Joining the Halloween Bing pre-party a bit on the late side, but having a blast with all the traffic on my feed. Now, let's see:

Mystery or Horror?: Horror all the way

Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies or Other?: I'm partial to Witches, though the hodgepodges where everything simmers on the same pot are mighty fun.

Favourite Ghostly Tales:

The Everlost Series by Neal Shusterman and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. They are all written for that nebulous gap between children books and adult, and they are the that perfect balance of cruel and kind that often becomes emotional.

Favourites from Halloween Bingos Past:

Lol! This might get long.

It took me 1 page to realize I had a new favourite author with Nights at the Circus, by Angela Carter. Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire #1) amply jumped my expectation's bar. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt surprised me by how engrossed I got into a book where there is not exactly something like a plot.

The year before last, I was happy to find that Murder on the Orient Express and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie are as good as promised. And horrified by how excellent and still current The Crucible by Arthur Miller is. I was also surprised by The Haunting of Hill House, after what I felt was a lackluster experience with Shirley Jackson's We've Always Lived in the Castle, and so very glad that I took the game's reviews to heart. Joyland by Stephen King ended up being a campy and perfectly nostalgic read. I also read The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin, that while polarizing, is still my favourite of hers (well, maybe fighting for top with Four Ways to Forgiveness)

Favourite Series with Supernatural Elements:

Kate Daniels by Ilona Andrews. Takes a couple of books to find some polish, but they are immensely entertaining. On a darker bent, I quite liked the Darkfever Series by Karen Marie Moning, but they are more of a problematic-elements guilty pleasure.

Favourite Seasonal Covers:

Favourite Halloween Bingo Authors:

Since I always end up picking at least one more book, Stephen King. If I search for number of entries during the game, John Wyndham and Agatha Christie too. And Illona Andrews, because I'm always up for a re-read.

Audience: Adult

Format: Audiobook/Owned

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.

- opening lines

This was an excellent performance by Bernadette Dunne. I enjoyed listening to her read the story and she made me feel like I was right there with the characters staying in Hill House. The book itself is well-written and had me up late wanting to see what would happen next. I felt for Eleanor, cheered for her when she stood up for herself and worried for her as she became more affected by Hill House.

I recently watched the Netflix series and loved it, but it seemed like it was more inspired by the book than following the plot at all.

I am reposting my "10 Essential Horror Books (by a non-horror reader)" post for this prompt! My knowledge of horror fiction is quite limited, and what little horror I read, I read in September & October.

I do not read horror because I am a chicken, so while all of these books are "horror," they are not gory horror, or really, even, that scary. Most of them are more in the vein of "psychological horror," which might mean "horror for wusses," I don't know. Anyway, here we go:

1. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I read this book almost every October at some time during Halloween bingo, that's how much I love it. Bradbury's language is so evocatively gorgeous that I can almost taste it. 

2. & 3. are both by Shirley Jackson: We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House. There's just something about Shirley, you guys. She, like Hill House, is just a bit off - the floors slant and the doors don't close quite right, and she gets right to the heart of the stuff that scares the shit out of me.

4. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters: is it a ghost story or isn't it a ghost story? Is the house haunted or isn't the house haunted? Is the narrator reliable or isn't the narrator reliable. Who the hell knows?

5. Uncle Silas by Sheridan LeFanu: as I said in my review, this book is a heaping platterful of Victorian whatthefuckery. It's awesome.

6. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: what, you say, that's not horror? The fuck it isn't people. A dystopia built around legalized rape and coerced gestation? It's either horror or it's America. 

7. Dracula by Bram Stoker: trite, I know. But this book is amazing, and should always be experienced by listening to the full cast audiobook. It will change your perception completely.

8. Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews: I read this book when I was an impressionable adolescent and am still creeped out by it. Totally fucked up.

9. The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey: "Snap to, Will Henry." This is YA horror, and is gross, terrifying and enthralling. Seriously, I love this book. The rest of the series is pretty good, too, but this book stands alone in awesomeness. 

10. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier: I know that people think that this book is a romance, but (like in the case of Wuthering Heights) they are WRONG. This book is horror. It's a gorgeously written, utterly engrossing, tale of a woman who is gaslighted by household staff after accidentally marrying a rich man - with a great house - who murdered his wife. I could also put this under the category of suspense, and maybe I will. 

I know, this list of essential horror is sadly lacking in *real* horror authors, like Stephen King. But he's way too scary for me!