From Below by Darcy Coates

Hello everyone.  I hope you're having a great day.

I am an odd bird. I can hear you telling me not to be so hard on myself, thanks that is nice of you.  Of note, if you are any member of my family the response to my saying I'm an odd bird would be "That's an understatement!"  Forget them, you read, you get me...although my statement has nothing to do with reading.  I am afraid of dark water, especially deep water.  The thought of being underneath a ship, freaks me out.  Yet, I am obsessed with several large ships, especially the old liner the SS United States.  I think being a naval architect would be interesting, I just don't want to know about the big dark dangerous ocean being around my creation. 

In addition to the water being spooky, there is that whole issue of not knowing what is underneath you.  How can that not scare the marbles out of you?  I keep watching those fishing shows where they pull tuna out of the ocean that are 100 inches long and 500 pounds (2.5 meters long, 227 kilograms...God bless Google). To think about those giants swimming around my feet, I just had a shiver go up my back and it is a bazillion degrees here. Then there is the story of the USS Indianapolis.  If you are a fan of history or the movie Jaws, you know what I mean.  If not just google it, okay I'll shorthand it.  Ship sinks, sailors in the water with sharks. It crushes me just thinking of them.  Terrible way to go.  By the way, did you know that they originally wanted to use a "trained" great white shark for the movie Jaws?  Can you imagine?  Anyway, dark water = no, deep water = no, rain = yes if it creates a rainbow especially if there is a leprechaun at the end with a pot of gold.

I recently read From Below by Darcy Coates.  I have read several Darcy Coates books before and have liked them all.  If you are unfamiliar with her, she writes haunted house books.  Yep, how is that for a niche...just haunted house books.  You would think that it is impossible to make a writing career from such a narrowed genre, but she does a remarkable job.  In fact, she is often nominated as horror writer of the year on Goodreads.  This book is different, and I had to know how the heck she was going to accomplish her spooky norm when the "haunted house" was an old transatlantic liner, sitting at the bottom of the ocean.  Intriguing huh?  The gist of the story is that there are a group of people in modern day that are making a documentary about the ship.  There is much interest in the ship Arcadia because it suddenly vanished while on a routine voyage. At the time, ships close by had received a garbled message about some kind of emergency, not an SOS or Mayday, but something else was happening.  Then the ship disappeared.  Now that the Arcadia has been discovered one team gets permission to dive the wreck and film it for all to see.  The ship is sitting, basically whole, on the bottom in a state of remarkable preservation.  Despite this advantage for exploration odd things start happening.  Are the divers getting too little oxygen or is something more sinister at work?  At the same time the story follows the Arcadia, days before her sinking in 1928, counting down the events that lead to the end of the once great liner. 

I'll start with my only criticism; it is 469 pages and could have been a bit shorter.  That being said, I was "on board" for every single page! The book is moody and atmospheric.  It does exactly what Coates always does so well, hold the suspense.  She is going to make you wait to find out specifically what is going on, but she will give you hints, views out of the corner of your eye, all the while building your interest.  She delivers, so don't worry that you'll be left unsatisfied, won't happen.  Coates will artfully guide you through the story, slowly unraveling things little by little, with finesse and little gore.  Once again, Darcy Coates proves herself the master of the haunted house book, no matter the location or size of the house. 

You take your cruise vacation, I'll be home...on dry land!

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

Hello everyone. I hope you're having a great day.

Do you have a hobby?  Reading, I suppose.  My husband has the worst hobby, model *!@#$ trains!  Oh yes, you heard me correctly, you read the implied curse word.  I meant every upper number key stroke too! First of all, let's face it....they are trains, that is strike one.  Two, they are super expensive, his train money I could use for my cool hobbies, like reading or paper crafting.  Third strike, they take an enormous amount of room.  Again, room I could be using for some other purpose.  In addition, those rail riders have dictated every house we can buy as we must have a large third floor or room over garage. So young parents, when your child wants a Thomas the Tank toy, I beg of you....run.

I recently read The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James.  I've read two other books by her, The Broken Girls, which I loved, and The Sun Down Motel, which I didn't.  My issue with The Sun Down Motel is that as with both earlier books and the current offering, there is a mystery to be solved and something spooky. In The Sun Down Motel, there was just too little of each for me and I guessed the ending during the first ten minutes.  So, I was apprehensive but hopeful going into The Book of Cold Cases.  My faith has been restored as I liked this book very much, it might even be my favorite of St. James', which is saying something since I really enjoyed Broken Girls.  

The Book of Cold Cases basically revolves around two people, Shea and Beth.  Shea is a blogger whose hobby is running a true crime website called The Book of Cold Cases.  Beth is a rich socialite, who lives in the same town. Beth had once been on trial for three murders, one of which was her own father.  After a chance meeting Beth decides it is finally time to tell the truth and get everything out in the open and decides Shea is just the person to help her. The story is told from both characters' perspectives, with Beth's being both current day and from her childhood.  While Shea is at Beth's elaborate mansion on several occasions for interviews, she begins to notice all is not right with the house.  Beth hides nothing and invites Shea to explore the building that seems every bit as alive as they are.  

This story is a breeze to read, the writing solid and plot clear.  This time St. James has a mystery you won't figure out and a house that will truly have you listening for noises at night.  If you are new to this author but liked the style of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and enjoy haunted house author Darcy Coates, this book will be one of your new favs.

I wonder how many model trains Beth's house would hold?

Haunted House Murder by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis and Barbara Ross

Hello everyone.

Are you getting ready for Halloween? We get swamped with trick or treaters. How many kids do you get, 20, 100? Amateurs!  We get over one thousand kids. No, I'm not kidding. Our street is in the middle of a small town. Because of its location the road is closed, allowing the kids to wander without fear of being run over. The police even walk around and the city encourages children to come to our street for trick or treating fun. Hmmm, maybe the city ought to be kicking in for candy!  I might skip giving out candy, but hubby loves it. I pretty much stay inside watching spooky movies while he attends to lines of kids waiting for sugary loot. I used to buy, stuff, and tie with ribbon eight hundred cellophane bags and we would run out by 7pm. Finally we resorting to just shoveling lose candy into plastic pumpkins and borrowed pillow cases.

The last few years have slowed down a bit. A few years ago we did the whole decoration thing, complete with organza ghosts in windows, strobe light on the third floor and fog machine hidden by our front stairs. Our neighbors were masters, one invited kids into the entry way of their large Victorian house. The foyer had spooky lighting, huge moving spider and an animatronic butler that would scare the pageebees out of the kids. One year another neighbor had a two story pirate ship in his front yard. He was a builder so it was very elaborate; wood, with sails, a plank, the works. Naturally it was the Black Pearl from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. They got their whole extended family together and each dressed with elaborate costumes and masks as a character from the movie. It actually made the front page of the newspaper. There was no competing with that, so we ditched the decorations and just passed out candy. Now our Halloween crazy neighbors have all moved but we've lost our will to spook kids. Maybe because we go overboard at Christmas which seems to be approaching way too quickly.

I recently read Haunted House Murder, a collection of three short stories by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and Barbara Ross. Each story is a nice length, approximately one hundred pages. This was the first dipping my toe into "cozy" mysteries. These category of books is more tame than a thriller, there is a mystery, but not a lot of gore or violence. They usually have a cute title, sometimes rhyming and normally have a colorful, illustrated cover. These books have gotten so popular I thought perhaps they would make a nice break between my beloved thrillers. Sometimes when I read endless thrillers I find myself becoming a little jaded as they all start to sound the same. I don't want my favorite genre to be like that, so I have been trying to sprinkle other kinder, gentler titles in my reading list. So far it's working, thrillers suddenly seem extra thrilling...who wouldn't want that? So, the Haunted House Murder was a much slower pace, no frantic page flipping. Yet, it was actually very enjoyable. All three of these stories have nicely developed characters, somewhat surprising considering each author did not get to contribute a full length novel. I found that I looked forward to reading this and although embarrassing I can happily report I didn't figure out any of the mysteries. I kind of thought reading a "cozy" mystery would be like drinking coffee that was too weak, but it was nice. One thing that is really interesting is that this kind of book often comes out for holidays, there are many Halloween volumes out now and lots for Christmas. In addition, they often feature someplace neat like a bed and breakfast, or library, or country store with locations like Salem or Cape Cod.  Now I've only read one, but I've already purchased way too many....I can't resist the names and covers...these aren't complex stories just plain old fun, nice, light reading. I bet they can be addictive.

On a housewife note, no, our contractor still has not fixed our hurricane Dorian damage. We've had way too much rain and he is super busy. For right now, I will NOT be reading any cutesy cozy about a home repair mystery. I'm living it and it is not cute or cozy!

Hell House by Richard Matheson

Hello everyone.

Growing up in New York makes me appreciate fall, not that we are having autumn like weather in coastal North Carolina, it was 95 today. In upstate NY though, fall is in full swing. That means three things; high school football rivalries, beautiful leaves, and apple everything. Each fall, one Saturday morning, my dad would return home with buckets and buckets full of apples he had just picked. These were not any run of the mill apples either, they were Macintosh. Now if you've only had a "mac" from the grocery store, I am so sorry, you are missing out. Real "macs" are small, fairly firm, quite tart, and taste very apple-y. They were my dad's favorite so naturally they are my favorite too. Not only great for eating but perfect for baking. Cool weather was a signal that a visit to the cider mill was in order, cider, donuts, and candy apples of every variety were soon to follow. Just for the record, despite what my sisters say, blue candy apples are the best.

Another signal of fall was the start of fires in the large stone fireplace in our basement. We spent hours down there on cloudy afternoons watching movies. One that we loved, even though it really scared us, was The Legend of Hell House (the original version). Not only was the story creepy but it had an odd soundtrack that I can still hear. I was surprised last month to find out that, like many other movies, it had been a book first. I had to get my hands on it and read it immediately.

Hell House was written by Richard Matheson, published in 1971. The author also wrote the movie. Both stories center on a very haunted old mansion. Years ago a group of people went to the house to investigate; all were killed or driven mad except one person. Now, the house is about to be examined again, this time by a small cast of characters. Lionel Barrett and his wife, Edith, are attending the gathering. Lionel has developed a machine he believes can clear all the spirits from the house, making it usable once more. He is going to test his miracle machine during this visit. Joining the couple are just two other people. Florence Tanner, a medium, and Fischer, another medium and the only person to survive the last visit to Hell House. The story moves quickly and is filled with atmosphere. If you've seen the movie, don't hesitate to read the book. While you'll certainly recognize the story line, there are some notable differences, like a lake close to the house, where people tend to drown. In addition, the novel is much more sexual than the movie, not in a vulgar or overdone way. While I doubt this book would give you nightmares, it is still a spooky but fun read.

You know how books will sometimes advertise other titles by the same author in the back of the book? Well, Hell House has that page and I was shocked. Probably the most shocked I was throughout the whole experience! Talk about being a versatile writer, Richard Matheson also wrote the stories and screenplays for.... Duel (one of hubby's favorites)...I am Legend, he also wrote...wait for it....nah I can't tell you. Okay I will, the author of Hell House, the iconic haunted house movie (and book) wrote the novel and movie Somewhere In Time. You know the time travel, love story with Christopher Reeve. Now that is someone who can write anything!