Title: The Bear and the Nightingale (The Winternight Trilogy #1) Writer: Katherine Arden Publishing House: Penguin Random House Publication Date: January 10th 2017 Rating: 4 stars “Father Frost and the Maiden” From the village of Mstera (image source: https://josonja.com) ‘’Fairy tales are sweet on winter nights, nothing more.’’ Russian fairy tales are unlike any others, in my opinion.They are not simple,…
Month: October 2017
Uncommon Type: Some Stories….
Title:Uncommon Type: Some Stories Writer: Tom Hanks Publishing House: Penguin Random House Publication Date: October 17th 2017 Rating: 5 stars “In her living room she opened the windows to get a bit of breeze. The sun had set, so the first fireflies of the evening would begin to flare in a bit. She sat on the windowsill…
The Daylight Gate
Title: The Daylight Gate Writer: Jeanette Winterson Publishing House: Hammer Date of Publication: August 16th 2012 Rating: 5 stars (The beautiful city of Lancaster -image source: https://www.ilh.com/countries/england/lancashire) ‘’Stand on the flat top of Pendle Hill and you can see everything of the county of Lancashire. Some say you can see other things too. This is a haunted place. The living and…
Eight Ghosts…..
Title: Eight Ghosts: The English Heritage Book of New Ghost Stories Writers: Sarah Perry, Jeanette Winterson, Andrew Michael Hurley, Mark Haddon, Kamila Shamsie, Stuart Evers, Kate Clanchy, Max Porter edited by Rowan Routh Publishing House: September Publishing Publication Date: September 28th 2017 Rating: 5 stars ‘’There is melancholy in lights glimpsed from a distance’’, she said, ‘’A party to which one has not been invited.’’…
The Halloween Children
Title: The Halloween Children Writer: Brian James Freeman & Norman Prentiss Publishing House: Earthling Publications Date of Publication: October 2014 Rating: 3 stars “If my jokes had anything to do with what happened to our family that Halloween, I’m really sorry. I wish I could take it all back.” When you behave as if your children are idiots, when you…
The Shadow Hour
Title :The Shadow Hour Writer: Kate Riordan Publishing House: Penguin Random House Publication Date: February 25th 2016 Kate Riordan’s first novel, “The Girl in the Photograph”, was one of the most atmospheric reads of last year. It contained everything we have come to associate worth the good, old British Gothic Fiction. An old mansion, dual time narration,…
Haunted Nights…
Title: Haunted Nights Writer: A Horror Writers Association Anthology edited by Elen Datlow and Lisa Morton Publishing House: Anchor Books Publication Date: October 3rd 2017 Rating: 5 stars “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?” “With graveyard weeds and wolfsbane seeds, and empty graves all in a row.” Who would pass a book entitled Haunted Nights? Would you…
Hallowe’en Party…
Title: Hallowe’en Party (Hercule Poirot, #36) Writer: Agatha Christie Publishing House: HarperCollins Date of Publication: November 1969 Rating: 5 stars ”The past is the father of the present. The ”crime” writers who write like Christie are few. The ones who try to write mysteries similar to her own are non-existent. I may sound harsh, but those who struggle to…
Hocus Pocus In Focus…
Title: Hocus Pocus in Focus: The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Disney’s Halloween Classic Writer: Aaron Wallace Publishing House: Pensive Pen Publishing Publication Date: September 9th 2016 Rating: 5 stars I admit that strange as it may sound, I didn’t count myself among the millions of ‘’Hocus Pocus’’ fans until last autumn, when I watched the film for the first time….
Dark Things…
“If Hieronymus Bosch had gotten around to writing poems, I suspect they would have sounded like Novica Tadić .” Charles Simic I feel this quote describes the nature of the poems included in this superb collection in a way more accurate than any review. This is my first foray into the work of Novica Tadić…
The Essex Serpent
Title: ”The Essex Serpent” Writer: Sarah Perry Publishing House: Serpent’s Tail Publication Date: May 27th 2016 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Come tomorrow,…
When in a haunted house…
Yes, this is a photo of a corner in my house. No, it’s not haunted. At least, not as far as I know…. Title: The Grip of It Writer : Jac Jemc Publisher: FSG Originals Publication Date: August 1st 2017 Rating: 5 stars “But what if those buried, fetid stories are the ones that have bubbled to…
October TBR or why I’d call it overambitious…
Let us return to the present time and take a look at the reading list of the current month. Now, being a teacher, I can tell you that being overambitious is a way of life. There’s been a plethora of times when you think you can overload everything in a child’s head and then…
Spooky, spookier, spookiest….
October reading Vol.2 or the trully scary parts… And now, the time has come to talk about the whole point of adoring October. Getting scared! I don’t know about you, but there are few things I enjoy more than reading a book that makes me want to turn on all the lights in my…
A very special hotel…
Title: ”Hotel Silence” Writer: Audur Ava Olafsdottir Publisher : Grove Atlantic Publication Date: 23 February 2018 Rating : 4 out of 5 stars ‘’Will the world miss me? No. Will the world be any poorer without me? No. Will the world survive without me? Yes. Is the world a better place now than when I came into it? No….
It isn’t autumn until October comes….
I think it is safe to say that October is a special time for us obsessed readers that live in the Western and Eastern Hemisphere. Not only the month of Halloween (and we all love Halloween, don’t we?….) but the time when summer finally decides to bid us adieu until the next time. What is…
Let’s talk murder…on a train…
‘’Some crimes God does not forgive!’’ Last week, I watched (for the gazillionth time…) ITV’s 2010 production of ‘’Murder on the Orient Express’’ with the inimitable David Suchet in the role of our beloved Hercule Poirot and it prompted certain thoughts in my mind. Why is this considered one of Christie’s finest creations? Many…
The Opinionated Reader 
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