R.I.P. Catch-Up (Part III): Donoghue, Dunmore, Hahn, Thummler
I’m behind on all the things. In the first of several catch-up posts, I’ll take a quick look back at the other spooky reads I picked up last month. This is my third post for Readers Imbibing Peril, after one on scary story collections and another on two East Anglian horror novels.
Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue (1997)
This is a terrific set of retellings of European fairytales, some I recognized (Cinderella, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, The Little Mermaid) and some I didn’t. Each of the 13 stories is a first-person testimonial, and they all run into each other in a satisfying way because there are no speech marks and at the end the narrator of one asks a question that sparks a character to tell the next one, and so on. Many of them have cautionary elements (“In the days when wishing was having, I got what I wished and then I wished I hadn’t”) so there is sometimes an air of regret, but elsewhere there is defiance of convention. Maids lord their power over princesses and witches manipulate feuding spouses. As the title suggests, there is a queer slant to many to these familiar narratives. Witches aren’t evil hags to be shunned but alluring sexual creatures, making for some cheeky twist endings. This was a random choice from Donoghue’s back catalogue but might actually be one of my favourites from her oeuvre. (Secondhand – Awesomebooks.com with voucher) 
The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore (2012)
{SPOILERS IN THIS ONE}
I’m always surprised by how much Dunmore published, especially in a life cut short by cancer; her bibliography is full of titles I’ve never heard of. So this commissioned horror novella was an unexpected discovery. Isabel is a newlywed in 1952 Yorkshire. Her husband, Philip Carey, is a doctor who’s often away on emergency house calls. Until she fulfils everyone’s expectations by falling pregnant, she will have little to occupy herself beyond cooking and cleaning, with the landlady always stomping about overhead. It’s a bitter winter and one day she pulls an old RAF greatcoat from the back of a wardrobe to put over the bedclothes. The garment seems to summon the soldier who once wore it at a local airfield, Alec, and as he starts to visit more frequently, Isabel channels the memories of the woman who carried on an affair with him. The ghost lover is nothing novel, but possession by the past experiences of another person who’s still alive was a new one on me. I wasn’t sure Dunmore always demarcated the real and the imaginary effectively; then again, that’s part of the point of horror. Anyway, a quick and easy read, and what happened to Isabel’s parents during the war is a good way of pointing up the everyday trauma that many were living with in that decade. (Little Free Library) 
The Time of the Witch by Mary Downing Hahn (1982)
This might be the first book I ever got signed at an author event, aged 10. I don’t specifically recall reading it as a child, but I think it must be a reread for me. (Some of Hahn’s other titles listed inside the book ring a bell, anyway.) Laura and her little brother Jason come from the Washington, D.C. area to stay with Aunt Grace in West Virginia for the summer while their parents finalize their divorce. When Laura learns that there is a nearby witch, an old woman named Maude who goes around with a crow on her shoulder, she decides to ask for a spell to bring her parents back together. But, as happens with these sorts of stories, her request has unforeseen consequences and she soon wants to take it all back. This was so very ’80s, the names and descriptions of the locals are stereotypical “hick” fodder, and it’s a pretty predictable message to accept what you cannot control and trust that adults know what they’re doing. I’m sure I found it suspenseful as a kid, but I doubt this one has stood the test of time. (Gift – purchased new by my mother at a Bowie Library event in 1994)
Sheets & Lights by Brenna Thummler (2018; 2023)
I finished off this teen graphic novel trilogy (the middle book is Delicates) by rereading parts of the first volume that I missed out on when my NetGalley download expired, and finding the third book I never got to. Middle schooler Marjorie Glatt works in her family’s laundromat in small-town Pennsylvania. Since her mother died, it’s just been her, her little brother, and their absent-minded father. When she starts seeing the ghost of a little boy named Wendell – and ghosts in this world are literally just sheets with eye-holes – he makes her life more complicated but also acts as a bridge to another dimension she’s been denying. With his mischief, he also helps her to resist the buyout offer of awful Mr. Saubertuck, who keeps threatening to turn the laundromat into a yoga retreat center.
In the other two volumes, Marjorie makes friends with Eliza, a ghost photographer, and they help Wendell investigate his own untimely death. Whereas Eliza is bullied and feels like an outcast, Marjorie makes some friends among the popular girls and tries to bring her two friend circles together, with mixed results. I like the pastel, kitsch 1980s-90s vibe of these comics, though Thummler can’t really draw noses, at least not on white people. I would recommend the series for younger teens. (Public library) 
Any stand-out creepy reading for you this year?
East Anglian Horror for #RIPXXI: Sara Bayat and Natasha Pulley
My first Readers Imbibing Peril post featured three short story collections. I have more spooky reads to catch up on tomorrow, but today I’m featuring two 2026 works of East Anglian horror with fetching purple and black covers that I read during October. (This might seem like a niche subgenre, but I can actually think of several other books I’ve read that fit into the same tradition; if not all set in Norfolk/Suffolk, they still evoke fenland settings: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, The Hotel by Daisy Johnson, and Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver.) Both:
Hesket: A Norfolk Haunting by Sara Bayat
I bought this after I saw Bayat speak at Marlborough Literature Festival last month. Eight linked chapters, bookended by a prologue and epilogue, colour in a picture of a Norfolk village plagued by strange events when a housing development disturbs the ground. Each character has a source of isolation: Isla and her husband have drifted apart since their daughter died; Nell lives in a retirement home and has lost her dearest friend; Emir doesn’t fit in with the other allotment gardeners due to his ethnic background – even though he was raised in England; and Arthur has extreme social anxiety and an unhealthy attachment to a woman old enough to be his mother.
Bayat is careful to share out the sympathy, including to a tree surgeon involved in cutting down the woods for the construction project and the well-meaning vicar who sometimes oversteps her duties and at the same time fails her family. Loss links her characters, from the participants at the séance local journalist Rio reports on to Finn and his single dad. The discovery of bones and the appearance of a ghost are reminders of medieval atrocities. Nine women were executed as witches here, and the injustice lingers. Alice Spry was drowned in the River Wensum, her body never recovered. She lives on in the name of Spry Woods – and perhaps another form.
My shipping notice featured what must be a previous title, “In Old Hesket Woods,” which feels more appropriate to the subdued folktale vibe. This novel shows promise and I’ll certainly follow Bayat’s career, but something about it was a little too … quiet? provincial? to stick with me. Certain chapters, particularly the first, are strong stand-alones, but some of the rest are thin. Those with ties to Norwich may be keenest to read this. (New purchase – Awesomebooks.com with voucher)
The Salt King by Natasha Pulley
Jesuit priest Avelyn Brocken is recalled from the Vatican to Hreodwater in East Anglia to investigate miracles said to have taken place at the salt mine. His hometown is like its own country, with an ancient language and customs. Legends of the Salt King and the “salt light” emanating from the mine characterise it as a benevolent place, as several recent healings would seem to support. Miracles have been reported at other salt mines from Jordan to Russia, too. But then a Hreodwater visitor is turned into a pillar of salt. As researchers at the Dead Sea have also found, proximity to the salt destroys all electronic devices and potentially threatens human health in a way similar to radiation.
Pulley’s eighth novel blurs the lines between good and evil when it comes to ‘gods,’ ‘witches’ and ‘angels’. Supernatural events might be the physical incarnation of belief or the punishments of a capricious deity. There is quite complicated world-building around Hreodwater, which I’m not used to because I don’t read, for example, hard SF. The inclusion of other salt mine locations, even when they’re not developed into full side plots, might serve as further evidence of what’s going on but also dilutes the central story. Overall, then, the novel felt much longer than it needed to be at over 450 pages.
This was my first experience with Pulley, and I found her style to be similar to T. Kingfisher’s – hip, shrewd fantasy-meets-horror in which sarcasm and queerness (a flirtation between Avelyn and the abbey caretaker, Jericho) reign – but Pulley is less grating. There’s a jokey faux-academic tone to the footnotes, and I loved the sense of humour:
“Avelyn broke. ‘Ssh yourself. What kind of sociopath eats a peach during Mass anyway?’”
“Fabian, I mean this in the most brotherly possible way, but f*ck off before I shove you in the f*cking fen.”
“Where do I find new jeans in Hreodwater? … what would you put on the delivery instructions? Proceed past imaginary castle, mind the angry knights, try not to turn to salt for no reason”
While Pulley doesn’t always gets it right about belief – she admits in the Acknowledgements that she isn’t religious at all so had to interview a lot of people to try to understand faith – it’s heartening that she makes the attempt, and the clash of organised religion and folk religion here, as realised in the troubled character of Avelyn, is intriguing. I’d try another of this author’s (shorter) works; any recommendations for me? (Public library)
My most striking bit of Halloween-relevant reading this year came from an unexpected place: the chapter “Spirits and Demons” in the memoir Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith. Her very religious mother was wary about her children celebrating Halloween, though she was happy to provide autumnal snacks and games for her daughter’s kindergarten classroom. When it came to trick-or-treating, though, she subverted the holiday’s tropes by dressing Tracy in a ghost costume disconcertingly reminiscent of a KKK outfit – a reminder that the true horrors are out there in the real world.
Are you doing anything for Halloween? Read anything spooky lately?
#ShortStorySeptember, Meet #RIPXXI: Fremlin, M.R. James & Navarro
I can hardly believe it’s October; I still have a bunch of short stories to finish and review! I’m taking the opportunity to start on Readers Imbibing Peril with these three collections that crank up the suspense with their scenes of the unexplained.
Don’t Go to Sleep in the Dark by Celia Fremlin (1970)
(Faber reprint: 2024)
I wasn’t wild about Fremlin’s Uncle Paul, but these 13 stories were terrific. Nightmares sometimes become reality as children and women of a certain age face up to threats, whether concrete or imaginary. The twist endings can reassure or unsettle, but in either case they call into question the tenor of what’s gone before. Only three tales are in the first person, with the other 10 in an authoritative third person. The need to protect children is a recurring impulse, ageing is a frequent cause of angst, and there are a couple of instances of frightening bird imagery (a nod to du Maurier?). There are also tweaks of horror story tropes – the haunted house in “The Hated House” and “The Locked Room.” Visual and auditory clues ramp up the tension. I’ll highlight a couple of favourites: “The Quiet Game,” in which a mother’s mental illness has dangerous implications for her twins; and “The Baby-Sitter,” about a little girl who’s afraid of The Hen with Great Big Eyes and her child-minder, who’s lived out her own horrors as a European refugee. This one is a fine example of how Fremlin mixes the everyday with suggestions of the supernatural. (Little Free Library)
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary: A Graphic Collection of Short Stories by M.R. James, Volume I (2016)
(Adapted by Leah Moore and John Reppion)
(I reviewed Volume II in 2017.) Though all retold by the same duo, these four stories are each illustrated by a different artist. So although the setup and voice tends to be samey – a dignified man investigating strange happenings at a country house – the art style varies significantly While I didn’t care for the approach in the first two (“Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book” – Marvel; “Lost Hearts” – Pixar), the others, “The Mezzotint” and “The Ash-tree,” made up for it. I liked the monochrome palette, gentlemen detecting vibe, and Wildean mark of a morphing image of the former. In the latter, a Gothic setting and a history of suppressing witchcraft pave the way for unnatural spectacles. James’s classic ghost stories have been hugely influential on the likes of Susan Hill. (I also wondered if Stephen King borrowed the girl in the bath from “Lost Hearts” for The Shining.) Still, my conclusion about the second volume stands for the whole project: the “problem with using the graphic form for … tales that center around nameless horror is that depicting [what is feared] saps it of its power.” 
With thanks to SelfMadeHero for the free copy of The Compendium (Volumes I and II) for review.
Blood Is Dripping onto the Courtyard by Elvira Navarro (2025; 2026)
[Translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney]
My introduction to Navarro, a Spanish author, reminded me most of Agustina Bazterrica’s 19 Claws and a Black Bird. These nine stories are full of derelict buildings, outsider characters, and traces of the uncanny. Seven are in the third person and two in first. A nice touch: two stories are linked in that they feature Almudena, who is studying in Paris. “The Fear of the City” is, we realize, the story she wrote about femicide, as mentioned, fittingly, in “The City of Fear.” “Idiotic Love” is narrated by a trans woman with an anal fissure and conjures a seedy world of nightclubs and sex shops. This was the longest story and not a pleasant one. There were just three standouts for me. In “The Washing Machine,” which contains the title line, a couple’s appliance keeps filling with blood for no reason. “The Animal Collector” is a tough one for animal lovers because of all the injuries and deaths, but the idea of a highway maintenance man assembling a makeshift zoo for his roadside rescues is alluring. Eventually, he becomes overwhelmed and compassion turns into a burden. In “A Small Bunch of Violets,” Mari chooses a new ornament for her father’s grave during a heat wave, but the flowers keep being displaced. There were too many so-so stories, though.
With thanks to Two Lines Press and publicist Nicolette Praça for the proof copy for review.
R.I.P. Reads, Part II: Feito, King, Link, Paver & Taylor
Soon it’ll be all novellas, all the time around here. But first I have a few more October reads to review.
A belated Happy Halloween! As a kid in the U.S. suburbs, I loved Halloween. It was such fun planning costumes – pumpkin, cowgirl and picnic table are a few memorable ones that I remember thanks to photographs – and my hoard of candy would last me for months. But these days, I tend to be pretty grumpy about the holiday. It never used to be a thing in the UK, but it has been creeping in year on year. I don’t mind a creatively carved jack o’ lantern, tasteful decoration or clever homemade costume. What does get my goat is plastic tat, gratuitous gore and the dozens of sodden sweets and wrappers littering the streets after last night’s rain and wind.
Anyway, we enjoyed the stormy evening because we spent it at friends’ having delicious autumnal lasagne and parkin, playing instruments and board games and eavesdropping on the trick-or-treaters. I had to laugh when J said “Take a couple” and one little girl replied, “That’s okay, I don’t really like sweeties.” These friends were keeping some ancient traditions alive: carving a turnip, wearing one’s clothes inside out and walking between two fires to ward off fairies. They also put potatoes in the treats bowl, which definitely confused the kids. (One did take a spud!)
I really leaned into the Readers Imbibing Peril reading this year. I had a somewhat lacklustre first batch, but these five were great!
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito (2025)
This was among my Most Anticipated titles of the year – for the bonkers blurb but also because of how much I’d enjoyed Feito’s debut, Mrs. March. Both novels go deep with mentally disturbed protagonists. The first channeled Patricia Highsmith with its stylish psychological suspense; here we have a full-on blend of slasher horror and sadistic humour, wrapped up in a Victorian pastiche. Winifred Notty (naughty girl indeed) is the new governess at Ensor House on the Yorkshire moors. She couldn’t care less about her charges, Andrew and Drusilla. No, she’s here to exact revenge on the master of the house, Mr. Pounds. But not before she’s dispatched many a random servant and baby. “Bodies pile up in the attic.” Her brutal fantasies are so realistic that at times it’s difficult to separate them from what she actually carries out. Miss Notty is also a highly sexual being whose fixations could certainly be interpreted in Freudian ways. Feito spins a traumatic backstory for her antiheroine but doesn’t make it any excuse for her gleeful reign of terror. It’s delicious fun, especially for a Victorianist, but don’t attempt if you’re squeamish. (Read via NetGalley)
Misery by Stephen King (1987)
All these years I’d had two 1989–1990 films conflated: Misery and My Left Foot. I’ve not seen either but as an impressionable young’un I made a mental mash-up of the posters’ stills into a film featuring Daniel Day-Lewis as a paralyzed writer and Kathy Bates as a madwoman wielding an axe. (Turns out the left foot is relevant!)
Paul Sheldon wakes in a fog of pain, his legs shattered from a one-car accident on a snowy Colorado backroad. He’s famous for his historical potboilers about Misery Chastain but, like Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, has killed off his most beloved character. Except now he’s in the home of Annie Wilkes, his rescuer and biggest fan, and she demands he resurrect Misery. Annie is a former nurse who left the profession after numerous suspicious deaths on her watch. She keeps Paul dependent on her – and on Novril, a fictional opiate. In a case of ‘Scheherazade complex’, he’ll be her prisoner until he’s completed a sequel that’s to her satisfaction. Compared to Pet Sematary, the only other King novel I’ve read, this was slow to draw me in because of the repetitive scenes in a claustrophobic setting, and I wearied of the excerpts from Paul’s manuscript. But eventually I was riveted, desperate to know how Paul was going to get out of this predicament and what the final showdown could be. Extremes of pain and obsession make this an intense study of the psychology of a wretched pair. (Public library)
Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link (2008)
This is a reissue edition geared towards young adults. All but one of the 10 stories were originally published in literary magazines or anthologies. The stories are long, some approaching novella length, and took me quite a while to read. I got through the first three and will save the rest for next year. In “The Wrong Grave,” a teen decides to dig up his dead girlfriend’s casket to reclaim the poems he rashly buried with her last year – as did Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which Link makes a point of mentioning. A terrific blend of spookiness and comedy ensues.
“The Wizards of Perfil” and the title story are 50-some and 60-some pages, respectively, which allows a lot of space for intriguing weirdness and side plots. In the former, Onion’s cousin Halsa is purchased to be a servant to a wizard. The cousins both have the gift of foresight but can’t get the wizards to take them seriously when they beg that something to be done to prevent human disasters. It’s a brilliant allegory of the danger of waiting for an external force – God, the government, whatever – to solve everything versus getting on with it yourself. In the title story, a group of teens are obsessed with a mysterious Doctor Who-esque television show called The Library, which colours all their interactions. The main character Jeremy’s father is an eccentric sci-fi novelist named Gordon Strangle Mars who has written his son into his latest plot in a disturbing way. Jeremy recently inherited a gas station and phone box in Las Vegas and occasionally calls the phone box to air his grievances and solicit supernatural aid. My only other experience of Link was a standalone story I was once sent for review, “The Summer People,” which I didn’t get on with, so I was surprised to encounter such top-notch fantasy/horror tales. (Little Free Library)
Rainforest by Michelle Paver (2025)
I’d read all three of Paver’s previous horror novels for adults (Thin Air, Dark Matter and Wakenhyrst) and found them easy, atmospheric reading but not nearly as scary as billed. This is her best yet. Set in 1973 on an expedition to Mexico, it has as its unreliable narrator Dr. Simon Corbett, an English entomologist. Adding to the findings of the archaeological dig he’s accompanying, he’ll be hunting for mantids (praying mantises, stick insects and the like) by fogging sacred trees with pesticides. He also experiments with taking a hallucinogenic plant extract used by the Indigenous shamans, hoping to be reunited with his lost love, Penelope.
We know that Corbett’s employment is tenuous and that he’s seeing a therapist. Paver authentically reproduces the casual racism and sexism of the time and seeds little hints that this protagonist may not be telling the whole truth about his relationship with Penelope. The long sequence where he’s lost in the jungle is fantastic. Corbett seems fated to repeat ancient masochistic rites, as if in penance for what he’s done wrong. My husband is an entomologist, so I was interested to read about period collecting practices. The novelty of the setting is a bonus to this high-quality psychological thriller and ghost story. (Public library)
Bone Broth by Alex Taylor (2025)
Ash is a trans man who starts working at a hole-in-the-wall ramen restaurant underneath a London railway arch. All he wants is to “pay for hormones, pay rent, [and] make enough to take a cutie on a date.” Bug’s Bones is run by an irascible elderly proprietor but staffed by a young multicultural bunch: Sock, Blue, Honey and Creamy. They quickly show Ash the ropes and within a month he’s turning out perfect bowls. He’s creeped out by the restaurant’s trademark bone broth, though, with its reminders of creatures turning into food. At the end of a drunken staff party, they find Bug lying dead and have to figure out what to do about it.
This storyline is in purple, whereas the alternating sequences of flashbacks are in a fleshy pinkish-red. As the two finally meet and meld, we see Ash trying to imitate the masculinity he sees on display while he waits for the surface to match what’s inside. I didn’t love the drawing style – though the full-page tableaux are a lot better than the high-school-sketchbook small panes – so that was an issue for me throughout, but this was an interesting, ghoulish take on the transmasc experience. Taylor won a First Graphic Novel Award.
With thanks to SelfMadeHero for the free copy for review.
And one DNF: Saltwash by Andrew Michael Hurley. (I was warned!) It had no menace or momentum at all…
Any stand-out creepy reading for you this year?
R.I.P. Reads, Part I: Apostolides, Dahl, Harkness, Kingfisher & Kohda
Ghosts, witches, vampires, creepy underground things: It can only be Readers Imbibing Peril time of year! Here’s my first five reviews.
The Homecoming by Zoë Apostolides (2025)
This debut novel dropped through my door as a total surprise: not only was it unsolicited, but I’d not heard about it. In this modern take on the traditional haunted house story, Ellen is a ghostwriter sent from London to Elver House, Northumberland, to work on the memoirs of its octogenarian owner, Catherine Carey. Ellen will stay in the remote manor house for a week and record 20 hours of audio interviews – enough to flesh out an autobiography. Miss Carey isn’t a forthcoming subject, but Ellen manages to learn that her father drowned in the nearby brook and that all Miss Carey did afterwards was meant to please her grieving mother and the strictures of the time. But as strange happenings in the house interfere with her task, Ellen begins to doubt she’ll come away with usable material. I was reminded of The Woman in Black, The Thirteenth Tale, and especially Wakenhyrst what with the local eel legends. The subplot about Ellen drifting apart from her best friend, a new mother, felt unnecessary, though I suppose was intended to bolster the main theme of women’s roles. There’s a twist that more seasoned readers of Gothic fiction and ghost stories might see coming. While I found this very readable and perfectly capably written, I didn’t get a sense of where the author hopes to fit in the literary market; she’s previously published a true crime narrative. Full disclosure: I once collaborated with Zoë on a Stylist assignment. 
With thanks to Salt Publishing for the proof copy for review.
The Witches by Roald Dahl (1983)
I’m sure I read all of Dahl’s major works when I was a child, though I had no specific memory of this one. After his parents’ death in a car accident, a boy lives in his family home in England with his Norwegian grandmother. She tells him stories from Norway and schools him in how to recognize and avoid witches. They wear wigs and special shoes to hide their baldness and square feet, and with their wide nostrils they sniff out children to turn them into hated creatures like slugs. When Grandmamma falls ill with pneumonia, she and the boy travel to a Bournemouth hotel for her recovery only to stumble upon a convention of witches under the guise of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The Grand High Witch (Anjelica Huston, if you know the movie) has a new concoction that will transform children into mice at enough of a delay to occur the following morning at school. It’s up to the boy and his grandmother to save the day. I really enjoyed this caper, which I interpreted as being – like Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book – about imagination and making the most of one’s time with grandparents. But in the back of my mind was Jen Campbell’s objection to the stereotypical equating of disfigurement with villainy. The Grand High Witch also speaks with a heavy German accent. It would be understandable to dismiss this as dated and clichéd, but I still found it worthwhile. It also fit into my project to read books from my birth year. (Free from a neighbour) 
The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness (2024)
Somehow I’ve read this entire series even though none of the subsequent books lived up to A Discovery of Witches. What I loved about that first novel was how the author drew on her knowledge of the history of science to create a believable backdrop for a story of witches, vampires and other supernatural beings that took place largely in Oxford and its medieval libraries. Each sequel has elaborated further adventures for Diana Bishop, a witch; her vampire husband, Matthew de Clermont; and their family members and other hangers-on. Their twins, especially Becca, have inherited some of Diana’s power. I read the first half of this last year and finally skimmed to the end last week, so I haven’t retained much. Diana is summoned to the ancestral seat of the Bishops in Massachusetts and finds herself part of a community of gossipy, catty witches. (Dahl was right, they’re everywhere!) She has some fun, folksy interactions but things soon get more serious as she girds herself for a showdown with the darker implications of her gift. Overall, this didn’t add much to the ongoing narrative and the love scenes veered too close to romantasy for my liking. (Public library)
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher [Ursula Vernon] (2025)
The third in the “Sworn Soldier” series, after What Moves the Dead and What Feasts at Night. Alex Easton is a witty, gender-nonconforming narrator, which is why I persist with these novellas even though I’m underwhelmed by the plots. Denton, the American doctor friend from the first book, begs Easton to come to West Virginia: his cousin Oscar has gone missing in a mine after sending a series of alarming letters about a red light he saw in the depths. Easton and their right-hand man, Angus, soon encounter claustrophobia-inducing cave systems, various kinds of bad air and siphonophore-like marine creatures that can assemble to imitate other beings. (Why aren’t these on the cover, huh?!) In other intriguing matters, Denton seems to have something going on with his friend John Ingold, an Indigenous scientist. Though, as Easton frequently reminds themself, that’s none of our business. There are some great set-pieces and funny, if anachronistic, asides (on learning how to flick a lighter just right: “I used to practice it for hours as a teenager, in hopes of impressing girls. Look, girls were more easily impressed in those days. Shut up.”) But my feeling with all three books is that they’re over before they’ve barely begun, and they never deliver the expected horror. Smart-ass, queer fantasy/horror: these will be some people’s perfect books, just not mine. If you’re intrigued, do at least try the first one, which riffs on Poe. (Read via Edelweiss)
Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda (2022)
A very different sort of vampire novel. Twenty-three-year-old Lydia is half Japanese and half Malaysian; half human and half vampire. She’s trying to follow in her late father’s footsteps as an artist through an internship at a Battersea gallery, which comes with studio space where she’ll sleep to save money. But she can only drink blood like her mother, who turned her when she was a baby. Mostly she subsists on pig blood – which she can order dried if she can’t buy it fresh from a butcher – though, in one disturbing sequence, she brings home a duck carcass. When she falls for Ben, one of her studio-mates, she imagines what it would be like to be fully human: to make art together, to explore Asian cuisine, to bond over losing their mothers (his is dying of cancer; hers is in a care home with violence-tinged dementia). But Ben is already seeing someone, the internship is predictably dull, and a first attempt at consuming regular food goes badly wrong. There are a lot of promising threads in this debut. It’s fascinating how Lydia can intuit a creature’s whole life story by drinking their blood. She becomes obsessed with the Baba Yaga folk tale (and also mentions Malay vampire legends) and there’s a neat little bit of #MeToo revenge. But overall, it’s half-baked. Really, it’s just a disaster-woman book in disguise. The way Lydia’s identity determines her attitudes towards food and sex feels like a symbol of body dysmorphia. I’ll look out to see if Kohda does something more distinctive in future. (Secondhand – Awesomebooks.com) 
More coming up on Halloween (thankfully, including books I liked better on average)!
A Belated R.I.P., Part III: Hand, Hurley, Kingfisher and Meddings
I meant to post on Halloween but the day got away from me, so here’s my belated third contribution to the Readers Imbibing Peril challenge (the first two are here and here). It’s rare for me to borrow from the horror section of the library and even rarer for me to read sequels, yet here I am with two purple-spotted spines and three books that count as continuations. I’m a little surprised at myself for managing eight R.I.P. reviews this year, but five of those were of very short books or graphic novels so were quick reads. With the possible exception of the dystopian final chapter of the Hurley, none of my selections scared me.
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand (2023)
Hand was commissioned by Shirley Jackson’s estate to write a sequel to The Haunting of Hill House, which I read for R.I.P. in 2019 (my review). As in the original, four people gather at Hill House; artists rather than ghost-hunters, but they soon grasp the place’s supernatural malevolence. Holly has written a play about a historical witch – to be portrayed by Amanda, an actress of a certain age. Holly’s girlfriend, Nisa, provides music in the form of traditional murder ballads; actor Stevie makes up the quartet. Despite locals’ persistent admonitions, they take out a short-term rental on Hill House, thinking it will be atmospheric to finish the play and conduct read-throughs there. I was solidly engaged with the characters, whom Hand reinforces with traumatic backstories (Amanda’s proximity to an accidental death, Stevie’s molestation as a child actor), but couldn’t take the scary reveals seriously. A tablecloth suddenly soaked in blood? A black hare falling out of a chimney? Such moments just felt silly, plus Hand overplays the warnings versus the quartet’s blithe heedlessness. The ending is actually pretty chilling, but too much that came before strained belief. Do read the Jackson if you haven’t, though; it’s genuinely frightening. (Public library) 
Barrowbeck by Andrew Michael Hurley (2024)
I’ve read all of Hurley’s novels (The Loney, Devil’s Day and Starve Acre), the first two for previous R.I.P. events. Here again, he explores the arcane beliefs and practices of an isolated community: Barrowbeck, a fictional valley on the Yorkshire–Lancashire borders. The 13 chapters, rather like linked short stories, alight at moments along its timeline, from the medieval conflict of “First Footing” all the way through the near-future desolation of “A Valediction.” What connects the vignettes is more tonal than geographical, though, with suspicion, exclusion and the uncanny recurring. There are hints of deadly customs and communion with the departed. As is true of most collections, some stories are more memorable than others, and I felt that a few went too far towards pastiche (e.g., “Autumn Pastoral” of The Woman in Black by Susan Hill). I had a few favourites: “To Think of Sicily,” set after the 15th-century visit of an Italian man bearing mysterious olive oil, introduces the people’s seemingly congenital xenophobia. In “Hymns for Easter,” residents killed in the First World War still join their voices with the choir’s. “Sisters,” about B&B operators trying to get rid of their solitary guest before closing for the winter, was the best of all and reminiscent of the twins in Daniel Mason’s North Woods. You should like this if you’re a Daisy Johnson fan or enjoyed Private Rites by Julia Armfield, though ultimately I found more difference than continuity across the chapters.
With thanks to John Murray Press for the proof copy for review.
What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher (2024)
The second book of the “Sworn Soldier” duology, after What Moves the Dead. Easton has returned from Paris to their native Gallacia to give Miss Potter a fungi-hunting holiday as thanks for helping with the previous adventure. But the caretaker is dead and the home abandoned, so Easton hires a local widow and her grandson, Bors, to look after the property. Bors is soon troubled by the moroi, a ghost-woman who comes in dreams to sit on people’s chests, crushing the breath out of them. She also seems to take the form of moths. And next she comes for Easton. You’d think with all the world-building she’d done in the first book, Kingfisher could pack lots of plot into this novella. But there’s really not much to it. It was over before it began. The winking humour of the first book was worn-out. And the more I thought about it, the more uneasy I was with the negative nature imagery I kept encountering in horror: fungi, moths, rabbits/hares. I understand this is often harkening back to ancient legends, but in a biodiversity crisis we need love rather than fear. (Public library)
The Sad Ghost Club 2 by Lize Meddings (2022)
This teen comic series is not about literal ghosts but about mental health. Young people struggling with anxiety and intrusive thoughts recognize each other – they’ll be the ones wearing sheets with eye holes. In the first book, which I reviewed for R.I.P. last year, SG meets Socks and determines to start a society for people like them. In this sequel, Socks worries that he’s not cool enough for the club and that SG, especially after they meet Rue, will leave him behind. The message is about being there for people even when they think they just want to be alone. By the end, it looks like the club is going to grow further. This barely built on the first book and contained so little incident that it felt unnecessary. Never mind! (Little Free Library) 
Rather a lackluster finish to the challenge there, but the Hurley at least is recommended.
Short Stories in September (and R.I.P.): The Secret Life of Insects by Bernardo Esquinca
For the ninth year in a row, I’m making a special effort to read short stories in September; otherwise, short fiction volumes tend to languish on my shelves (and e-readers) unread. In the past few years, I’ve managed to read 11 or 12 collections during the month of September.
I don’t consider myself a great short story fan, so I was surprised to see I’ve already read 20 collections this year. Several were via a spring rereading of Carol Shields’s complete stories with Marcie (Buried in Print). Some other highlights: Cocktail by Lisa Alward, longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize; Barcelona by Mary Costello; The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro; and a speculative trio: There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes Jr. (reviewed for BookBrowse), The Man in the Banana Trees by Marguerite Sheffer (University of Iowa Press, 5 November; reviewed for Shelf Awareness), and How We Know Our Time Travelers by Anita Felicelli (WTAW Press, 3 December; forthcoming for Foreword Reviews).
First of my dedicated reviews for the month is a set of Mexican horror stories that happens to tie into R.I.P. (I always think that’s only in October, but it technically starts on 1 September):
The Secret Life of Insects by Bernardo Esquinca (2023)
[Translated from the Spanish by James D. Jenkins]
Esquinca channels classic horror authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe in these 14 creepy stories drawn from across his career. The settings include caves, forests and abandoned apartments; and octopi, cursed dolls and dreams are among the subjects. These characters are obsessed – or possessed. As in classic ghost stories, the protagonists tend to be researchers or writers whose absolute faith in logic is shaken by encounters with the supernatural. For instance, the narrator of the title story is a forensic entomologist who makes contact with his murdered wife; the undead feature in a couple of other stories, too.
Mysterious manuscripts and therapy appointments also recur – there’s a scholarly Freudianism at play here. In the novella-length “Demoness,” friends at a twentieth high school reunion recount traumatic experiences from adolescence (not your average campfire fare). “Our traumas define us much more than our happy moments, [Ignacio, a Jesuit priest] thought. They’re the real revelations about ourselves.” Masturbation features heavily in this and in “Pan’s Noontide,” which has both of Arturo’s wives disappear in connection with an ecoterrorism cult. I occasionally found the content a bit macho and gross-out, and wished the women could be more than just sexualized supporting figures in male fantasies.
My favourite story was “Señor Ligotti” (no doubt in homage to American horror writer Thomas Ligotti), in which a struggling novelist unwittingly signs away more than he intended when the title character offers him an apartment and then a publishing deal. The Gothic black-and-white illustrations by Luis Perez Ochando are surreal or grotesque, and recall Bosch, Dalí and Hogarth. There is an introduction by Mariana Enriquez, whose stories I found more memorable in general, and I was also reminded slightly of Agustina Bazterrica. I’m by no means a regular horror reader yet found this book consistently engaging, though I concluded it had more style than soul.
With thanks to New Ruins (Dead Ink) for the free copy for review.
Currently reading: I Can Outdance Jesus by Willie Davis, The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits by Emma Donoghue, The Forester’s Daughter by Claire Keegan, The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken, A New Day by Sue Mell, Ladies’ Lunch by Lore Segal
Resuming soon: The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards, The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners (ed. Lauren Groff)
Up next: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac by Louise Kennedy, Sinking Bell by Bojan Louis, Light Box by K.J. Orr, The Forgetters by Greg Sarris, The Long Swim by Terese Svoboda
Are you a short story fan? Read any good ones recently?
R.I.P., Part II: The Last House on Needless Street
My second contribution to this year’s Readers Imbibing Peril challenge (Part I is here), sliding in late on the final day. I’ve become quite the grump about the immense popularity of Halloween in the UK, even though I loved celebrating it as a kid in the States (dressing up and free candy, what’s not to like) and regularly came up with costumes until I was about 20. Year on year it has been turning into a huge thing over here. Creative outfits and pumpkin carving, fine. But instead it seems that all the worst aspects are on display: cheap plastic tat, misbehaving teenagers, unnecessary gore, wildlife-endangering fake cobwebs. Harrumph.
Anyway, I loved my two final R.I.P. selections, only one of which I managed to finish in time.
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (2021)
This came highly recommended by Annabel and Eleanor (and by my husband, who read it on his phone in less than 24 hours). Ted Bannerman lives the life of a hermit in the titular location, a creepy boarded-up house, with his tantrum-prone daughter, Lauren, and his precocious cat, Olivia, who happens to be highly religious and possibly lesbian. All three share narration duties, along with Dee after she moves into the neighbourhood determined to find out what happened to her little sister, Lulu, who disappeared from a local lake 11 years ago. She thinks Ted is the child abductor – or should that be serial killer? – responsible. As Ward sinks us deeper into Ted’s psyche and peculiar behaviours, we have to assume so, too. But, to put that suspense plot cliché to good use, nothing is what it seems here…
In an afterword, Ward describes this as “a book about survival, disguised as a book about horror.” It’s both, really. There is a touch of supernatural dread, what with the little references to the Breton myth of the death-bringing ankou, but the real horror is how damaged people inflict damage on others – and on themselves. (Content warnings for child abuse, self-harm and suicide.) It’s impressive how acutely Ward depicts mental health while still producing a rollicking story with memorable characters. How could you not love a book with the lines “If there’s anything better than a cat on the bed, I don’t know about it” and “Olivia is not a pet. She’s so much more than that. I expect everyone feels this about their cat”?! I’m not usually one for a psychological thriller, but I’d look out for more from Ward. (Public library) 
I’m also halfway through High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories (1982) by Robertson Davies and enjoying it immensely. Davies was a Master of Massey College at the University of Toronto. These 18 stories, one for each year of his tenure, were his contribution to the annual Christmas party entertainment. They are short and slightly campy tales told in the first person by an intellectual who definitely doesn’t believe in ghosts – until one is encountered. The spirits are historic royals, politicians, writers or figures from legend. In a pastiche of the classic ghost story à la M.R. James, the pompous speaker is often a scholar of some esoteric field and gives elaborate descriptions. “When Satan Goes Home for Christmas” and “Dickens Digested” are particularly amusing. This will make a perfect bridge between Halloween and Christmas. (National Trust secondhand shop)
R.I.P., Part I: Michel Faber, Rebecca Green and Lize Meddings
For my first installment of this year’s Readers Imbibing Peril challenge, I have a highly undemanding selection of a novella, a picture book, and a teen graphic novel. And nothing here is nearly as scary as proper horror-fiction readers might be expecting.
The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps by Michel Faber (2001)
One of my reads in Hay was this suspenseful novella set in Whitby. Faber was invited by the then artist in residence at Whitby Abbey to write a story inspired by the English Heritage archaeological excavation taking place there in the summer of 2000. His protagonist, Siân, is living in a hotel and working on the dig. She meets Magnus, a handsome doctor, when he comes to exercise the dog he inherited from his late father on the stone steps leading up to the abbey. Siân had been in an accident and is still dealing with the physical and mental after-effects. Each morning she wakes from a nightmare of a man with large hands slitting her throat. When Magnus brings her a centuries-old message in a bottle from his father’s house for her to open and decipher, another layer of intrigue enters: the crumbling document appears to be a murderer’s confession.
At first I worried Faber would turn this into a simple, predictable ghost story and milk expected sources of trauma. But the plot twists kept surprising me. The focus on women’s bodies and sexuality is appropriate for the town that gave us Dracula. This had hidden depths and at 116 pages could easily be a one-sitting read. Hadrian the dog is a great character, too, and this is even in my favourite font, Mrs Eaves, one that Canongate uses often. [Unfortunate error: Faber twice refers to Whitby as being Northumbrian. Although it was in the historical kingdom of Northumbria, it is actually in North Yorkshire rather than Northumberland.] (Secondhand – Bookcase, Carlisle) 
How to Make Friends with a Ghost by Rebecca Green (2017)
Here Green proposes a ghost as a lifelong, visible friend. The book has more words and more advanced ideas than much of what I pick up from the picture book boxes. It’s presented as almost a field guide to understanding the origins and behaviours of ghosts, or maybe a new parent’s or pet owner’s handbook telling how to approach things like baths, bedtime and feeding. What’s unusual about it is that Green takes what’s generally understood as spooky about ghosts and makes it cutesy through faux expert quotes, recipes, etc. She also employs Rowling-esque grossness, e.g. toe jam served on musty biscuits. Perhaps her aim was to tame and thus defang what might make young children afraid. I enjoyed the art more than the sometimes twee words. (Public library) 
The Sad Ghost Club by Lize Meddings (2021)
This is the simplest of comics. Sam or “SG” goes around wearing a sheet – a tangible depression they can’t take off. (Again, ghosts aren’t really scary here, just a metaphor for not fully living.) Anxiety about school assignments and lack of friends is nearly overwhelming, but at a party SG notices a kindred spirit also dressed in a sheet: Socks. They’re awkward with each other until they dare to be vulnerable, stop posing as cool, and instead share how much they’re struggling with their mental health. Just to find someone who says “I know exactly what you mean” and can help keep things in perspective is huge. The book ends with SG on a quest to find others in the same situation. The whole thing is in black-and-white and the setups are minimalist (houses, a grocery store, a party, empty streets, a bench in a wooded area where they overlook the town). Not a whole lot of art skill required to illustrate this one, but it’s sweet and well-meaning. I definitely don’t need to read the sequels, though. The tone is similar to the later Heartstopper books and the art is similar to in Sheets and Delicates by Brenna Thummler, all of which are much more accomplished as graphic novels go. (Public library) 
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (#NovNov22 Short Classics Week)
Novellas in November is here! Our first weekly theme is short classics. (Leave your links with Cathy, here.)
Left over from a planned second R.I.P. post that I didn’t get a chance to finish:
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962)
A few years ago for the R.I.P. challenge I read The Haunting of Hill House, which is a terrific haunted house/horror novel, a genre I almost never read. I was expecting this to be more of the same from Jackson, but instead it’s a brooding character study of two sisters isolated by their scandalous family history and the suspicion of the townspeople. Narrator Merricat (Mary Katherine Blackwood) tells us in the first paragraph that she is 18, but she sounds and acts more like a half-feral child of 10 who makes shelters in the woods for her and her cat Jonas; I wasn’t sure if I should understand her to be intellectually disabled, or willfully childish, or some combination thereof.
Her older sister Constance does everything for her and for wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian, the only family they have left after most of their relatives died of poisoning six years ago. Constance stood trial for their murder and was acquitted, but the locals haven’t let the incident go and even chant a cruel rhyme whenever Merricat comes into town for shopping: “Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea? / Oh, no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me.” Julian obsessively mulls over the details of the poisoning, building a sort of personal archive of tragedy, while in everyday life a curtain of dementia separates him from reality. When cousin Charles comes to visit, perhaps to get a share of the money they have hidden around the place, he threatens the idyll they’ve created, and Merricat starts joking about poisonous mushrooms…
I loved the offbeat voice and unreliable narration, and the way that the Blackwood house is both a refuge and a prison for the sisters. “Where could we go?” Merricat asks Constance when she expresses concern that she should have given the girl a more normal life. “What place would be better for us than this? Who wants us, outside? The world is full of terrible people.” As the novel goes on, you ponder who is protecting whom, and from what. There are a lot of great scenes, all so discrete that I could see this working very well as a play with just a few backdrops to represent the house and garden. It has the kind of small cast and claustrophobic setting that would translate very well to the stage.
Joyce Carol Oates’s afterword brings up an interesting point about how food is fetishized in Jackson’s fiction – I look forward to trying more of it. (Public library) 
Need some more ideas of short classics? Here’s a list of favourites I posted a couple of years ago, and a Book Riot list with only a couple of overlaps.
This month I also hope to have a look through Great Short Books by Kenneth C. Davis, a selection of 58 classic and contemporary works (some of them perhaps a bit longer than our cutoff of 200 pages). It’s forthcoming from Scribner on the 22nd, but I have an e-copy via Edelweiss that I will skim.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
