Horror
Adams, Richard. The Girl in a Swing. Knopf, 1980. Alan Desland, a ceramics dealer from England, has resigned himself to the idea that he will never fall in love and marry--until he travels to Copenhagen and meets the extra-ordinarily beautiful Kathe. After a whirlwind courtship, they marry and settle in England and are deliriously happy together, though Alan is troubled by many questions about his bride. Why had Kathe adamantly refused to be married in church? What is behind her sudden attacks of panic and grief? And why church will she tell him so little of her past? Remarkable for the intricacy of its plot and the beauty of its language, The Girl in a Swing is mystery, romance, and horror story all in one novel--a book to read again and again.
Block, Mike & Martin Greenberg. My Favorite Horror Story. Random House, 1999. As with the Western genre which I don’t read, I chose a potpourri of stories for the horror genre. MY FAVORITE HORROR STORY appealed to me because the editors, Mike Baker and Martin Greenberg, chose modern-day writers such as Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates and published the classics picked by those writers as their favorite stories. "Sweets to the Sweet" by Robert Bloch was Stephen King’s choice and transports the reader into the world of voodoo and witchcraft. The story keeps you on the edge of your seat because, as an adult, you don’t really want to believe that an eight-year old like Irma could be evil. The blood curdling, hard hitting, ending convinces the reader that, unfortunately, even an eight-year old can be among the most evil…Ed Gorman chose Philip K. Dick’s The Father-Thing as his favorite. This story gives the reader a taste of science fiction strongly blended with horror. In this tale the reader learns that often the children are more privy and understanding of what is truly going on in the world. Is the Ted Mrs. Walton sees truly her husband and Charles’s father, or could some "other worldly event" have transpired and taken the true Ted from his family?? The children conspire to ferret out the truth, and they do, but reader beware—the conclusion is very interesting, but not very pretty.
The third tale I chose to read, "The Distributor", by Richard Matheson (chosen by F. Paul Wilson) is every reader’s worst psychological horror story. Imagine a stranger who moves into a small town and begins to ingratiate himself to each and every citizen and that his likes and dislikes appear to be compatible with those of his neighbors. But, if that really is the case, why do strange things suddenly occur, events that never happened before "the distributor" moved into town? Why, suddenly is neighbor pitted against neighbor, and could Theodore Gordon, the distributor, be behind all of these strange occurrences? Only when tragedy has struck every family is Theodore’s job completed. It’s up to the reader to determine what that job is.
There are many other classics such as Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart chosen by Joyce Carol Oates included in this collection. I believe that each and every reader will find some story that will appeal to his/her tastes.
Erskine, Barbara. House of Echoes. Dutton, 1996. This is a great read, very spooky, but with a good mystery at its heart. The story is about a woman who was adopted at birth. When she finally goes in search of her birth mother she finds that she has inherited a large old house in the English countryside. Coincidentally, her husband loses his job and they are forced to sell their house and move into her family home. Once there, many spooky things start happening, while locals in the village allude to ghostly happenings. The new inhabitants of the house experience different levels of paranormal experiences, and the inheritance begins to seem more a curse than a blessing. It becomes obvious to the new owners that something must be done to stop the ghostly forces. Their only problem is that they don't know which of the forces that inhabit their house are malevolent or kindly. Barbara Erskine's book is much scarier than Novak's Five Mile House. But, like Five Mile House, mystery fans might like this tale because of the mystery surrounding the ghosts of the house. I would highly recommend both books to fans of mysteries, ghost stories, and anyone who wants a good story.
Girardi, Robert. Madeleine's Ghost. G.K. Hall, 1995. In a first novel of astonishing accomplishment, Girardi by turns portrays spooks, erotic love, muggers, Romanian mediums and the Catholic church with startlingly few slips and a shimmering style. A first-person account by Ned Conti, a graduate student in French history deeply involved in not writing his dissertation, the novel moves between New York and New Orleans, past and present, this side and "the other side" of death. Ned is languishing in a dangerous Brooklyn neighborhood, in an apartment haunted by an aggressive ghost (whose tricks include dropping stones from the ceiling) when, broke, he starts work as a researcher for a local Catholic priest who is hoping to spur the canonization of a 19th-century American nun. Soon, the forces of spirituality and history converge on Ned until he is almost painfully overburdened with mystery. When the suicide of a close friend pushes him to visit Antoinette, his Creole ex-girlfriend in Louisiana, Ned begins to sense that a New Orleans plantation family may hold a clue to his researches.
Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. Penquin, 1984. Eleanor Vance has spent most of her cramped, repressed life waiting for something exciting to happen to her--and it happens when she is invited to participate in paranormal research at a house that is rumored to be haunted. Practically from the moment of her arrival at Hill House, there are eerie manifestations . . . but is the house truly haunted, or is Eleanor the cause of the events? Jackson has mastered the art of slowly building suspense, never allowing the reader to actually see any ghosts but still creating the impression that there is something terrible in the house, or in Eleanor's mind. This is definitely NOT a book to read when you're alone in the house!
King, Stephen & Peter Straub. Black House. Random House, 2001. Seventeen years after King and Straub's first collaboration, The Talisman, comes an immensely satisfying follow-up, a brilliant and challenging dark fantasy that fans of both authors are going to love. Page by page, the novel reads as equal parts King and Straub, with the Maine master's exuberance and penchant for excess restrained by Straub's generally more elegant (though no more potent) approach. Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called The Territories to save his mother and her Territories "twinner" from a premature and agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, WI. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories and was compelled to leave the police force when an odd, happen-stance event threatened to awaken those memories. When a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier by a real-life madman named Albert Fish, the killer is dubbed "The Fisherman" and Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help his inexperienced force find him. But is this merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has a mysterious and malignant force been unleashed in this quiet town? What causes Jack's inexplicable waking dreams, if that is what they are, of robins' eggs and red feathers? It's almost as if someone is trying to tell him something. As that message becomes increasingly impossible to ignore, Jack is drawn back to the Territories and to his own hidden past, where he may find the soul-strength to enter a terrifying house at the end of a deserted track of forest, there to encounter the obscene and ferocious evils sheltered within it.
Koontz, Dean. Intensity. Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. The best word in the English language to describe Intensity by Dean Koontz is well, uh, intense. Chyna Shepherd is a twenty-six-year-old woman who has survived a deeply troubled childhood. She has just formed a trusting friendship with the young woman whose Napa Valley home she is visiting. Unable to sleep in strange surroundings, Chyna becomes aware that someone has entered the house. His name is Edgler Foreman Vess and he calls himself a "homicidal adventurer." His adventure this particular night is murdering everyone in the house. Chyna escapes death but finds herself in a real-life nightmare. Not wanting Vess to get away and go unpunished for her friend's death, Chyna hides in Vess's motor home as he leaves California heading home, wherever that may be. Chyna inadvertently learns the identity of Vess's next intended victim, a young girl who is as innocent as Chyna is endangered. She summons both courage and hope to deal with the threat of Vess as the nightmare grows more horrifying minute by minute.
Michaels, Barbara. Other Worlds. HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. Barbara Michaels (who also writes as Mystery Grandmaster Elizabeth Peters) is known for cozy romantic suspense, but Other Worlds is indeed another world of fiction for her. Set "outside time and space, in the realm of the imagination," the book is an all-star team meeting among several of the most famous dabblers in the world of the occult. These include American magician Harry Houdini, Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, Nandor Fodor (former director of the International Institute for Psychical Research), Frank Podmore of the Society for Psychical Research, and a few other guests over two nights. Michaels establishes the purpose of their gathering as "a busman's holiday", applying their combined expertise to the investigation of famous cases that have never been satisfactorily explained. Sometimes the group agree on a solution; more often they agree to disagree. On the two evening meetings recorded in this volume, the group addresses two ghost tales. The first narrative is of the Bell Witch, a ghost that haunted the Bell family for several years in 19th-century Tennessee. The second details the 1850 invasion of the Phelps family of Stratford, Connecticut, by demonic forces. In both cases, the story is followed by the commentaries of the guests, as each of them tries to explain away or justify the occult elements.
Novak, Karen. Five Mile House. Bloomsbury, 2000. Novak's book is about a woman whose life is changed forever in the first chapter of the book. A police officer, she "snaps" and kills a man, a crime for which she spends some time in a mental institution for her plea of temporary insanity. Throughout the rest of the story this crime haunts her, as do the crimes of others she has never met. She and her husband move to a small town in New York which is dominated by the restoration project of a place called Five Mile House. This house has a scandalous and bloody history, made even more vivid and frightening to the protagonist of this story by the fact that she looks exactly like a woman who lived in Five Mile House a century before her and who killed her children before committing suicide by leaping from a tower window. As a former police officer and a mother of two girls, this crime fascinates the main character, as she feels the facts "do not add up". She spends time in libraries and historical museums in the town, trying to piece together the puzzle. To tell too much more would give away the story, but I will add that there is a ghost who makes appearances in this story, even contributing a chapter or two. It is a neat book, one which many mystery and suspense fans will enjoy for its elements of whodunit. I wouldn't call this a traditional ghost story, but it does have its frightening and spooky moments.
Reynolds, Sheri. A Gracious Plenty. Harmony Books, 1997. Finch Nobles is the reclusive victim of a childhood scalding that has left her badly scarred. After her parents' death, she becomes caretaker of the graveyard in the small Southern town where she grew up. Despite its odd setting, Reynolds makes quite real the fantastic connections Finch has with the souls of the buried. While she appears lonely and isolated to the townsfolk, Finch actually develops a deep sense of community through her private communication with members of the town who have been laid to rest. The dead tell tales of suicide, child abuse, self-mutilation and sexual eccentricity. With their help, Finch tenaciously unravels two mysterious deaths and confronts the hypocrisy of her hometown. Talking to the dead has never been done like this before! The "dead" characters spend their time affecting the weather and making peace with their pasts. It is a wonderfully imaginative and creative story that will change forever the way you view cemeteries!
Rice, Anne. Interview With The Vampire. Ballantine Books, 1976. When I first heard of the premise of this book (the title) it captured my imagination and seized my curiosity. When I finally got around to reading it, it more than delivered. A journalist writes the book on one vampire in current day New Orleans, which becomes the story of several vampires over a period of centuries. The reader is virtually held captive as we find out about the whole culture of the creatures of the night: how they are created, how they feed, what they do about their Eros, how they evade mortals, everything. The events described are by turns shocking, gruesome, pathetic. Strangely, some of the characters are even sympathetic at times, even though we know all too well what they do for a living, as it were. Rice creates a mood like no other writer, and I bet Poe himself, were he given the chance, would enjoy portions of this tale; they’re that masterful. This is Rice at the height of her powers, and tale-telling that is not to be missed. If you’ve somehow managed to avoid this series until now, by all means read this first (and best) one.
