strange and random happenstance

The Cloisters by Katy Hays
Published by: Atria Books
Publication Date: November 1st, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

The Cloisters are located in Washington Heights, sitting on a hill in Fort Tryon Park on the Hudson River it is a world away from the hustle and bustle of New York City. The structure is made up of elements from abbeys in France and Catalonia that incorporate four cloisters, the Cuxa, the Saint-Guilhem, the Bonnefont, and the Trie. There are three gardens containing rare medieval species of plants but most people come to see the Met's collection of 5,000 pieces of medieval art. Illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, stained glass, paintings, and sculptures adorn the Gothic chapel, the Fuentidueña chapel, the Langon chapel, the Romanesque hall, and the Treasury room. With even more treasures contained in the library and archives. This is where Ann Stilwell will be spending her summer. An Early Renaissance scholar from Whitman, a small college no one has heard of in Washington, she had secured a position in the Summer Associates Program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art being a glorified intern. It wasn't what she had planned, but it was the only thing that panned out. And it was only for three months. But it was a start. A way to get away from home and its dark memories. When she arrives at the Met they inform her that they no longer have a place for her. She is nothing more than an administrative oversight. She can't believe what she's hearing. She's frozen to the spot. Unable to move when in walks Patrick Roland, the curator of The Cloisters. He's there to inform them that his temporary, and totally unsuitable, associate curator has left him in the lurch. He needs more hands and right there in front of him is Ann. She'll be perfect. And all Ann can think is that it's serendipity, that if she hadn't sat there a moment too long she wouldn't be being swept away from Museum Mile into another world, a sheltered haven of enigmatic curators. Rachel Mondray, the curatorial associate, and Leo Bitburg, the gardener, become her closest friends. When Ann proves adept they decide to bring her into their world of shadowy secrets, rare book dealers, poisonous plants, and, above all, the tarot. The tarot is Patrick's infatuation. But his obsession isn't just academic, he's a true believer, and Ann's discovery of a 15th-century Italian tarot card from a deck previously thought lost changes everything. The power dynamics in the group shift and control is lost and one night things get out of hand and Patrick ends up dead. Any one of them could have done it, but Ann will make sure it isn't her who takes the fall.

I picked up The Cloisters because I have a fascination with the tarot. Not so much it's mystical powers with regard to divination, but the history and the art. Pamela Colman Smith's illustrations for the Rider-Waite Tarot deck are iconic. You would most likely recognize them even if you knew nothing about tarot they are that famous. So while I am more into the practical side of tarot, the mystical side, especially in fiction, is irresistible to me. And the marketing for The Cloisters leaned into this dark academia vibe with a supernaturally aided power play via tarot. In fact Katy Hays went so far as to actually include Ann Stilwell's Guide to Reading Tarot with pages and pages of details about the Ferrara Deck. The major and minor arcana are laid out over twelve pages with associated gods and planetary rulers and detailed descriptions of the illustrations and their meanings. So I have to ask, if the tarot was seemingly so important why is it nothing more than a MacGuffin? You do not write the rules for an entire tarot deck to have that deck be a red herring! That just makes no sense. And yet that's exactly what this book did. The cards don't matter, it's just the shiny object that everyone wants because they think it will bring them power. It literally could have been anything. Hell, they're surrounded by medieval artifacts, why wasn't it a chalice? Go all Indiana Jones! Because the tarot brings baggage, it brings expectations, and none of those were met. There's nothing magical here other than a well told story about four people manipulating each other to see who comes out on top. Words are magic, so I don't need a promise of magic that is never fulfilled because now I feel cheated. I feel so let down. And I can't tell if it's because Katy Hays had other plans for when she outlined the book and what she ended up writing or it if was all an act of misdirection. A way for these sociopaths to justify their behavior by saying it's fate. By claiming the mystical when it's just the mundane. The Cloisters themselves gave such a sense of place, a sense of something bigger than them while still being precious, that I wish the actions of the characters matched the setting. Look to Rosemary's Baby. There is the sense of place, the wish fulfillment, and then the devil. This does show evil but it's not enough to save it from a failure to deliver. I can't help thinking that if Riley Sager was to do a rewrite, bring in a little more of Hill House, that this could be perfection. As it is, it's an incomplete deck lost to time.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ann Stilwell, Dark Academia, Indiana Jones, Intern, Katy Hays, MacGuffin, Murder Most Foul, Museum, New York City, Red Herring, Riley Sager, Rosemary's Baby, The Cloisters, The Haunting of Hill House, The MET

Auld Acquaintance by Sofia Slater
Published by: Swift Press
Publication Date: November 3rd, 2022
Format: Kindle, 229 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Millie Partridge just can't catch a break. Going into the holidays single and unemployed makes her do something reckless. When her ex Nick sends her an invitation to a luxurious New Year's Eve party at a Downtonesque manor in the Outer Hebrides, Fairweather House, she uses the last of her money to get there. She is desperate for her life to turn around and this might be just what she needs, to ring in the New Year with an auld acquaintance that shouldn't be forgot. Though if she were looking for an omen, the scene of the fatal car crash she passes on the way to the ferry should have made her reconsider her plans. The island is so remote that the ferry only stops by when it feels like it and there's a storm moving in off the Atlantic, so the guests for the party are either on board with her or already ensconced in holiday merrymaking on the island. Which means Nick must have got there ahead of her. When she finally arrives at the supposedly stately home it's nothing like she imagined. This is more haunted house than manor house. And then there's Mrs. Flyte. The chatelaine who won't answer questions. Even the person who booked the venue is verboten. And as for the guests? Millie is crestfallen that despite inviting her Nick is nowhere to be seen. And what's more, these can't be his friends can they? There's an off-putting and enigmatic lawyer, Winston, a rather glamorous influencer Bella, and her partner Ravi, and James. James seems too normal to be there and like Millie he is rather out of place, which is making Millie ill at ease. Like she's fallen into a trap. But the biggest shock is that there is a guest that Millie does know. A person she hoped to never see again, her ex-colleague, Penny Maybury. What happened between them at their previous place of employment should never be thought of and Penny being here in the middle of nowhere is an unwelcome reminder. And if Millie thought that the party was off to a rocky start, well, it's nothing to what's in store. As they sit down for dinner it is revealed that the final two guests that were expected were none other than her and Penny's ex-employer and his wife and they were the fatalities in the crash that Millie passed that morning. This is a shock to the system. But not the first and certainly not the last. Come morning Penny is missing. Her coat out on the cliffedge the only sign of her. Was this deliberate or an accident? They have no way to call for help and soon it becomes all to apparent that this was no accident. Nothing was. They've all be brought here and not all will leave.

You can't talk about Auld Acquaintance without talking about And Then There Were None. And Then There Were None is the bestselling mystery of all time, which, OK, maybe that did surprise me, but at the same time, I get it. And it did bring us Aidan Turner in a towel. Of course this means that there have been many adaptations and reinterpretations, hello Aidan! Hell, even Agatha Christie changed the ending of her book for theatregoers thinking that her original ending was a little too bleak, which personally is why I like it. Auld Acquaintance is a retelling of this tale, and sadly a lot of people seem to hold that against it. Firstly, while Agatha Christie might be the best in the business, that doesn't mean that she somehow has the right to hold all the intellectual property rights over people going to an island and being killed off one by one. Yes, she did it spectacularly, but that doesn't mean that no one else can now use that trope in perpetuity. Because I personally found Auld Acquaintance to a complete and utter delight. Yes, it's derivative, but guess what? It has fun with the trope. This book brought me nothing but glee. Because while it takes from And Then There Were None it also takes from The Haunting of Hill House, making it this wonderfully Gothic melange that kept you guessing and wondering if, in fact, we did indeed possibly have something supernaturally Scotch. The "attacks" on the residents of Fairweather House really had the Shirley Jackson vibe of questioning your reality that I just can't seem to get enough of. And yes, even if you do figure out what is going on, which I did, it was still fun. This was the first book I read in 2024, in fact I started it on New Year's Eve 2023, and I would encourage everyone to do so. In fact I'm kind of wondering why I didn't reread it to ring in 2025... Because it is literally that fun. For me, the holidays mean murder, and if it can have a dash of Gothic dread, that just makes it all the more enjoyable. But most importantly, for me this book has given me a new author to look out for. While Sofia Slater's second book, The Serpent Dance, isn't available stateside yet, I couldn't wait to read it being as it sounds like it's heavily influenced by The Wicker Man and so I ordered it from Waterstones. Because once you find an author you love, you can never get enough.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Aidan Turner, And Then There Were None, Auld Acquaintance, Gothic, Murder Most Foul, New Year's Eve, Shirley Jackson, Sofia Slater, The Haunting of Hill House, The Serpent Dance, The Wicker Man

Auld Acquaintance by Sofia Slater
Published by: Swift Press
Publication Date: November 3rd, 2022
Format: Kindle, 229 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Millie Partridge just can't catch a break. Going into the holidays single and unemployed makes her do something reckless. When her ex Nick sends her an invitation to a luxurious New Year's Eve party at a Downtonesque manor in the Outer Hebrides, Fairweather House, she uses the last of her money to get there. She is desperate for her life to turn around and this might be just what she needs, to ring in the New Year with an auld acquaintance that shouldn't be forgot. Though if she were looking for an omen, the scene of the fatal car crash she passes on the way to the ferry should have made her reconsider her plans. The island is so remote that the ferry only stops by when it feels like it and there's a storm moving in off the Atlantic, so the guests for the party are either on board with her or already ensconced in holiday merrymaking on the island. Which means Nick must have got there ahead of her. When she finally arrives at the supposedly stately home it's nothing like she imagined. This is more haunted house than manor house. And then there's Mrs. Flyte. The chatelaine who won't answer questions. Even the person who booked the venue is verboten. And as for the guests? Millie is crestfallen that despite inviting her Nick is nowhere to be seen. And what's more, these can't be his friends can they? There's an off-putting and enigmatic lawyer, Winston, a rather glamorous influencer Bella, and her partner Ravi, and James. James seems too normal to be there and like Millie he is rather out of place, which is making Millie ill at ease. Like she's fallen into a trap. But the biggest shock is that there is a guest that Millie does know. A person she hoped to never see again, her ex-colleague, Penny Maybury. What happened between them at their previous place of employment should never be thought of and Penny being here in the middle of nowhere is an unwelcome reminder. And if Millie thought that the party was off to a rocky start, well, it's nothing to what's in store. As they sit down for dinner it is revealed that the final two guests that were expected were none other than her and Penny's ex-employer and his wife and they were the fatalities in the crash that Millie passed that morning. This is a shock to the system. But not the first and certainly not the last. Come morning Penny is missing. Her coat out on the cliffedge the only sign of her. Was this deliberate or an accident? They have no way to call for help and soon it becomes all to apparent that this was no accident. Nothing was. They've all be brought here and not all will leave.

You can't talk about Auld Acquaintance without talking about And Then There Were None. And Then There Were None is the bestselling mystery of all time, which, OK, maybe that did surprise me, but at the same time, I get it. And it did bring us Aidan Turner in a towel. Of course this means that there have been many adaptations and reinterpretations, hello Aidan! Hell, even Agatha Christie changed the ending of her book for theatregoers thinking that her original ending was a little too bleak, which personally is why I like it. Auld Acquaintance is a retelling of this tale, and sadly a lot of people seem to hold that against it. Firstly, while Agatha Christie might be the best in the business, that doesn't mean that she somehow has the right to hold all the intellectual property rights over people going to an island and being killed off one by one. Yes, she did it spectacularly, but that doesn't mean that no one else can now use that trope in perpetuity. Because I personally found Auld Acquaintance to a complete and utter delight. Yes, it's derivative, but guess what? It has fun with the trope. This book brought me nothing but glee. Because while it takes from And Then There Were None it also takes from The Haunting of Hill House, making it this wonderfully Gothic melange that kept you guessing and wondering if, in fact, we did indeed possibly have something supernaturally Scotch. The "attacks" on the residents of Fairweather House really had the Shirley Jackson vibe of questioning your reality that I just can't seem to get enough of. And yes, even if you do figure out what is going on, which I did, it was still fun. This was the first book I read in 2024, in fact I started it on New Year's Eve 2023, and I would encourage everyone to do so. In fact I'm kind of wondering why I didn't reread it to ring in 2025... Because it is literally that fun. For me, the holidays mean murder, and if it can have a dash of Gothic dread, that just makes it all the more enjoyable. But most importantly, for me this book has given me a new author to look out for. While Sofia Slater's second book, The Serpent Dance, isn't available stateside yet, I couldn't wait to read it being as it sounds like it's heavily influenced by The Wicker Man and so I ordered it from Waterstones. Because once you find an author you love, you can never get enough.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Aidan Turner, And Then There Were None, Auld Acquaintance, Gothic, New Year's Eve, Retelling, Shirley Jackson, Sofia Slater, The Haunting of Hill House, The Serpent Dance, The Wicker Man

When I first watched The Haunting of Hill House I realized that for the first time an adaptation got the source material. Not that it was actually a direct adaptation of Shirley Jackson's work. It was reinterpreted and remolded and what Mike Flanagan did was create a series that is in the spirit of the original and a loving tribute to it while being its own thing. It was the start of his Netflix empire, the Flanaverse. And the start of his "house" series. Because audiences adored The Haunting of Hill House and were demanding more. More of Mike Flanagan's unique take on classic literature. More spooky tales in amazing structures. They got their wish two years later with The Haunting of Bly Manor, an adaptation that actually made me no longer hate The Turn of the Screw. And that lead to speculation, what was next? He threw us for a loop when it turned out to be an original show followed by another adaptation without architecture but with amazing sets, but thankfully, he came to his senses and decided that after Shirley Jackson and Henry James he was bringing Edgar Allan Poe into the Flanaverse with The Fall of the House of Usher. And unlike The Haunting of Bly Manor he didn't even have to change the title! So he assembled his stable of actors, adding in Frank Langella, which turned out to be a massive mistake, and got to work. What I marvel at with this adaptation is how Mike Flanagan created a narrative that not only encompassed so many works by Poe but also was such a showcase for his actors with each of the six Usher children getting their own deadly tale. And yet, for all the Poe, this is something more, this is a story about greed, this is a story about the opioid crisis in America, this is a story that someone who doesn't know anything about Poe could watch and enjoy. Because while the "Poe" of it all is wonderful for the literary geeks out there hoping they'll do this or that, or in my case chanting for monkey carnage, this is more about a family falling apart because they made a deal with the devil. This show is, without doubt, based on the Sackler family. They owned Purdue Pharma and were a cornerstone if not the cornerstone of the opioid crisis we now face. There are so many films and television shows and documentaries on them, two, Painkiller and Pain Hustlers, also done by Netflix. Though Dopesick probably got the most attention and awards. These are all shows I avoided like the plague in "The Masque of the Red Death." I like escapism in my entertainment, not to wallow in human suffering. Even if I will admit it's very important shows like this are made. We need a record of what happened. But here, here we have the same evil told through a fantastical lens, and the fantasy aspects make the truth of what this family is doing all the more horrifying. But unlike lawsuits and the striping of a family's legacy, here we see them pay more viscerally for their crimes. The character of Verna, an anagram of Raven, has appeared to the Ushers because the time has come to pay the piper. And yes, that might just be "The Rains of Castamere" the piper is playing. Yet if you notice, for the "innocent" among the Ushers, she offers them a chance at redemption. Those who are not fully evil are given an out, a chance to not go there, and time and time again, they show that their greed, their villainy, is the true drive in their lives, and therefore they must die. This show is cathatic and wonderful and dark and perfectly encapsulates the human condition and as for Frank Langella? He couldn't have done what Bruce Greenwood does. Bruce Greenwood is Roderick Usher.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Addiction, And the Emmy Goes To, Bruce Greenwood, Cathartic, Edgar Allan Poe, Flanaverse, Netflix, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Haunting of Hill House, The Raven, The Sacklers

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Published by: Tor.com
Publication Date: September 9th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Gideon wants nothing to do with the Ninth. The house is nothing more than a creepy death cult guarding a locked tomb that is quickly dying out. She wants off the planet and out of the life she's begrudgingly lived. But her countless escape plans have never worked and this newest one is no different, even if it's the closest she's ever come. She is once again stopped by her nemesis, Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Harrowhark is the scion of the Ninth. A wickedly powerful necromancer who has been puppeteering her parents corpses for years in an effort to make it look like the Ninth is still functional and not on it's last legs. This appearance is more important than ever as the Emperor has called all nine houses to his abandoned palace, Canaan House, to compete for the honor to become Lyctors, eternals who serve at his side. The problem is that each house has to have a cavalier, a warrior, indefatigable and unbeatable, who protects the necromancer. And Harrowhark's actual cavalier is more interested in poetry. Therefore the only real contender for Harrowhark's cavalier is Gideon. The problem is Gideon wasn't trained for this role and more importantly she'd rather see Harrowhark dead than be the one having to save her. So Harrowhark makes a deal. They go to Canaan House, they put on the show of a lifetime, Harrowhark wins and becomes a Lyctor and Gideon gets to ride off into the sunset. Gideon doesn't like this plan. Gideon doesn't think it will work. I mean, how can she pass herself off with frilly fencing when she fights with a two-hander? Gideon better be a fast learner because Gideon doesn't have a choice. When they arrive at Canaan House Gideon is quickly abandoned by Harrowhark who plays up the mystique of the the Ninth House by being wreathed in shrouds and totally unavailable to Gideon. Gideon sees quite quickly that the reputation of the Ninth makes all the other houses wary of her, and yet, slowly, she starts to befriend them. That's when they start dying. This Lyctor test was set up in a way that makes the suspicious houses unable to win, but amply able to die. Will Gideon even live to cash in on Harrowhark's promise or will she die screaming in agony on a distant planet? At least she won't die near the benighted locked tomb...

Me and much lauded books rarely get along. My tastes are rarely the tastes of the masses. Yet again and again I feel drawn to read them. That's how I picked up Gideon the Ninth. I mean, lesbian necromancers in space sounds awesome, but there was that voice saying, but is it for you? Turns out it was. But it wasn't love at first sight. This is a book that improves on reread because, just like Jane Eyre, there's all this dark exposition that takes place before the book actually gets good. But thankfully, just like Jane Eyre, the second time you read it you fly through the dark bits knowing the good stuff is coming soon. And that good stuff? Well, it's the Gothic space thriller of my dreams! Teams of two pitted against each other in order to find keys to literally unlock secrets in the biggest most haunted space palace you could imagine. There were elements of The Haunting of Hill House and The Hunger Games and Rose Red! But the joy in a reread is that knowing the twists and turns to come I was watching the magnificent setup that Tamsyn Muir was orchestrating with awe. I wasn't furiously reading to figure out what was going on, I was luxuriating in the twists and turns. Though what I found interesting this time is that I was reading this book with friends, so all those theories I had about the book being the victim of hype to it just being very polarizing came into play in another way, in that it really divided my book club. And the thing is, I can see where they're coming from because for awhile that's where I was when I first read it. Opinions ranged from complete love to those who wanted to love it but just didn't to those who claimed it ruined their holidays. So, the complete gamut of emotions and responses on display. The one thing I found fascinating though is apparently this book is just crammed with meme references and cultural jokes deriving mainly from The Office. There are literally websites and Reddit forums dedicated to this. Personally I only caught a few so I thought it was like a funny Easter Egg, there so that if you know you know but not infringing on the text. But the thing is I've never really watched the US version of The Office, and two members of my book club said there were so many jokes just from that show they couldn't take the book seriously and it sullied it. So my advice is don't watch The Office? Seriously, I never "got" the US version anyway.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Canaan House, For the Love of Book Clubs, Gideon Nav, Gideon the Ninth, Gothic, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Jane Eyre, Lyctor, Memes, Polarizing, Rose Red, The Haunting of Hill House, The Hunger Games, The Office

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Published by: Tor.com
Publication Date: September 9th, 2019
Format: Kindle, 479 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Gideon wants nothing to do with the Ninth. The house is nothing more than a creepy death cult guarding a locked tomb that is quickly dying out. She wants off the planet and out of the life she's begrudgingly lived. But her countless escape plans have never worked and this newest one is no different, even if it's the closest she's ever come. She is once again stopped by her nemesis, Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Harrowhark is the scion of the Ninth. A wickedly powerful necromancer who has been puppeteering her parents corpses for years in an effort to make it look like the Ninth is still a functional house and not on it's last legs. This appearance is more important than ever as the Emperor has called all nine houses to his abandoned palace, Canaan House, to compete for the honor to become Lyctors, eternals who serve at his side. The problem is that each house has to have a cavalier, a warrior, indefatigable and unbeatable, who protects the necromancer. The only real contender for Harrowhark's cavalier is Gideon. The problem is Gideon wasn't trained for this role and more importantly she'd rather see Harrowhark dead than be the one having to save her. So Harrowhark makes a deal. They go to Canaan House, they put on the show of a lifetime, Harrowhark wins and becomes a Lyctor and Gideon gets to ride off into the sunset. Gideon doesn't like this plan. Gideon doesn't think it will work. Gideon doesn't have a choice. When they arrive at Canaan House Gideon is quickly abandoned by Harrowhark who plays up the mystique of the the Ninth House by being wreathed in shrouds and totally unavailable to Gideon. Gideon sees quite quickly that the reputation of the Ninth makes all the other houses wary of her, and yet, slowly she starts to befriend them. That's when they start dying. This Lyctor test was set up in a way that makes the suspicious houses unable to win, but amply able to die. Will Gideon even live to cash in on Harrowhark's promise or will she die screaming in agony on a distant planet? At least she won't die near the benighted locked tomb...

Me and much lauded books rarely get along. My tastes are rarely the tastes of the masses. And yet again and again I feel drawn to read them. That's how I picked up Gideon the Ninth. Though I was circumspect in that I knew it might not be for me and therefore got it from my local library. I mean, lesbian necromancers in space sounds awesome, but there was that voice saying, but is it for you? Turns out it was. But not without the reservations continuing for quite awhile. After my first night of reading I actually reached out to my friends asking them "has anyone read Gideon the Ninth? I am a die hard must finish a book and have literally only given up on one in the last decade...but this isn't catching my interest at all..." Theories ranged from it being the victim of hype to it just being very polarizing. But I refused to give up and this book is literally why I don't give up on books, aside from that one a few years back which I try not to think of. Gideon the Ninth literally took a third of the way through the book to click and when it did it became magnificent. This became the Gothic space thriller of my dreams! Teams of two pitted against each other in order to find keys to literally unlock secrets in the biggest most haunted space palace you could imagine. There were elements of The Haunting of Hill House and The Hunger Games and Rose Red! I literally was dumbfounded that the book I had bemoaned became this epic read. One of my friends was shocked it went from a possible DNF to four stars in the span of a week. I was even encouraging him to keep going because he would be surprised by what it became. Therefore I use this book as a reminder, whatever you use to cull your TBR Pile, a hundred page rule, a quarter rule, whatever, it wouldn't have worked here. Never judge a book until you read that last line, it might end up one of your favorite reads.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cavalier, Gideon Nav, Gideon the Ninth, Going Gothic, Gothic, Harrowhark, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Haunted House, Necromancer, Rose Red, Space Opera, Tamsyn Muir, TBR, The Haunting of Hill House, The Hunger Games

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
Published by: Dutton
Publication Date: June 30th, 2020
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Imagine being known your entire life as the girl who survived one the the country's most notorious haunted houses. Now imagine that notoriety is all your father's fault for publishing the experience in a book that rivaled The Amityville Horror in sales and skepticism. House of Horrors has haunted Maggie her entire life. What's more galling than the endless questions about Baneberry Hall is the fact that she can't remember anything that happened. Therefore she has grown up a skeptic. Ghosts don't exist and her father obviously made everything up as a cash grab, feathering their bank account and destroying Maggie's life and his marriage to Maggie's mother in the process. But when he dies Maggie learns a surprising fact, he never sold Baneberry Hall. He could have made a killing turning it into a tourist attraction, further incensing the ire of the locals, but instead he held onto the property. Fueled by her past Maggie has grown up smart and sensible and is a home restorer, proving on a daily basis there's nothing to fear in the walls of old houses but vermin and mold. Therefore upon learning of her windfall she does the logical thing, she returns to Baneberry Hall to assess it, fix it up, and sell it. A move that her mother begs her not to do. In fact she flat out offers to buy the house from Maggie so that she won't return to that horrible place. Her mother's insistence to stay away makes Maggie even more curious. This is nothing more than a house they're talking about. Sure it's big and rambling but there are no evil forces, because there are no such things as ghosts. Or are there? Because once in the house Maggie starts to experience what could be categorized as otherworldly phenomena. She also starts to remember what her father wrote about all those years ago. But that book can't be true can it?

I don't know why but while most people read horror around Halloween for some reason nothing says horror to me like a hot summer day with the cicadas singing. The long summer evenings where the light is still present to keep the horrors contained within the pages of a book at bay. Or pulling the shades down against the setting sun and watching a horror film before the creatures can reach out of the dark corners and worm their way into your nightmares. I devoured Home Before Dark over a few hot July nights and it easily became my book of the summer. It had everything I hope for in a book, I even got the bejesus scared out of me one night because I turned out the lights and my room was filled with a luminous glow. Turns out this book was designed by some genius graphic designers who used luminous ink on the cover. I tip my hat to you whomever made me almost crap my pants. What I particularly loved about Home Before Dark was the switching of the narrative between Maggie in the "present" and chapters from her father's book. House of Horrors was perfectly written in that it stylistically captured that specific genre of "true" hauntings from the late seventies and the early eighties. I was a kid again getting scared by a story just because it said it was "based on true events!" What's more is this book pays tribute to all the great haunted house books, in particular The Haunting of Hill House and the recent Netflix adaptation that I couldn't get enough of. In fact I think this book might make the rota of spooky books I return to again and again. Let's put it this way, this book has made Riley Sager a must read author with me only having picked up one of his four volumes in print.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Baneberry Hall, Gothic, Halloween, Haunted House, Home Before Dark, Home Restoration, House of Horrors, Netflix, Riley Sager, Shirley Jackson, The Amityville Horror, The Haunting of Hill House

After seeing the amazing interpretation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House that Mike Flanagan pulled off I was beyond excited for The Haunting of Bly Manor. And this was only approximately 79% to do with Rahul Kohli being cast. OK, it was probably closer to 100% because I am not a fan of The Turn of the Screw like I am with The Haunting of Hill House, but that's why this adaptation is so perfect, it made me like The Turn of the Screw and the other stories by Henry James that were incorporated. This miniseries turned a bleak tale of possible madness into a love story. And not just a single love story either! There are many couples to ship here. In fact this show might have healed and broken my heart simultaneously. If someone were to say to me "it's you, it's me, it's us" I would probably break down sobbing right this second. Yet this phrase which comes to mean so much about the power of love started out menacing. That's what's amazing here. The way the story unfolds. What was one thing becomes another and another and everything you think you knew keeps changing. This is a miniseries that could easily be rewatched the second you finish it just to fill in the gaps you might have missed. The one thing I found odd when reading reviews of what people have dubbed the second season of Mike Flanagan's "Haunting" series is that so many people took exception to the penultimate episode shot in black and white, "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes." This episode set centuries earlier explains how Bly Manor came to be the haunted place it is with Mike Flanagan's wife, Kate Siegel, Theo from The Haunting of Hill House, taking center stage. This episode is lyrical and perfectly paced. There are phrases that come back to me again and again while thinking about this show. "She would sleep, she would wake, she would walk." And while yes, this could be a way to explain all our lives during quarantine and it's repetitive nature, it also taps into the broken record aspect of a haunting. How ghosts are just reliving the same moments over and over again which is why the penultimate episode is crucial! This show is time loops and the supernatural and true love all mashed up together and all I have to say is more!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: And the Emmy Goes To, Ghosts, Henry James, Kate Siegel, Mike Flanagan, Rahul Kohli, Shirley Jackson, Short Stories, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Haunting of Hill House, The Turn of the Screw

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
Published by: Dutton
Publication Date: June 30th, 2020
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
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Imagine being known your entire life as the girl who survived one the the country's most notorious haunted houses. Now imagine that notoriety is all your father's fault for publishing the experience in a book that rivaled The Amityville Horror in sales and skepticism. House of Horrors has haunted Maggie her entire life. What's more galling than the endless questions about Baneberry Hall is the fact that she can't remember anything that happened. Therefore she has grown up a skeptic. Ghosts don't exist and her father obviously made everything up as a cash grab, feathering their bank account and destroying Maggie's life and his marriage to Maggie's mother in the process. But when he dies Maggie learns a surprising fact, he never sold Baneberry Hall. He could have made a killing turning it into a tourist attraction, further incensing the ire of the locals, but instead he held onto the property. Fueled by her past Maggie has grown up smart and sensible and is a home restorer, proving on a daily basis there's nothing to fear in the walls of old houses but vermin and mold. Therefore upon learning of her windfall she does the logical thing, she returns to Baneberry Hall to assess it, fix it up, and sell it. A move that her mother begs her not to do. In fact she flat out offers to buy the house from Maggie so that she won't return to that horrible place. Her mother's insistence to stay away makes Maggie even more curious. This is nothing more than a house they're talking about. Sure it's big and rambling but there are no evil forces, because there are no such things as ghosts. Or are there? Because once in the house Maggie starts to experience what could be categorized as otherworldly phenomena. She also starts to remember what her father wrote about all those years ago. But that book can't be true can it?

I don't know why but while most people read horror around Halloween for some reason nothing says horror to me like a hot summer day with the cicadas singing. The long summer evenings where the light is still present to keep the horrors contained within the pages of a book at bay. Or pulling the shades down against the setting sun and watching a horror film before the creatures can reach out of the dark corners and worm their way into your nightmares. I devoured Home Before Dark over a few hot July nights and it easily became my book of the summer. It had everything I hope for in a book, I even got the bejesus scared out of me one night because I turned out the lights and my room was filled with a luminous glow. Turns out this book was designed by some genius graphic designers who used luminous ink on the cover. I tip my hat to you whomever made me almost crap my pants. What I particularly loved about Home Before Dark was the switching of the narrative between Maggie in the "present" and chapters from her father's book. House of Horrors was perfectly written in that it stylistically captured that specific genre of "true" hauntings from the late seventies and the early eighties. I was a kid again getting scared by a story just because it said it was "based on true events!" What's more is this book pays tribute to all the great haunted house books, in particular The Haunting of Hill House and the recent Netflix adaptation that I couldn't get enough of. In fact I think this book might make the rota of spooky books I return to again and again. Let's put it this way, this book has made Riley Sager a must read author with me only having picked up one of his four volumes in print.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Baneberry Hall, Gothic, Halloween, Haunted House, Home Before Dark, Home Restoration, House of Horrors, Netflix, Riley Sager, Shirley Jackson, The Amityville Horror, The Haunting of Hill House

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Published by: Tor.com
Publication Date: September 9th, 2019
Format: Kindle, 479 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Gideon wants nothing to do with the Ninth. The house is nothing more than a creepy death cult guarding a locked tomb that is quickly dying out. She wants off the planet and out of the life she's begrudgingly lived. But her countless escape plans have never worked and this newest one is no different, even if it's the closest she's ever come. She is once again stopped by her nemesis, Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Harrowhark is the scion of the Ninth. A wickedly powerful necromancer who has been puppeteering her parents corpses for years in an effort to make it look like the Ninth is still a functional house and not on it's last legs. This appearance is more important than ever as the Emperor has called all nine houses to his abandoned palace, Canaan House, to compete for the honor to become Lyctors, eternals who serve at his side. The problem is that each house has to have a cavalier, a warrior, indefatigable and unbeatable, who protects the necromancer. The only real contender for Harrowhark's cavalier is Gideon. The problem is Gideon wasn't trained for this role and more importantly she'd rather see Harrowhark dead than be the one having to save her. So Harrowhark makes a deal. They go to Canaan House, they put on the show of a lifetime, Harrowhark wins and becomes a Lyctor and Gideon gets to ride off into the sunset. Gideon doesn't like this plan. Gideon doesn't think it will work. Gideon doesn't have a choice. When they arrive at Canaan House Gideon is quickly abandoned by Harrowhark who plays up the mystique of the the Ninth House by being wreathed in shrouds and totally unavailable to Gideon. Gideon sees quite quickly that the reputation of the Ninth makes all the other houses wary of her, and yet, slowly she starts to befriend them. That's when they start dying. This Lyctor test was set up in a way that makes the suspicious houses unable to win, but amply able to die. Will Gideon even live to cash in on Harrowhark's promise or will she die screaming in agony on a distant planet? At least she won't die near the benighted locked tomb...

Me and much lauded books rarely get along. My tastes are rarely the tastes of the masses. And yet again and again I feel drawn to read them. That's how I picked up Gideon the Ninth. Though I was circumspect in that I knew it might not be for me and therefore got it from my local library. I mean, lesbian necromancers in space sounds awesome, but there was that voice saying, but is it for you? Turns out it was. But not without the reservations continuing for quite awhile. After my first night of reading I actually reached out to my friends asking them "has anyone read Gideon the Ninth? I am a die hard must finish a book and have literally only given up on one in the last decade...but this isn't catching my interest at all..." Theories ranged from it being the victim of hype to it just being very polarizing. But I refused to give up and this book is literally why I don't give up on books, aside from that one a few years back which I try not to think of. Gideon the Ninth literally took a third of the way through the book to click and when it did it became magnificent. This became the Gothic space thriller of my dreams! Teams of two pitted against each other in order to find keys to literally unlock secrets in the biggest most haunted space palace you could imagine. There were elements of The Haunting of Hill House and The Hunger Games and Rose Red! I literally was dumbfounded that the book I had bemoaned became this epic read. One of my friends was shocked it went from a possible DNF to four stars in the span of a week. I was even encouraging him to keep going because he would be surprised by what it became. Therefore I use this book as a reminder, whatever you use to cull your TBR Pile, a hundred page rule, a quarter rule, whatever, it wouldn't have worked here. Never judge a book until you read that last line, it might end up one of your favorite reads.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cavalier, Gideon Nav, Gideon the Ninth, Gothic, Harrowhark, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Haunted House, Necromancer, Rose Red, Space Opera, Tamsyn Muir, TBR, The Haunting of Hill House, The Hunger Games

Shadowplay by Joseph O'Connor
Published by: Europa Editions
Publication Date: June 16th, 2020
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Shadowplay by New York Times best-selling author, Joseph O'Connor, is set during the golden age of West End theater in a London shaken by the crimes of Jack the Ripper.

Henry Irving is Victorian London's most celebrated actor and theater impresario. He has introduced groundbreaking ideas to the theater, bringing to the stage performances that are spectacular, shocking, and always entertaining. When Irving decides to open his own London theater with the goal of making it the greatest playhouse on earth, he hires a young Dublin clerk harboring literary ambitions by the name of Bram Stoker to manage it. As Irving's theater grows in reputation and financial solvency, he lures to his company of mummers the century's most beloved actress, the dazzlingly talented leading lady Ellen Terry, who nightly casts a spell not only on her audiences but also on Stoker and Irving both.

Bram Stoker's extraordinary experiences at the Lyceum Theatre, his early morning walks on the streets of a London terrorized by a serial killer, his long, tempestuous relationship with Irving, and the closeness he finds with Ellen Terry, inspire him to write Dracula, the most iconic and best-selling supernatural tale ever published.

A magnificent portrait both of lamp-lit London and of lives and loves enacted on the stage, Shadowplay's rich prose, incomparable storytelling, and vivid characters will linger in readers' hearts and minds for many years."

Ripperologist here who happened to work in the theatre! 

The Woman in the Green Dress by Tea Cooper
Published by: Thomas Nelson
Publication Date: June 16th, 2020
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A cursed opal, a gnarled family tree, and a sinister woman in a green dress emerge in the aftermath of World War I.

After a whirlwind romance, London teashop waitress Fleur Richards can't wait for her new husband, Hugh, to return from the Great War. But when word of his death arrives on Armistice Day, Fleur learns he has left her a sizable family fortune. Refusing to accept the inheritance, she heads to his beloved home country of Australia in search of the relatives who deserve it more.

In spite of her reluctance, she soon finds herself the sole owner of a remote farm and a dilapidated curio shop full of long-forgotten artifacts, remarkable preserved creatures, and a mystery that began more than sixty-five years ago. With the help of Kip, a repatriated soldier dealing with the sobering aftereffects of war, Fleur finds herself unable to resist pulling on the threads of the past. What she finds is a shocking story surrounding an opal and a woman in a green dress...a story that, nevertheless, offers hope and healing for the future.

This romantic mystery from award-winning Australian novelist Tea Cooper will keep readers guessing until the astonishing conclusion."

Cursed gems!?! YAS!

Nightingale House by Steve Frech
Published by: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: June 16th, 2020
Format: Kindle, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"For fans of Stephen King, Mark Edwards, and The Haunting of Hill House comes a dark tale of a mysterious house haunted by tragedy.

The Nightingale House is a new beginning for widower Daniel Price and his young daughter Caitlyn. After months of grief, this will be the place where they start their life as a family of two.

But something is wrong - Daniel can’t settle. There’s an odd, cold feeling in the master bedroom, and a mysterious dripping noise that seems to move from room to room. Whispers of I can’t sleep echo through the corridors, long into the night.

And then Daniel uncovers the chilling story of the family who lived in the house years before, of betrayal, tragedy, and murder. Could the Nightingale House be not the home Daniel dreamed of for his daughter - but a place that will bring their worst nightmares to life?"

Everyone should have a good haunted house story to read in the summer months.

Vera Kelly is Not a Mystery by Rosalie Knecht
Published by: Tin House Books
Publication Date: June 16th, 2020
Format: Paperback
To Buy

The official patter:
"The “splendid genre-pushing” (People) Vera Kelly series returns in full force as our recently out-of-the-spy-game heroine finds herself traveling from Brooklyn to a sprawling countryside estate in the Caribbean in her first case as a private investigator.

When ex-CIA agent Vera Kelly loses her job and her girlfriend in a single day, she reluctantly goes into business as a private detective. Heartbroken and cash-strapped, she takes a case that dredges up dark memories and attracts dangerous characters from across the Cold War landscape. Before it’s over, she’ll chase a lost child through foster care and follow a trail of Dominican exiles to the Caribbean. Forever looking over her shoulder, she nearly misses what’s right in front of her: her own desire for home, connection, and a new romance at the local bar.

In this exciting second installment of the Vera Kelly series, Rosalie Knecht challenges and deepens the Vera we love: a woman of sparkling wit, deep moral fiber, and martini-dry humor who knows how to follow a case even as she struggles to follow her heart."

If you're missing Killing Eve, this book is for you.

American Demon by Kim Harrison
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: June 16th, 2020
Format: Hardcover, 496 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"RACHEL MORGAN IS BACK - AND THE HOLLOWS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.

What happens after you've saved the world? Well, if you're Rachel Mariana Morgan, witch-born demon, you quickly discover that something might have gone just a little bit wrong. That the very same acts you and your friends took to forge new powers may have released something bound by the old. With a rash of zombies, some strange new murders, and an exceedingly mysterious new demon in town, it will take everything Rachel has to counter this new threat to the world--and it may demand the sacrifice of what she holds most dear."

I know I'm not the only one who thinks that summer should be all about new Urban Fantasy reads!

Glow: Book I, Potency by Aubrey Hadley
Published by: Ruby and Topaz Publishing
Publication Date: June 16th, 2020
Format: Paperback, 420 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The Sleeping Syndrome has returned after a six-month hiatus. This time, it's popped up in New York, and it's wiped out an entire homeless shelter. The same night of the outbreak - thousands of miles away - Harper, a seventeen-year-old girl, finds herself face-to-face with a glowing figure in the desert outskirts of her neighborhood. As the world goes on high-alert from the Syndrome, Harper is kidnapped and taken to the Base of Ki, a massive dome with a sheening white city and fantastic technology...built by beings from another solar system. There, she must form cross-species alliances to save her friends, family, and the human race before she loses all chance of returning to Earth."

It's finally out!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aubrey Hadley, Glow, Joseph O'Connor, Killing Eve, Kim Harrison, Rachel Morgan, Ripperologist, Rosalie Knecht, Stephen King, Steve Frech, Tea Cooper, The Haunting of Hill House, Tuesday Tomorrow, Urban Fantasy, WWI

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: March 6th, 2018
Format: Paperback, 404 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Elsie is being exiled to her husband's decrepit country estate, The Bridge. She feels like they are burying her along with her husband. A pregnant mermaid drowning in black crepe. That is all she is now, the vessel for her dead husband's heir. Her marriage to Rupert Bainbridge was meant to raise her above her station. No more work at the match factory where she and her brother Jolyon slaved away until Rupert bailed them out of a tight spot. Now she'd have an idyllic life of luxury where she would walk through the streets of Fayford giving her beneficence to her new tenants. Instead on arrival she is greeted by her husband's corpse laid out in the great hall, a paltry indoor staff of three she can't bear facing, and the new knowledge that the villagers view the house as cursed and won't even deign to work there let alone accept anything from her. In fact the only person who has come to view her husband's body is the local preacher, Mr. Underwood. So here Elsie will waste away with only Rupert's cousin Sarah for companionship and the occasional visit from Mr. Underwood. But then there are the noises in the night. A hissing sound the cook writes off as the cat, or perhaps a nasty nest of squirrels. Only when Elise finally enters the locked room from whence the sounds came she finds no squirrels.

There are two eyes looking at her. She thinks it's a painting but it's "as if someone had cut the figure out of a painting and mounted it on a plank of wood." Elsie is intrigued by the figure that oddly looks like her, whereas Sarah is taken by the two slim volumes next to the figure, the diary of her ancestor, Anne Bainbridge, who was the doyenne of The Bridge when King Charles I and his wife visited in 1635. As uncanny happenings increase after the finding of the figure, with rooms changing and shifting, figures multiplying and poses changing and eyes following the two volume diary of Anne Bainbridge might hold the answers. Because it was in 1635 that The Bridge got it's nasty reputation of losing it's heirs, leading it to be left abandoned for years and years on end. Elsie laments that her life is starting to read like a bad penny dreadful. Only is this really happening? Perhaps the answers that Sarah finds about Anne and her husband Josiah, and their daughter Hetta, their miracle child who unnerves the servants and is otherworldly, and the Bainbridge Diamonds, will stop whatever is currently happening at The Bridge. Because it was Anne who brought these "silent companions" into the house. A trompe l'oeil treat bought in Torbury St. Jude that was just the thing to please his majesty. Or perhaps Elise is mad. Left silent in a sanatorium after her experiences at The Bridge.

I have a friend Matt. We've often joked that we should do a podcast because we literally do not agree on anything. Any book I love he hates and vice versa. Therefore it came as a shock to both of us to discover we agreed completely on The Silent Companions. I don't know what stars aligned or what parallel universe we entered, but we came to a consensus; we both thought it should have been more. The silent companions themselves were lacking. I think this has a lot to do with whomever wrote the cover blurb. Shame on you! When Elise opens "a locked door, beyond which is a painted wooden figure - a silent companion - that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself" I know every single person reading that thinks wooden weeping angels. There is not a single person who thought that the silent companions were basically set flats. I'm sorry, but set flats aren't scary. No matter how much they "change" or "multiple," cut-outs dragging their wooden selves across now deeply grooved floors doesn't inspire any kind of chills going up and down my spine. In fact I found them bordering on laughable. I don't know if this is because I am inured to cut-outs due to the popularity of having a cut-out of an actor from your favorite TV just chilling about your house or because I worked in theater... but the fact of the matter is, I was underwhelmed. By it all. I was sold by the blurb and the reality came nowhere near that frisson of fear I had the first time I read the synopsis.

Reading this book around the same time I was watching the new Netflix adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House I realized there was one area in which this book succeeds which I think is vital to the success of any true book purporting to be Gothic, and that is Laura Purcell nailed the sense of place. She nailed The Bridge and because of that there is a lot that can be forgiven plot wise. In fact, as I discussed this book with my fellow book club members I posited that I think I could actually draw the blueprints for this house. If there's one thing that I hate it is when I read a book and I can't get a good sense of the surroundings. I need to ground the characters in their setting. This book took it to a new level. Not only did I have the sense of the house, the house became a central character to the book, which I think was necessary for the narrative. That is why I compare it to The Haunting of Hill House. While the buildings have supernatural elements and events, you can still know where everything is and therefore when it changes, even subtly, you know something "other" is going on. Thinking on this further, and tying it into the set-piece like nature of the companions themselves, I wonder if there's a theatrical aspect that this book is embracing. Everything laid out just so so when it goes off the rails, you know where you were supposed to be but aren't any longer.

Enough about what I liked, an aspect of the book that really annoyed me was that Laura Purcell has an elliptical storytelling style. She drops potential plot points and red herrings all along the path and maybe one or two are actually resolved. I know there are people who say, but that makes the book more realistic, not having everything tied up in a neat little bow. To them I say, that's why I read books! Because unlike in real life everything can have a resolution and you won't be grumbling about what exactly happened in the heroine's past. Because really, there is a lot of heavy-handed doom and gloom about what went on in Elsie's life prior to her marriage. Abuse allegations about her parents, the struggling match factory, and her relationship with her brother... and yet not a single one of these is dealt with. We don't even really get any sense as to why Rupert married her. And I think the event that then catalyzes the entire narrative of the story should at least be discussed don't you? What annoyed me most though is that the book drops hint after hint that Elsie's much younger brother, Jolyon Livingstone, was perhaps her son. It would explain the strain in her relationship with her parents, whether Jolyon was the product of incest, again strongly hinted at that would be firmly rooted in the Gothic, or whether they were just forced to raise their grandson as their son, it would explain a lot. But nope. Nothing whatsoever is elucidated and for a minute I thought the book could be completely written off.

But Laura Purcell finally delivered! It's amazing how the final few pages of a book can retroactively fix many of the issues you previously had. And yes, I'm looking at you The Circle. Sure, there are all these threads left dangling, but the most important, the crucial thread was picked up and given a tug. I was wonderfully surprised that one of the many plot points Laura Purcell set up actually paid off with a little twist at the end. And no, I am not going to spoil it for you because you'd be able to pick up the one important thread at the beginning and not follow all the ones that are cut short. Yet I will say that what I liked most about this twist was that it took several of the unnatural occurrences at The Bridge and put it on one character's shoulders. Everything weird and uncanny tied back to one character. What's more, this had the added benefit of tying the two timelines together. Often in books with two timelines so far apart, two hundred years here, authors tend to have the past inform the present but not really carry anything over of importance from the past. Here that's different, and I think that is what raised this book up to being a satisfying read while also firmly classifying it as Gothic. So while this might not have been everything I wanted it to be, it surprised me in the end because the author broke her pre-established patterns and gave us one satisfying answer.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Elliptical, Going Gothic, Gothic, Incest, Laura Purcell, Netflix, Sense of Place, The Circle, The Haunting of Hill House, The Silent Companions, The Weeping Angels, Theatre, Victorian

The End of Temperance Dare by Wendy Webb
Published by: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: June 6th, 2017
Format: Paperback, 336 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Despite a looming sense of dread she's carried for months everything seems to be falling into place for Eleanor Harper but in the most unexpected of ways. She loses her job as a crime reporter at the same time the position for director of the prestigious Cliffside Manor artists retreat becomes available. Eleanor has been drawn to the old tuberculosis hospital ever since she went there twenty years earlier as a cub reporter covering the sudden deaths of the hospital's founder, Chester Dare, and one of his daughters, Milly, in a tragic car accident. His remaining daughter, Penelope, has run the retreat ever since and she feels it's time to hand the reigns to the next generation. While Eleanor isn't the most qualified Miss Penny felt a connection to her all those years ago because they both agreed that the accident was no accident. Miss Penny never blamed Eleanor, who as an inexperienced reporter was unable to shed light on the deaths, but admired her tenacity and has followed her journalistic career with interest. When Eleanor arrives at the Manor through the mists she feels like she's home. Miss Penny welcomes her with open arms and inducts her into the running of the retreat, which is mainly handled by an extensive staff. In a week they are to get the current group of artists for a month-long residency and Eleanor will shadow Miss Penny until she's confident enough that she can handle the responsibilities herself. At least that's what Eleanor thought the plan was to be, Miss Penny had other ideas, as that afternoon she commits suicide and leaves everything in Eleanor's inexperienced hands. Eleanor is baffled by the predicament she has landed in but she views it only right to mourn but continue on in Miss Penny's memory. Therefore a week later the five artists arrive. Things do not go to plan. Miss Penny brought everyone here with a purpose... is she acting from beyond the grave? But more importantly, is she acting alone or are other supernatural elements at work?

Here's the problem I have with Gothic stories that involve haunted houses, there needs to be enough wiggle room that the "haunting" could all be chalked up to psychological issues. You need that suspension of disbelief. You have to be convinced or dissuaded through the story, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House is a masterclass in this conceit. A Tuberculosis hospital is a whole lot of heck no from me. The reason for this is that TB hospitals were, as it says in this book, a “waiting room for death.” All hauntings derive from a death, here we have a plurality of death, so in my mind there is no question as to whether or not Cliffside Manor is haunted. It is SO haunted. This is a place where ghost hunters go, not artistic types. I have NO DOUBT that ghosts exist. What exactly they are I'm not sure, but I have seen many ghosts in my life, some benign, some very much the opposite. I would NEVER go willingly to a place like Cliffside Manor, it would be too much. Add to that the fact this retreat is made for artists like me... I really don't get how places at the retreat are so sought after. Yes, there is a wide range of susceptibility when it comes to seeing the supernatural, but the truth is the more sensitive you are to the world around you, the more open you are, the more likely you are to have such an experience. Therefore people who are artistic are more likely to pick up on these vibes, much like how artists are the ones who can hear the call of Cthulhu in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. So how are these artists not being like, don't go there, it's haunted. Word of mouth would spread like wildfire, but instead they have people clamoring for vacancies. This makes no sense to me, which makes me feel like the entire setup is unbelievable and therefore I don't buy into the story.

What's more it's hard to buy into a story where you're not quite certain if you're dealing with an unreliable narrator or not. My problem in this instance was that I couldn't tell if the red herrings I was following were meant to be red herrings or were just bad editing. To be clear, I reached the correct conclusion, I just don't know if I was meant to reach that conclusion in the first few chapters. What alerted my spider senses was Eleanor arriving at Cliffside Manor on a Thursday and the guests being scheduled to arrive the next Friday, but within minutes it was "arriving in one week." I don't know who taught Eleanor or Webb about the days of the week but that's longer than a week. Yes, you could brush it off as just common vernacular, it's about a week, but the way Webb writes I disagree. She is very precise, very matter of fact, you can tell she was a journalist herself in the very way everything is as it should be and nothing is out of place. If a book could be neat as a pin, this would be that book, and if I'm honest, I'd rather choose sloppy and lyrical than this. Which makes this first error glaring. IF this was a hint as to Eleanor's reliability as a narrator, I have to give Webb kudos. It was subtle and just enough to bait the reader. If, on the other hand, this was just a typo, in fact the most common of typos if I'm to be honest, because writers as a whole don't look at calendars despite the fact you can look up ANY calendar year online, well, then it's bad luck that a transcription or writing or editing error gave away something that's rather important. But then again, I feel like the whole unreliable narrator is played out. It's a way to delay the reveal while having the answer in front of you the whole time, and to me, that's kind of smug storytelling, though not nearly as bad as an author like Josephine Tey who purposefully left clues out so that the reader couldn't solve her riddles.

The truth is, The End of Temperance Dare relies too heavily on overplayed tropes. The obviously haunted local, the unreliable narrator, the love triangle (more on that in a minute), and the sexualization of children as a sign of evil. Think of all the movies and all the books over the years that have had innocent children possessed by evil spirits say licentious things and you know where I'm coming from. The Exorcist anyone? The problem I have with this trope is that instead of just being unsettling it verges on the edge of child exploitation, which is one of the MANY reasons I have never read Anne Rice again after Interview with the Vampire because of how she handles Claudia. Here it's taken further with the evil spirit of Temperance who is eleven in human years being obsessed with the Doctor as her future husband and later while controlling her sisters body not only is a loose woman, but stalks the photographer Richard, who is one of the members of the retreat we meet. It's hinted at that she was born a demon and she had impure thoughts and behaviors from the day she was born, yet Webb is never explicit enough with these revelations. Instead she leaves it all up to the reader's imagination, and I just don't like that because it's a cop out. She shows us these disturbing images and behaviors and then never fully goes to the root of the evil, therefore making the villain a sexually precocious child. That just freaks me out too much. And not in the good way. Instead I felt ill and the denouement and happily ever after left a bitter taste in my mouth because evil was left to be evil and the motives behind that evil were just to have her way with everyone especially these two men?

These two men who then form the other two corners of a love triangle wit Eleanor/Temperance. Because instead of Eleanor being involved in a healthy relationship she finds herself drawn into flirtations with the retreat's doctor, Nat, and one of the guests, Richard. This triangle felt so forced. Here is a professional woman trying to make a good impression at her new job and instead she is behaving like a lovestruck teenager... or should I say sexually precocious child? So the reason I hated this element of the narrative isn't that I just hate love triangles, because I do, I really really do, it's because the relationships don't feel like they organically develop. Which, I guess you could say, they didn't. But in order to achieve that happily ever after we bafflingly reach there has to be a kernel of truth amongst all the supernatural manipulations for the ending to be at least mildly believable. But in the end, looking at the whole story of Temperance Dare, I can't help think that it was a looong setup for very little reward. Sure, all the pieces fit into place, but mechanically. You have no emotions invested in the characters. It's too by the book. A paint by numbers narrative which would just horrify Henry, who was the resident painter at the retreat who worked in oils yet had no proper venting in his room for painting oils indoors. And then a happy ending where everyone gets what they want? That's not believable, that's contrived. I haven't read any of Webb's other books, but I hope there's a little more spark and a lot less plodding out of plot points. I can't take another book like this one, it was too predictable and plebeian.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anne Rice, Artists' Retreat, Ghosts, Going Gothic, Interview with the Vampire, Josephine Tey, Possession, Shirley Jackson, The End of Temperance Dare, The Exorcist, The Haunting of Hill House, Trope, Wendy Webb

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Published by: Penguin
Publication Date: 1962
Format: Hardcover, 235 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

None of the villagers go to Hill House. No one will hear you scream, in the dark, in the night. Dr. Montague views the house as the ideal location for his research of supernatural phenomena. The house's history coupled with the right participants should yield him the results he's looking for. Yet he only heard back from a few people selected as the perfect candidates for his summer long program, for sensitivity combined with previous supernatural encounters. In the end he gets the shy and awkward Eleanor who has spent much of her life caring for her recently deceased mother. She doesn't even remember the incident for which Dr. Montague recruited her she just views Hill House as her first real adventure and a way to get out from under the stifling life she's living on a cot at her sister's. Theo was chosen because of her apparent psychic abilities. Then there's Luke. Luke is the heir to Hill House. He doesn't have abilities or haunting experiences, he just needs to get out of his troubling patterns and his grandmother thinks locking him away at Hill House as a guarantee against Dr. Montague's lease is a lovely idea.

After each of the participants successfully battle their way past the suspicious caretaker, Mr. Dudley, and get explained the rigorous rules as regards the meals and cleaning up by his wife the group settles in. It does not take long for weird knocks to happen at doors in the night as well as severe temperature drops. The doors don't like to remain open, if this is Mrs. Dudley, or the house, they can't figure it out even with the aid of large doorstops. Very shortly they instigate a rule that no one is to wander alone, especially at night. Yet what is actually happening, if they where to write it down as per Dr. Montague's research guidelines, they wouldn't or couldn't be able to put it into words. Strange writings, noises, voices, drafts, and above all four very different personalities clashing, not counting the possible personalities of the house's former occupants. Is any of this real? Or are they hallucinating? Or should they all leave the house as fast as they can and never look back?

The Haunting of Hill House is the standard to which modern ghost stories are held. Even Stephen King has been known on more than one occasion to extol the virtues of this book. When I first read this book I couldn't help wondering why. But as more time passed I realized The Haunting of Hill House had left an impression on me and that I had perhaps judged it based on what I thought it should be versus what it was. Going back to the book I was once again drawn into Jackson's writing. She is able to depict places and characters so well that you feel you are inhabiting them. I also was able to pinpoint my dissatisfaction from my first reading. It's the ending. While I'm fine with open ended ambiguity it's that it was rushed. The book has a very languorous pace from Eleanor's daydreaming drive to Hill House through the daily routine the four occupants adapt, living like they are on holiday. And then Doctor Montague's wife arrives. This is when the story falls apart and just rushes headlong like Nell through the halls of the house until she goes straight into a tree. While this could have been Jackson's plan, having Mrs. Montague be the final push to Nell's death, instead it just feels like Jackson used Mrs. Montague to end the story in an abrupt if timely fashion.

Another reason I was initially dissatisfied was that there really isn't a plot per se. The book goes for impressions over tangibility. Any time anything vaguely spooky happens it's just glossed over or made light of when day breaks. The big scene where Theo and Nell are running from something, that's it, they ran, cut to the next morning where it will never be mentioned again. Yet over time this lack of substance works it's way into you building suspense and paranoia. This book is a slow burn, you might not feel the effects for a long time. Jackson is literally playing with our minds and the more you're willing to go back to the text the more the story works. A cumulative horror that becomes a compulsion that gripes you every fall. Because of all the things that Jackson doesn't say and doesn't spell out this allows The Haunting of Hill House to be interpreted a thousand different ways. Even the ending can be debated. As Nell slams her car into the tree so that she can forever stay at Hill House we aren't even certain of her death. All that we know is she longed for death, either because she was already suicidal or because she was driven there by supernatural means. Nell is the key here, because it's through her we are told the story and this might just be the biggest corker of an unreliable narrator ever.

Nell is interesting, but you can't really get a read on her. You know what it's like to be inside her mind, but it quickly becomes clear that this won't help you figure out what's happening, you just have to give in and let go. Her mind jumps and contradicts and doesn't make any kind of sense. Yet she is a sympathetic character. You're not sure if she's crazy but you become complicit in Nell's actions during the drive to Hill House. As she travels to her destination she sees glimpses of houses in different towns and wonders, what would her life be like there? What would happen if she decided this town was her final destination and it was her new home? Who hasn't while out walking or driving looked at a house or through an illuminated window at night and wondered what would their life be like if that was their house. Who would they be in a different setting? And that's how we become one with Nell. Whatever happens from that moment forward, whatever fantasy she spins about her and Theodora, whatever she see or hears, we are fully invested. We give in and let go with her and love the ride aboard the crazy train.

In fact, this analysis of Nell leads into the idea that Nell is in fact the haunting... but as I've said before you can interpret this book so many different ways that I find saying Nell is the haunting is wrong. I don't think the encounters the four occupants of Hill House come up against are manifestations of Nell. I think the house is it's own entity. It isn't just a building, it's a home, with personality, and once you have personality it is one quick step to being a person, a character in your own right. Therefore I fully believe that the house is haunted and it's not Nell. Well, it's not Nell at first. Because I think Nell is sensitive and is tuned into the house and as time goes on they are becoming one, which would be why she'd kill herself to never leave it. This is very obvious once Mrs. Montague arrives. Before this time the banging on the doors and the noises were unnatural phenomena that the house was creating, but once the good doctor's wife arrives Nell is the one banging on the doors. I think this is because the house is now using her for what it had to do by itself before. Nell has become an extension of the house and therefore helps with the haunting. It's no wonder she doesn't want to leave when this is the only place she's ever felt welcome.

In fact going back to this book I've realized that there's only one real problem with the different interpretations, and that's the lesbianism. I'm not against this at all and think that Nell and Theodora would make a lovely couple and they balance each other so well, what I see as problematic is Jackson's vehement denials that The Haunting of Hill House has anything to do with sex and in particular lesbianism. She didn't see sex as entering into her story at all. But so much of her story goes against what she later stated. Theodora is obviously a woman of the world while Nell is the virginal character who just doesn't understand, an innocent nature that the house can corrupt. Yet there's a connection between them long before there's a connection between Nell and the house. Also the fact that Jackson never comes out and says that Theodora's partner whom she left behind is male or female, though female is strongly implied, then why write this? Why have this omission if you didn't want the book to be read this way? If she was so against this interpretation just a few clarifications could have solved it. But then she wanted to leave her readers mystified and perhaps, despite her denials, this was just another mystery she enjoyed dangling in front of her audience. She was a master manipulator after all.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Eleanor, Ghosts, Going Gothic, Haunting, Lesbian, Possession, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Supernatural, The Haunting of Hill House

Fiercombe Manor by Kate Riordan
Published by: William Morrow
Publication Date: August 11th, 2015
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Alice has failed to live up to her mother's expectations. Yes, Alice has a good job, but no gentlemen callers to raise her from typist to wife, the best promotion she could hope for. Maybe if she got a job in a restaurant she could have more opportunities to catch a guy's eye, but Alice likes the prestige of where she works. Alice also has a secret, one that won't be hidden for much longer. There's a reason there are no gentlemen callers, because Alice fell for a married man. A married man who has gotten her pregnant and, in the eyes of her mother, disgraced. Alice's mother's priority is to get her daughter secreted away so that none of their acquaintances will know their shame. To that end she contacts an old friend, Mrs. Jelphs. Mrs. Jelphs is the housekeeper of Fiercombe Manor, a grand old estate in Gloucestershire where the house is kept in ready for a family, the Stantons, that live entirely overseas. Alice can have the baby, give it up for adoption, and return home as though none of this ever happened, with Mrs. Jelphs being fed a line about painful memories due to the sudden death of Alice's non-existent husband for her need to convalesce in the country. This plan could have worked perfectly if not for the fact that as Alice's condition proves nothing in life goes according to plan and Fiercombe Manor holds secrets darker than Alice's. When Alice meets young Tom Stanton, home on family business, she is determined to route out the secrets of what happened thirty years earlier to the pregnant Lady Elizabeth Stanton, Tom's Aunt, as she starts to fall for the young heir. Can disastrous decisions lead to a happily ever after for Alice or is her fate just as tragic as Elizabeth's?

Funnily enough this is the book that kickstarted my plunge into Gothic literature. Last July various pressures were impacting my life and I just wanted to escape somewhere gloomy, away from the heat and the present. I wanted a book to fit my mood, with a grand old house and a supernatural bent set anytime but now. I went to the Internet and the Internet spat Fiercombe Manor back at me. Literally everyone kept recommending this book to me. Compared to Rebecca, a classic that can never be imitated, and The Little Stranger, a book I have a complicated relationship to, I should have started to be wary. I so hoped this book would fill this void in me, this need, but it just wasn't to be. Nothing in the book lived up to the moniker of Gothic and trying to escape the heat of a Midwest summer by reading about the unseasonable heat of a English summer... yeah... not what I had planned. I actually struggled with finishing this book. It threw me off my reading goals entirely. I hate it when a bad book knocks you off the rails and you just can't get past it to get back into the reading groove. Eleven days it took me to slog through this book and I was left unsatisfied. In fact I picked up more and more books hoping to find some solace in good Gothic literature, and the truth is I should have just stuck with the classics, Du Maurier, Jackson, they knew their craft and set out to do something original not be poseurs and ride the coattails of other greater authors. They are the standard to which all is judged and most found lacking.

The main problem I had with this book was that it was trying way too hard to be in the style of Daphne Du Maurier. Yes, there's a reason people keep comparing Fiercombe Manor to Rebecca, and that's because Riordan is trying SO HARD to make you believe it. I actually wonder if she was able to delude herself with the recluse valley, the hidden home, and the lush vegetation. It didn't fool me for a minute because there is no one who will ever be able to write like Du Maurier with her ability to capture nature with her lyrical descriptions of effulgent flowers coupled with looming dread. NO ONE! I mean seriously, stop trying. Any book compared to the classic that is Rebecca is bound to let the reader down. This is one of the most perfect books ever written and to try to say this author whom, let's face it, I've never heard of until now could come close? I should have known it was not going to happen. But this leads to an interesting question, a lot of people look for books that are read-a-likes, books that evoke or are similar in style to other books they love. When do recommendations turn sour? Because in the instance of Fiercombe Manor I could tell Riordan was trying to emulate Du Maurier, but there are other books compared to Rebecca that just have a similar feel without trying to BE it. Over on Goodreads there's a list that actually recommends Nine Coaches Waiting as a read-a-like, and here I'd agree. Same vibe without any authorial delusions that lead to disappointments. Originality while maintaining the proper "Rebecca" mood is the line that needs to be walked. So publishers, be careful in your blurbs, they could alienate your readers.

Belabouring this whole Rebecca vibe, because I'm totally going to eventually just go out and get a stick and start hitting this book, I have to go back into how Riordan captures the sense of place; that little valley somewhere in Gloucestershire. Or should I say how she fails to capture the sense of place. She needed to draw herself a freakin' map. I am not joking. While Du Maurier had the benefit of Manderley being based on a real location, Menabilly, just from her descriptions alone you could draw a map. You knew where everything was. The place was a character. Now if Riordan really wanted to make this book like Rebecca she could have at least tried to make the place's character stick. Because every time she talks about that valley there's something not quite right. You can never get a sense of it. The new house feels like it's jumping all the compass points, the pond is shifting locations, now where's the road? I mean I was just darn confused. Now this could be a gimmick, disorient your readers and maybe you can trick them into thinking it's Gothic and it's supernatural elements at work. I call foul. Some of the best Gothic writing out there I can picture perfectly. How Hill House sits just so with the drive coming right up to the door after passing through the gates with the hills behind. Manderley and how the new rooms face away from the sea... details don't take away from your story, they add to it. Just add it right.

Yet I think the key to Fiercombe Manor is that unless you are pregnant this book is not scary at all. Seriously. Not. One. Scare. There's no ominous vibe, there's nothing. Oh, should I count that random thunderstorm? No, because it was just a little thunder! So what have we got for the Gothic in this book? An outcast heroine, a "haunted" house, and babies... um... seriously? And totally not in the right proportions. I'm not joking when I say that there is more time spent with Alice cleaning silver than there is in actually trying to discover what the secrets of the house are. And you know what the secret is in the end? This is a sad tale of a wife who was depressive with a large helping of children issues, from dead babies to postpartum depression that is treated in insane asylums... So at the end of the day, you're not chilled from the spectres of dead children, you're just sad. Sad that what happens to a woman before and after pregnancy wasn't understood at the turn of the last century. Also, let's be honest, it wasn't really understood when Alice was pregnant in the thirties either. This is a book that has the mindset of today being thrust back in time. Just like I had similar issues with Angelica because of this, I feel that this book just didn't live up to it's potential. But stripping it down, seeing what it's skeleton is, I can't really see how it could have become a successful Gothic tale. It was just sadness and melancholy, and seeing as that was what I was trying to escape from... yeah, not the book for me.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Daphne Du Maurier, Fiercombe Manor, Going Gothic, Goodreads, Kate Riordan, Manderley, Mary Stewart, Menabilly, Nine Coaches Waiting, Pregnancy, Read-A-Like, Rebecca, Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Sphere by Michael Crichton
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: May 12th, 1987
Format: Paperback, 371 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Norman Johnson is a psychologist who is often asked to come to plane wrecks to help the survivors. But years earlier he worked on a secret project for the government wherein he was asked to think about the hypothetical event of the wreck being extraterrestrial in origin. He thought it was all a joke, but took the job because with a wife and a family who was he to turn away good money? It was no joke. He is now in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and before him are the candidates he had suggested would make the ideal welcoming party. There has been a crash. This crash though is unlike anything he could ever have expected. The "vessel" lies at the bottom of the ocean and has been there for hundreds of years.

Though nothing is as it seems. As the team settles into the habitat on the ocean floor they prepare for their first sojourn to the ship. At first glance the ship, while old, is obviously man made and comes from the future, but returned to Earth's past by mistake. While they wrap their heads around this conundrum they stumble on a sphere in the hold. This, unlike the ship, is obviously of alien origin. Back in the habitat things start to subtly change. An ocean devoid of life is now abundant in everything from shrimp to jellyfish. But there's something else out there too. A creature communicating with them via their computers. An entity called "Jerry" who is going to pay them a visit that they might not survive.

Sphere is really the book that started my Crichton obsession. Prior to Sphere I had just engaged in a dalliance with Crichton. I'd read Jurassic Park for high school biology and Rising Sun for fun on vacation one year in Door County. I believe it was on that vacation that I picked up Sphere at this bookstore in Sister Bay that was noted for having a Piggly Wiggly as part of the same complex. Ironically I mentioned to a few family members that bookstore was still there and they totally remembered it more for the convenience of the Piggly Wiggly then anything else. Yet I remember it as the bookstore that over the years became a goldmine for Crichton's books. During that trip I was too engrossed in Rising Sun to start the new book, but when I finally did pick up Sphere it became my go-to Crichton book for many years.

The most successful of Crichton's books all deal with a small group of individuals in a remote location fighting to survive. Yet in his other books the threat is very defined. Jurassic Park and The Lost World have dinosaurs, Congo has Apes, Prey has nanotechnology. Clear, definable villains. Whereas Sphere... technically it's our own subconscious fears, but it's also the manifestation of these fears. The threat is far more amorphous, and therefore far more scary. Sphere, for all intents and purposes, is basically a haunted house story at the bottom of the ocean. All the manifestations can't be easily explained and slowly, one by one, people start to die. There are only a few survivors and the ending is left open to interpretation. If by this point you're not thinking of Shirley Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House I'd say there's something wrong with you. That urgency and fear that you only get when being told a particularly great ghost story, here it is hiding in the guise of a popular thriller.

But the book doesn't just dwell on supernatural fears, Crichton is able to work in technological fears as well. He would, of course, in later novels take this idea further, but I think it's the simplicity of how "Jerry" is handled that makes it all the scarier. Jerry as the ersatz voice of the threatening entity using the computer interface makes me think of WarGames. The truth is, no matter how technology has advanced, when one thinks of the world being destroyed by computers it all goes back to the simplicity of WarGames. A computer that is childlike in it's interactions, unable to grasp the result of these interactions, that is what our fear is, childlike ignorance. Sometimes simplicity is the best way to get a concept across. Not to say that either Sphere or WarGames is simple, but the underlying concept is and that's what makes for something lasting.

Despite the lure of the supernatural and the fear of the technological, I can't quite put my finger on why Sphere was and is so resonant with me; but it sends chills up my spine and has resulted in many a sleepless night. I can't count how many times I've read the book, yet if you were to ask me to summarize the plot in detail I don't think I could do it. Sphere leaves more images and impressions then anything. The phosphorescence of mysterious sea life as it appears outside the habitat. The ominous clanging that can only mean one more person is dead. That feeling that you are isolated from the whole world and no one is coming to rescue you. Delicious.

Sphere is like a fever dream more then anything else. There's a detachment coupled with a frenzy to live, yet after it is all over you can't quite remember how it ended. Think back to books you retreated into as comfort reads when you were sick. The book swirls around you and you are being entertained and comforted, yet at the same time you're not quite sure what is going on. There's characters, there's a narrative, yet there's your detachment. Re-reading this book after so many years while actually being sick heightened this feeling. The book was exactly as I had remembered it, yet totally different. Of all Crichton's works this one is the loosest and most open to interpretation. What really did happen? Only the dreamer knows.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aliens, Congo, Fever Dream, Jerry, Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton, Pacific Ocean, Prey, Rising Sun, Shirley Jackson, Sphere, The Haunting of Hill House, The Lost World, WarGames