Title: Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries Writer: Various edited by Martin Edwards Publishing House: British Library Crime Classics Date of Publication: October 1st 2015 Rating: 5 stars ‘’When television becomes tiresome, and party games pall, the prospect of curling up in the warm with a good mystery is enticing – and much better for the digestion…
Month: December 2020
A Christmas Memory
Title: A Christmas Memory Writer: Truman Capote Publishing House: Penguin Classics Date of Publication: October 29th 2020 (first published 1956) Rating: 5 stars ‘’It’s fruitcake weather.’’ ‘’Now a nude December fig branch grates against the window. The kitchen is empty, the cakes are gone; yesterday we courted the last of them to the post office, where…
The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas
Title: The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas Writer: Syd Moore Publishing House: Oneworld Publications Date of Publication: October 3rd 2019 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Draw in close, throw another log on the fire if you will. It’s a chill night. I shall just add some of that coal. Now, this may take quite a while so…
Spirits of the Season: Christmas Hauntings
Title: Spirits of the Season: Christmas Hauntings Writer: Tanya Kirk Publishing House: British Library Date of Publication: August 1st 2019 Rating: 5 stars ‘’The second Mrs. Ryder was a young woman not easily frightened, but now she stood in the dusk of the passage leaning back against the wall, her hand on her heart, looking…
The Betrayals
Title: The Betrayals Writer: Bridget Collins Publishing House: William Morrow Date of Publication: November 12th 2020 Rating: 5 stars ‘’Tonight the moonlight makes the floor of the Great Hall into a game board. Every high window casts a bright lattice, dividing the hall into black and white, squares and margins. The ranks of wooden benches…
The Penguin Book of Exorcisms
Title: The Penguin Book of Exorcisms Writer: Edited by Joseph P. Laycock Publishing House: Penguin Classics Date of Publication: September 8th 2020 Rating: 5 stars A comprehensive and extremely informative volume of essays, eyewitness accounts, diary entries, reports and legal documents concerning the most unexplainable and terrifying phenomenon in all cultures. Demonic possession and exorcism….
Classic Ghost Stories
Title: Classic Ghost Stories Writer: Various Publishing House: Vintage Classics Date of Publication: October 12th 2017 Rating: 5 stars ‘’If the picture within was bright and cheerful, the prospect was dreary enough without. The fairy forest of snow-wreathed trees, the white valleys and undulating banks of snow had vanished, and the rain dropped slowly and…
Don’t Look Now and Other Stories
Title: Don’t Look Now and Other Stories Writer: Daphne du Maurier Publishing House: Penguin Books Ltd. Date of Publication: June 29th 2006 (first published 1940) Rating: 5 stars ‘’The twins were standing there, the blind one still holding on to her sister’s arm, her sightless eyes fixed firmly upon him. He felt himself held, unable…
The Diving Pool
Title: The Diving Pool and Other Stories (original title: (ダイヴィング・プール) Writer: Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder) Publishing House: Vintage Publishing Date of Publication: April 2nd 2014 (first published 1990) Rating: 5 stars ‘’Since I was a little girl, I’ve disliked the thirtieth of December. I could always get through the thirty-first by telling myself…
The Opinionated Reader 