One of my best reads of Halloween Bingo so far. Ruthlessly consistent and startlingly original. An amazing control of pace and tone and a seamless integration of the original Hans Christian Anderson stor

‘We Solve Murders‘ wasn’t the cozy book I thought it was going to be but it was fun once I relaxed into it. The slick plot and exotic locations are counterpointed by down to earth humour. I found two of the three main characters engaging. I’ll be back for more in the hopes that the next book is a little clearer about what it’s trying to do.

I’m halfway through ‘The Haunting Of Hill House’ It’s my first Shirley Jackson novel and I’m completely absorbed by it. The prose is wonderful: subtle, layered but accessible. The horror builds slowly. Best of all, it becomes a ‘fear for’ rather than a ‘fear of’ story.

I didn’t make as much progress with this as I’d planned with ‘A Dram Of Poison‘ Nothing wrong with the book. I just got distracted.

This won the Edgar Award for Best Novel (1957) but, to me, it feels like it was written at the start of the 20th Century. It holds the reader at arm-length and tells the story as a remembrance of former deeds that doomed the doer.

I’d meant ‘Bunny‘ to be my Dark Academia book. It’s a great fit for tha category but not a great fit for me. It’s powerfully written but deeply strange. I didn’t want to sink further intot the mind of the main charcter.

After setting ‘Bunny‘ aside, I moved on to ‘Vicious‘ as my Dark Academia book I hesitated because I ended up setting her much-loved ‘A Darker Shade Of Magic‘ aside in 2022 Halloween Bingo. I disliked the ‘I’m bored with this’ narration and the slow, data-laden start. ‘Vicious’ has a great start in a graveyard at night, two intercut timelines and a pace and tone that reads like a good graphic novel.

I stayed up to finished this horror novella last night. I loved how tightly written, ‘Mosaic’ kept the story grounded in reality while slowly building the tension as the emotionally damaged main charactr starts to feel the stress as she falls under the shadow of something old and evil in the ruined church she’s working to restore.

I was suprised when I read the review of Cindewich. To me, Cherie Priest is the author of humorous thrillers like ‘Grave Reservations‘ so I didn’t expect her to be the author of a book described as “A mystery/thriller southern gothic novel set in dying Tennessee town that is known for one the mysterious death of a young woman decades prior. A journalist, along with her college mentor, travel to rural Tennessee finding answers that by turns are familial and unexpected.” I’m intrigued.

It’s been a very long time since I read any Poul Anderson, but the review of ‘The Broken Sword’ reminded me of why I used to enjoy his work. The next time I’m in the mood for some classic fantasy I may reach for this 1954 novel.

‘Spore’ is the zombie apocalypse with a twist – these zombies aren’t the rotting walking dead, they’re once-dead people trying to relaim their lives. Elantarri’s reveiw sold me on the book.

I’ve been reading some positive Halloween Bingo reviews of books in this series. I enjoyed the first five Flavia DeLuce books and then set aside the sixth book, ‘The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches‘ at 35%. I’m surprised to find that I have no notes on why I did this. I have a memory that it was because the premise of the series was changing. Given the reviews I’ve been reading for later books, I’ve decided to re-read this book and see whether I’ll continue with the series.

This should probably have been my first and not my third choice for ‘Dark Academia’. I sampled it after I was already invested in ‘Vicious‘ or it would have been in this years Halloween Bingo. It’s been on my shelves since 2021 but it’s headed for the top of my TBR. It has a killer first line: “I decided that Orion needed to die after the second time he saved my life.” I love it when an author takes care to put a hook at the start of a book.