Tag: spooktober
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Steffanie Holmes’ A Dead and Stormy Night – Mystery, Spice, and Fictional Heartthrobs Brought to Life
If you want something a little different, well you have come across the right book post. Picture this – a quaint small town, an enchanted secondhand bookshop, and dashing, morally grey fictional suitors amid the shelves. Oh, and through in a murder mystery into this reverse harem paranormal romance for good measure. Welcome to the…
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Spooktober Returns for 2025
Another October, another round of Spooktober! Spooktober is back and I have many books set aside for this month, from adult fantasy, historical fiction and classic crime fiction to the horrors, the thrillers, and the dark academias that carry that extra tone of sinister. While I would love to do another Spooktober where I post…
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The Psychological Horror of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House
As the bridge between scholarly classic reading and Spooktober’s chilling thrills, I thought Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House would be an excellent final post for September’s Scholarly Reading Month. Not only is Shirley Jackson an absolute beast of a horror writer in the best possible way, but The Haunting of Hill House serves…
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Spooktober Daily Posts Debrief
What a month it has been! I always forget just how involved daily posting is, but I am successfully on the other side and ready to have a nice long nap, or read a cosy book to gently guide me back into casual reading. Spooktober daily posting has been and gone for 2024 and here…
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My October 2024 Reading Summary
Overall mood: preoccupied. As October has been the final month of postgrad classes, personal stuff, and the exam season, I have been rather busy. Finding the time to read when other things should take precedence can bring about a lot of guilt, so I haven’t read as many books as I thought (mainly the first…
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Hester Fox’s A Lullaby for Witches Has Everything You Want in a Witchy Novel
Hester Fox strikes again with A Lullaby for Witches, and what a deliciously dark and captivating novel it is! I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one as this is the first novel of hers to be semi-set in the present day, but what A Lullaby for Witches contains is more than incredible. Trigger…
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Familiar Patterns in Sherlock Holmes The Valley of Fear
Here we have the final novel in my Sherlock Sundays mini-series, The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I can’t lie – I was a little disappointed with this one. While I understand that the Sherlock Holmes story world is vast and covers a great many narrative structures and frameworks, not to mention…
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What Makes a Scary Book?
Scary books are not restricted to a genre, nor do they have to contain the same formula or tropes as other scary books. Here are a list of things that make a scary book in my eyes. If you have some favourite scary tropes or elements you want to talk about, leave a comment! An…