haunted house – Dr JoAnn LoSavio

The Invisible World: A Novel by Nora Fussner

November 22, 2023 JLLeave a comment

This is not your average haunted house story. It is your better than average haunted house story. Readers of literary fiction will absolutely love this spin on the haunted house trope for its deep character development and character-focused orientation.

The novel is simple enough in its premise: a couple invite pandemonium into their house when they have a television crew for a “ghost hunter” style show come to their home to document their haunting. The events take place around this misfit cast of producers, camera operators, show staffers, the homeowners, and the carious psychics they call on to flesh out the dramatics of the show. It is the interplay of their individual needs, desires (met and unmet) that form the basis for this novel. Underlying all this is the omnipresent question: Is the haunting real? Or a figment of everyone’s desires? Every actor here has a vested interest in the reality of this haunting, leading the reader on a pursuit for the truth and an authenticity which may be impossible to find. This is, after all, the premise of such television shows.

Fussner’s prose was also an incredible appeal; it is literary in its language, its unfolding. Fussner’s choice of words draws a performative veil over the novel, intriguing this reader at least. I was hooked from start to finish.

Night Side of the River: Stories by Jeanette Winterson

November 20, 2023 JLLeave a comment

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of ghostly tales, but then, I may be biased; I’m a sucker for a good haunting. Of course, I did have my favorites.

I especially enjoyed “A Fur Coat”, “App-Arition” and “The Spare Room”, primarily because the haunted in these stories isn’t necessarily the living, but the dead haunting themselves or one another. Indeed, that was the attraction for me in Winterson’s tales: they challenged the concept of haunting, yet remained authentic to the trope of the traditional ghost story. Readers shouldn’t expect to be thrown into a new genre here; this is not speculative horror, but tried-and-true revised into immersive stories.

And, of course, the revelations in these stories are more about the living than the dead, which is ultimately the mark of a good short story.

The collection as a whole is fantastic, and follows through on this tightrope balance between showing the reader something novel and satisfying their hankering and expectations of the “ghost story” trope. In some stories, Winterson brings in an element of the contemporary through technology and devices we use today, in other cases, it is the characters’ quotidian lives in the present — marred somehow with an encounter with death and the dead — that makes it clear to the reader there is an anachronistic meeting of time here.

Winterson’s writing is superb, well-suited to the genre of the short story form. With few words wasted on exposition and an emphasis on characters’ thoughts, Winterson quickly immerses the reader in the story. It is everything a reader wants from this short form.

Halloween has passed, but Winter is upon us; put this on your list for this year’s gloomy, deathly season.

The Suffering: A Novel by MJ Mars

October 7, 2023 JLLeave a comment

Absolutely chilling and brilliantly written. This book made me stay up all night for all the right reasons. It also made me afraid of my own house – and for a horror novel, that’s killing it!

I won a paperback copy from a Facebook Group giveaway, and was thrilled because I am so ready for the spooky October season. (It’s my first spooky October read!) It arrived via Amazon; and a little later, some goodies also arrived from the author (a bookmark and cards depicting the scary characters from the novel).

The Suffering is a new adult horror revolving around the haunting of a group of housemates. Kyle, Pete, Lance, Tad, and Cass are the university students and friends who reside at Brackenby House, a Victorian mansion where the rent is cheap — and where a century ago a famed psychic and a group of would-be occultists performed a séance. That demonic summoning resulted in a terrible bloodbath; all the occupants of the house at the time, save one, perished in inexplicable ways. The gory history of the house was never more than a joke to the young friends, until one Halloween, they decided to perform their own séance.

I will leave the reader to discover the awful consequences.

The haunted house story is not the novel’s only appeal, classic as it is. Mars’ writing and nuanced character development are what makes The Suffering truly shine. The pacing of the book is swift; the story unravels like a horror film. Often, with only a short sentence, Mars sent shivers across my skin. The economy of her words works well to build suspense and dread. She forces the reader to fill in the unsaid darkness with the most evil things.

The characters are also well-crafted. They are unique and yet recognizable, wholly likable, and realistic. The genre so often (sadly) produces puppet-like characters, stereotypes who feel (to this reader) more like ghosts than human. But Mars successfully avoids this; these young friends react as you or I might in the same situations — and in their effort to survive their hauntings — connect with the reader as much as they do to each other, through compassion, friendship, honesty, and fear. Very quickly, this reader found herself bonded to the unfortunate residents of the house.

Readers should also know that the book is spicy in some parts. The romantic aspects of the novel add to the storyline. The language also is suited to an adult audience; this is not a juvenile horror novel, though there is nothing in the novel that would warrant an R rating.

MJ Mars has earned a fan in this reader. I look forward to their other stories and novels!

How to Sell a Haunted House: A Novel by Grady Hendrix

July 6, 2023 JLLeave a comment

Yes, Grady Hendrix’s books are kitschy. Yes, they are gimmicky. Yes, they are never what they seem — and isn’t that a great thing for a horror novel? Yes! This novel is nothing like what the title might seem. The horrors run far deeper than the house itself; like most of Hendrix’s horror stories, it is the past, relationships and families gone awfully awry that are the real terror.

The novel begins with a woman who dreads facing the task of cleaning up her childhood home with her estranged brother. The brother who is an utter assH*le. As they delve through their inheritance it becomes clear that there is an entity between them, something old and ancient, and malicious. This novel is not what it seems, but there really a haunted house in it!

What makes How to Sell a Haunted House so compelling though is not only the story arc, which is fairly straightforward, but the characters Hendrix creates. The characters are flawed in ways that are intimately familiar (everyone knows someone like the assH*le brother); I felt a real tension between wanting to slam the book shut on some of these people and desperately wanting to read on to find out if they got their comeuppance. That tension is Hendrix’s brilliance as an author; Hendrix creates people you love to hate or hate to hate… and who eventually, you hate to love. The heroes are villains in as much as they as are the neighbor next door, your sister in law, your mother, your teacher.

The novel is one of transformation; dare I say it? It is the story of an exorcism. But while there is a kind of fluff about the novel, it is also dark and its subject matter is deeply disturbing. This is the kind of horror that is so real, so plausible, that it seeps under your skin and make you wonder how things that can happen every day can morph into a tangible darkness. Readers, be prepared to feel creeped out, heartbroken, angry, and disgusted all at the same time.

How to Sell a Haunted House was Hendrix at their best (and I couldn’t imagine how they’d top My Best Friend’s Exorcism or The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires (my two favorite Hendrix novels), but they did!)