Welcome to Spooky Reads Friday, where every Friday in the month of October, I will be giving you scary selection book recommendations that will make your weekend reading more fulfilling…and scary 🎃. Check out these haunting book recs…if you dare…
The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie
M-U-R-D-E-R. It began as an innocent parlor game intended to while away the hours on a bitter winter night.
But the message that appeared before the amateur occultists at the snowbound Sittaford House was spelled out as loud and clear as a scream. Of course, the notion that they had foretold doom was pure bunk. Wasn’t it? And the discovery of a corpse was pure coincidence. Wasn’t it? If they’re to discover the answer to this baffling murder, perhaps they should play again. But a journey into the spirit world could prove terribly dangerous-especially when the killer is lurking in this one.
The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor
Welcome to Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, eight protestant martyrs were burned at the stake here. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And two months ago, the vicar of the local parish killed himself.
Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping to make a fresh start and find some peace. Instead, Jack finds a town mired in secrecy and a strange welcome package: an old exorcism kit and a note quoting scripture. But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.
The more Jack and daughter Flo get acquainted with the town and its strange denizens, the deeper they are drawn into their rifts, mysteries, and suspicions. And when Flo is troubled by strange sightings in the old chapel, it becomes apparent that there are ghosts here that refuse to be laid to rest.
But uncovering the truth can be deadly in a village where everyone has something to protect, everyone has links with the village’s bloody past, and no one trusts an outsider. (Credit: Ballantine Books)
Stray Dogs by Tony Fleecs and illustrated by Trish Forstner
It’s scary being the new dog.
In this suspenseful new series, readers meet Sophie, a dog who can’t remember what happened. She doesn’t know how she ended up in this house. She doesn’t recognize any of these other dogs. She knows something terrible happened but she just… can’t… recall… Wait! Where’s her lady? It’s all coming back to her now, and it’s enough to raise Sophie’s hackles.
Now Sophie has to figure out where she is, what’s happening and how she’s going to survive this.
They say there’s no such thing as a bad dog, just bad owners. (Credit: Image Comics)
Blood on the Tracks by Shuzo Oshimi
Seiichi’s mother loves him very much, and his days pass with placid regularity. School, friends, even the attention of his attractive classmate Fukiishi.
Until one terrible summer day, that all changes… (Credit: Vertical Comics)
Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell’s chilling Gothic tales blend the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. ‘Disappearances’, inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; ‘Lois the Witch’, a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland moors. Whether darkly surreal, such as ‘The Poor Clare’, where an evil doppelganger is formed by a woman’s bitter curse, or mischievous like ‘Curious, if True’, a playful reworking of fairy tales, all the pieces in this volume form a start contrast to the social realism of Gaskell’s novels, revealing a darker and more unsettling style of writing. (Credit: Penguin Books)
cup of tea with that book, please 