit for tat” sing-songy element to it, don’t ya think?

“Spite and Slade or Slade and Spite. 

A Slade of Spite to Spite the Slade!”

Or, more appropriately –  Slade House and The Spite House

Based on the name only, I confused these two books. I heard about them around the same time. I’d be like, “What was the name of that “S” Haunted House book I was interested in reading?” And I’d search for it and come up with the other.  I’d see the synopsis is like this, which is cool and all, but I thought it was supposed to be about that?”  

 “That and This and This and That!” 

“This for that or That is this”

Turns out, I ended up reading both Slade House and The Spite House.. And here I go, trying to remember what I liked about them.  One should always review a book shortly after reading it.  As I mentioned in my last review, I haven’t been doing this. Shame on me.

Let’s begin with Slade House by David Mitchell. Amazon is telling me I purchased this item on Dec 22, 2022.  What a way to kick off the Christmas holidays! 

Slade House appears only to a few. Pray you’re not one of them. Its entrance is off the beaten path. Behind a pub and down an alley. I remember something about a gate that is locked. Unless it isn’t. Or unless someone has a key. The point is, it’s sometimes permeable. People do go through the gate. Into the house. Into a twisted reality from which few can escape.

Every nine years, the house welcomes guests. There are at least three different stories, maybe more. Different characters from varying time periods. There is a different premise to each story. But the end results are almost always the same. This fooled me. Every. Single. Time.  What is that expression..fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?  I’ve shamed myself already in this article by admitting to not writing these reviews in a timely manner, so if I can be fooled twice (more than twice, actually) then I guess I can be shamed twice.

In these excursions into Slade House, unreality always sets in for that one person.  Things become twisted. Slowly. Then all of a sudden. 

As I delved into the meat and guts of each account. I related to the characters and I felt as if I too was exploring Slade House with them. Oh, but certain conditions are different from the previous story I just read, so maybe this time,I thought,  things would be different for the characters I’m currently invested in.  This time it’s romantic; a cozy situation. Two lonely people have found each other. It’s still a horror novel, a kind of ghost story, so..okay, allow in a ghost or two, a few little simple scares, that’s enough.  Nope! Not enough. Same twisted fate.  Another time it’s a festive party. Lots of people to bare witness to anything strange, not just one or two people facing some private, mind-fuck of a reality-warp. Nope!  The person you thought would make it is toast!

These “trips” into Slade House are just that – trips. They seem like acid trips is what I’m getting at. But Slade House doesn’t need to drug its inhabitants in order to screw with their minds.  It is very capable of distorting one’s sense of reality without psychoactive substances. The story about the party, however, does involve laced brownies and things like that. Please don’t tell me that the character I’m rooting for is actually tripping while at the same time experiencing a supernatural trip!  That would be toooo much. And yet…it might have happened. Oh dear!

Slade House is a freaky, trippy book, that’s for sure. If you like stuff like that, this book is for you.

Review of How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

/ danielwalterc / Leave a comment

HowToSellA Haunted house

Welcome to the most modern book review on this list to date.  Published in January 2023, I pre-ordered this book many months before it was available. Silly me, I thought I could just click and read. “No Mr Cheely”, the Amazon Goddesses were telling me, “The hour has not yet come.”

I finished it sometime in March I believe. Since I had to wait to read it, then certainly it’s understandable that I waited before I wrote about it. Likewise, surely it’s excusable that I am making my readers wait for this review.  (yeah yeah, “Don’t call me Shirley, I get it.)

For the several months I waited, I wondered about this book.  I had seen the advertisements. I read the hype. But I don’t seem to recall receiving any clues as to just what in the heck this book was all about.

When confronted with a title like “How to Sell a Haunted House,” the human brain conjures several guesses as to the subject.. At least mine did. I think it’s a human brain that I have lodged somewhere in my cranium. At least I hope so anyway.  Here are a couple of speculations that ugly looking thing in my head had created. 

A book like this could be intended as a serious instructional manual. By this I mean it might be a non-fictional, real estate advice book targeting sellers that just aren’t able to fully cleanse their house before going on the market. Old fashioned elbow grease might be just the thing to scrub the walls, but no amount of work or chemical solution is able to rid the house of the ghostly remains of dear Aunt Ella and Uncle Seymour. Therefore, this book was written to teach readers how to list a haunted house, what to reveal to prospective customers and what not to disclose. It answers that aged-old question, “Are there any legal issues when selling a haunted house?”

Or, this book is a comedic fictional misadventure of some hopeful couple trying to sell while leaving their dear old bat of a mother-in-law behind. “Mrs. Realtor, if you are having an open house on the last Saturday of the month, please oh please do not show prospective buyers the wine cellar!  Dear old mom would get her social security check around that time, the amount was never enough, and she would drink in despair in the cellar. Being dead hasn’t stopped this ritual. She’ll throw empty bottles at anyone who enters.”  Or, “Don’t show them the upstairs bathroom. Mom is a prankster and she likes to jump up out of the toilet and say “Boo!”

As it turns out, Hendrix’s book does not resemble the two scenarios I presented to you. Nor is it about several other half-concocted synopses I had floating around in my head. It’s about creepy dolls that watch the living. It’s about sinister puppets that possess the living. It’s about taxidermied squirrels that break free from their frozen states to join the living.It’s also about imaginary creatures escaping from the prison of someone’s imagination and breaking into reality.

I didn’t see any of this coming. Well, actually I did. Not long before the publishing date, more of the plot was revealed and dolls were mentioned.  But in the beginning, I wouldn’t have guessed. I knew nothing. NOTHING!

I won’t give too much away about the plot. An estranged brother and sister are forced to reunite after the sudden, tragic death of their parents. They must put aside past differences to settle important, financial matters. To sell their parents house or not to sell, that is the question. This dilemma proves challenging as brother and sister can’t seem to see eye-to-eye on anything. It doesn’t help matters any that certain pieces of their mother’s doll and puppet collection start coming to life to screw with the living. 

Possessed dolls and puppets. That’s all scary and freaky and stuff, but can such abnormal antics meet the criteria for what makes up a haunted house story. I mean, the movie Child’s Play features a doll named “Chuckie” that likes to kill people. He does so, I believe, in a house. Or was it an apartment?  Who cares, the point is this question: “s Child’s Play a haunted house movie? No it is not. Neither would be the third story in Karen Black’s The Trilogy of Terror, a made for TV movie where an African fetish doll chases poor Karen Black around her apartment while trying to knife her to death.

Ahh, but How to Sell a Haunted House can be considered a haunted house novel. First of all, the author says it is in the title of his book. That helps the cause. How can the author be wrong?

Second, in true gothic fashion, there are family secrets and an unveiling mystery to lead the reader along. Third, there are rooms, an attic and garage, described in detail. Something is hidden in the yard. These places are destined to host disturbing situations. Finally, for those bent on the need for a haunted house story to have a ghost, this book accommodates, but maybe not in a way the reader expects. 


How to Sell a Haunted House is an intriguing book with several quirky characters to add flavor to the story. Kudos to author Gary Hendrix!  This is the second time I’m reviewing a book by this author. The other review was about his book Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ‘70s and ‘80s Horror Fiction. 

I found him on Facebook and sent a friend request. But he must have been so overwhelmed at receiving such a request from me, that he is still stewing over it, fearful of making this connection. He needs time to emotionally prepare for this milestone.  I understand, Mr. Hendrix.  Take your time and I’ll continue to see you in the books!