Sooky Halloween Reads

I love ghosts and haunted houses, but always run out of time before October 31st to actually *fit any in* as September/October is often "Frantically reading the Booker Shortlist" time. So in the interests of being nice and early...If you were in the market for some spooky Halloween reads, theses are some of my all time favourites.

Say Her Name, by Juno Dawson

A classic bloody Mary ghost story set in a girls' boarding school. Bobbie, the main character is just so funny and realistic and badass, and it's genuinely a scary, blood curdling story of tragic boarding school girls, vengeance and classic malevolent spirits that aren't bothered who they damn forever.

The Secret of Crickley Hall, by James Herbert

Nefarious orphanage patrons. Ghostly boys. A celler door that won't stay locked. A bereaved family looking for peace. Draughty corridors and secretive locals. Proper classic stuff.

The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

The OG of all the films, both ones directly adapted from this novel and all those slightly similar- it seems familiar because it kind of started it all. The tweedy professor type, the handsome posh boy, the shy retiring girl and the balshy bohemian investigate a reportedly haunted house. By daylight Hill House seems a dilapidated, handsome but disheveled country manor. By night, something slightly more sinister. I love the idea of places and buildings being diffused with malignant evil, that they soak up all of the bad things that ever happen within their walls and mete it out to the unwise fools that get close enough. SJ is absolutely masterful and pulling suspense out of nowhere. A masterclass in unease.

The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins

So not technically a ghost story, but that beginning scene is one of the most creepy, atmospheric perfect little book beginnings in 200 years. Mist. Gas lamps. A cemetery. A white clad figure, looking sad. It's all there.

So what am I trying to squeeze in this year? The plan is:
Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith
Ghost Story, by Peter Straub
Something by HP Lovecraft because I have read absolutely nothing of his and that is shameful.

Does anybody else have some good spooky/ghostly/haunt-y recs? Let's face it, horror works so much better on the page because the author is automatically denied the possibility of the dreaded, lazy ass JUMP SCARE!! you can't resort to cheap tricks and a too-loud made-you-jump soundtrack in a book my sneaky Hollywood friends.

After the Fire, by Will Hill

Probably the best standalone YA novel I have read this year. After the Fire is compelling, empathetic and so perfectly paced. Narrator and protagonist Moonbeam is a remarkable character- despite never knowing life in the real world, she is humane, intelligent and ceaselessly strong. What an amazing young woman, I kind of love her.

The novel jumps right in to a chaotic siege, there is gunfire, panic, roaring flames. The frantic narrator recognises bloodied, dead and dying faces around her; she's running, apparently on neither one side nor the other. We don't know these dead people yet. The next time we see Moonbeam, she is waking up in a secure facility, alive and bandaged. She has survived the fire, but she does not know if she is safe. She is now in the hands of the Outsiders, the Government- people she has been raised to believe are torturers, murderers and devils. She is suspicious of them to begin with, as anyone would be waking up in what they have always been told is the lion's den.

The book is split into numerous sections, each one labelled Before and After (the fire). In the After, a shell-shocked, confused and doubt riddled Moonbeam is required to sit down in therapy sessions with a Dr Hernandez and eventually also Agent Carlyle, as they work to piece together the aspects of her life and experiences. Moonbeam grew up and lived most of her life on the "Base", the homestead of the Lord's Legion, a cultish branch of extremist Christianity led by the charismatic, tyrannical Father John; a fire and brimstone Prophet who claims to commune directly with The Lord.

As Moonbeam reveals more about Father John, his increasing powers and his means of control, life on the Base is laid bare. The manipulation. The fear. The brainwashing. The disappearances. The radicalisation of angry young men by means of isolation, ego stoking, entitlement and gun access. The reader follows Moonbeam's gradual realisation that her religion is deeply flawed, that how she and her peers are treated is wrong, that Father John is an absolute maniac and that nobody else is going to be able to help her get away- nobody except for Nate, a dreamy guy from the outside that manages to win the favour of Father John, chucks a spanner in his works and then promptly vanishes into the dust. It's really easy to relate to Moonbeam's feelings for Nate- being convinced that he just sees her as this annoying, doting kid with a crush.

Moonbeam takes her time to recount her story, gradually leading up to what she considers to be a sickening, gut churning secret, a festering guilt that will taint her in the eyes of the men she has come to trust, and the remaining Base kids that are still at the facility with her. The ones that look up to her. It's a hearbreaking story of abuse, a yearning for belonging and powerlessness that is both emotional and fascinating.

I love books that feature cults, and the people that come to their senses and escape. After the Fire is honestly one of the best novels I've read this year and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone- readers that loved Lisa Heathfield's Seed will go mad for it, as would any adult readers that enjoyed last year's runaway cult bestseller The Girls, by Emma Cline. After the Fire is pacy, intelligent, filled with compelling characters, both innocent and evil and a fascinating study of how charismatic, forceful individuals can create their own empires if they are deluded enough, they believe their own lies enough, and if the supply of lost, damaged and disillusioned individuals to convert is plentiful enough.

Stunning.