October is cold; costumes are fun but time-consuming… So, if you feel like a Halloween night, wrap yourself up in a blanket, dim the lights, and pour yourself a hot cup of your choosing. Then, it’s time to get spooked with a book!
1. The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson)
If you’re one for a classic ghost story, look no further than Jackson’s Hill House. There’s nothing more a horror lover could ask for with this one! Described as a “chilling and highly accomplished piece of writing,” Jackson delivers everything a thrill-seeker needs. First, you have your creaky old house, with its horrifying history and many ghostbusters determined to crack its secrets! Top it off with an emotionally fragile protagonist, complex relationships and a suspiciously odd caretaker, and you’ll be on high alert, listening out for your home’s bumps in the night! This one can spook even a movie lover; with two film adaptations, no one is left out!
2. The Turn of the Screw (Henry James)
An oldie but a goodie, Jame’s novel is brimmed with horror cliches, “what initially seems a pastoral idyll soon turns harrowing, as (a governess) becomes convinced that the children (she is watching) are consorting with a pair of malevolent spirits.” This book is full of suspense and relies a lot on a reader’s sordid imagination; it whets every horror fiend’s appetite with apparitions of an unknown couple, creepy kids with apparent sixth senses and quite a bit of death! This novel will not disappoint in alarming, so if you want to get spooked, look no further than The Turn of the Screw!
3. Haunted (Chuck Palahniuk)
This is one for the creeps out there! The ones who love the strangest and most warped of tales! Haunted is structured into a piece made up of 23 skin-crawling stories! As typical of Palahniuk’s work, the themes explored in this novel are sexual deviance and identity, desperation, social distastefulness, disease, murder and death.
This book will keep anyone from sleeping! More disturbing than scary, it still holds the potential for even the bravest of seasoned horror lovers to get spooked when reading it! A complex plot with many twists… maybe this one isn’t best for a cozy night in, after all…
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