Tag: gothic

Book Review – The Haunting Season

~ A. Siegelster

The Haunting Season: Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights by Bridget Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Haunting Season includes eight short stories full of mind-bending haunts and cold winter nights. This was a wonderful read to get me into the spooky mood, and the cold, dark, and snow of Winnipeg was the perfect atmosphere for these wintertime spooks.

Overall, I thought all of the stories were good. I will, however, briefly go through each story and discuss my favorites and least favorites. The short, spoiler-free review will end here with this recommendation: if you want to get back into the spooky mood, this is a great book to read on a cozy winter night.

Discussion of the stories:

Story 1 – A Study in Black and White by Bridget Collins

If you guessed that this story has to do with chess, you would be right. And that premise alone got me into the story. An entire house that is obsessed with chess, even the garden is a giant chessboard. However, I did not like the climax of the story so much. It is indeed a haunted house, with its own chess-playing ghost. But that’s all it does. The protagonist is terrified for his life of this ghost, and all the ghost wants to do is play chess. If the ghost did have nefarious, chess-related schemes, the author needed to expand upon it further.

Story 2 – Thwaite’s Tenant by Imogen Hermes Gowar

This is your classic, gothic haunted house story. A woman and her son have come to an ancestral home to escape her tyrannical husband. But she soon discovers that the ghost of this old house is another tyrannical husband, bent on making all the women in that house miserable. What I liked, though, is that even though things went wrong at every turn, the protagonist knew her own mind and ended up better for it.

Story 3 – The Eel Singers by Natasha Pulley

I loved this story, I think it was my favorite of the anthology. This is a mind bend if I ever read one. A man and his clairvoyant friend (partner?) go to an old village where the clairvoyant is not able to see the future. However, they find out that the reason for this is more sinister than they would have liked. This has elements of folklore that I love – going somewhere where old traditions live on, a Lovecraftian eldritch whatever that is trying to eat them, the bog. What I also liked is that you don’t really know what is going on, you only have hints – to me, the not knowing is the scariest part of these stories.

Story 4 – Lily Wilt by Jess Kidd

You know the story about Carl Tanzler? The guy who was obsessed so with a young woman that he kept her dead body and lived with it several years after she died? This is like that story, but also kind of the opposite? Basically the same sort of plot, except the man meets the woman after she is dead, and the whole thing is her idea. I liked this story because we really don’t know what it is that’s causing the dead woman to remain earth-bound. Is it even the same woman? Is it a demon or some other spirit? Either way, it does not end well for her. I also liked the author’s use of the photographic technology available at the time this story takes place, and the creepy lore of afterimages in old Victorian photographs. I could see this being made into a movie or short.

Story 5 – The Chillingham Chair by Laura Purcell

This story is basically a murder mystery that never gets resolved. Yes, we find out what happens, but the main character is sort of trapped in such a way that she can’t tell anyone, and no one will listen. Think Gaslight meets Crimson Peak. This story was the most nerve-wracking for me because the protagonist was for all intents and purposes trapped. No one would believe her anything, except the ghosts who were trying to help her. Death is almost certain for her, even as she realizes what is going on. The imagery of the rooms and the titular chair is very claustrophobic, but I like it, and I do hope that it was the author’s intention. This atmosphere makes the story that much more frightening.

Story 6 – The Hanging of the Greens by Andrew Michael Hurley

This, to me, was the weirdest story, and the most Christmassy. Think of it as a sort of reverse Christmas Carol, where the past of someone else comes to the protagonist in order to right a past wrong, and the protagonist is only too willing to help. This is one story where I wish the author had described just a bit more of the supernatural phenomena, or the folklore behind the “Greens” of this story. There wasn’t much real fear to be felt, only a lot of sadness. Then again, many ghost stories are just symbols of sadness, and the author does this well.

Story 7 – Confinement by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

This story was very clearly based at least partly on The Yellow Wallpaper, but what’s also cool is that the author based the villain of this story on Amelia Dyer, a notorious historical serial killer. This serial killer, however, is a malevolent ghost in this story, the one driving the protagonist mad during her confinement after giving birth. Unlike The Yellow Wallpaper, this story does not take place in just one room. In fact, the journey from the protagonist’s room, through all of the snow, and to the church a ways away is an important spatial feature. I also liked how we as the reader knew for certain, even if others didn’t, that the protagonist was not mad.

Story 8 – Monster by Elizabeth Macneal

This isn’t really a ghost story, at least I don’t really think so. It’s about a man who wants to discover a new type of dinosaur, but gets a boy killed in the process. He then goes mad, thinking that the dinosaur is the boy, and vice versa. This is a story with a definite unreliable narrator. I think this is my least favorite story, mostly because it’s not very haunted, it’s more like you’re in the mind of an insane person, which can be scary, but it’s not my cup of tea. I did like the atmosphere of the stormy coast though!


And those are my thoughts! I definitely recommend this anthology for a cozy winter night. This book also makes me want to check out the other works of each author.



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Book Review – The Widow’s House by Carol Goodman

~ A. Siegelster

The Widow’s House by Carol Goodman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



In The Widow’s House by Carol Goodman, couple Jess and Clare Martin travel from New York City to the New York countryside where Clare grew up, to get away from their troubles and to repair their marriage. Or so Clare is led to believe. They become caretakers of the house of their old, wealthy writing instructor, but are uneasy as ghosts, both real and imagined, start to come out of the house.

This is the second novel I’ve read by Carol Goodman; the first I read was The Lake of Dead Languages. Overall, I very much enjoyed this novel. The atmosphere of Riven House was palpable – you could feel the secrets seeping out of its walls (sometimes literally!). Adding the touch of Winter to the landscape as well made this novel a bona fide ghost story (like in The Children of Green Knowe), even if the ghosts were only in the characters’ minds.

The characters were good, and mostly believable. There were times, however, when their decisions didn’t feel so realistic – though if you are frightened out of your wits, how realistic can you actually be? For Clare, though, Goodman did a fantastic job narrating the mind of someone who is almost certainly paranoid and delusional, but whose delusions are proved to be based in reality more and more over time. By the end of the story, you can’t be certain if Clare has overcome her paranoia or has been more soundly rooted to it. But, after reading her story, you can’t blame her for it, instead you feel empathy, like you feel that you yourself have her wits. And that is why Goodman’s characters are so well-written, even if I very much don’t agree with a lot of their decisions.

These themes, atmosphere, and characters (especially the crazy wife) recall such stories as The Yellow Wallpaper, Dragonwyck, and Jane Eyre, making this book feel wonderfully gothic, and a short version of the Bildungsroman story.

The Widow’s House was a good book to end the Autumn season with. I still like The Lake of Dead Languages much better, I felt it was a more interesting story, but that could just be because I’m biased towards people who study Latin. This story was still very compelling and had me anxious for Clare through to the end.



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Book Review – The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston

~ A. Siegelster

The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston is about Tolly, a boy who goes to stay with his great-grandmother in the castle-like home Green Knowe, or Green Noah. There, Tolly not only finds a kindred spirit in his great-grandmother, but also in the animals, and actual spirits that reside at Green Noah.

This was such a lovely read, one I know my childhood self would have loved too. I discovered this book when I was reading Wintering by Katherine May. May said that this was a favorite ghost story that she liked to read during the winter months, and so of course I had to read it too. I wouldn’t necessarily call this book a ghost story – the spirits in this book didn’t feel negative or haunting in any way. Rather, I would call this a child’s adventure with a gothic feel. Actually, it sort of reads like The Turn of the Screw but with a lot more adventure and positivity. I very much enjoyed The Turn of the Screw, and I think that, plus the sense of adventure, was why I very much enjoyed Green Knowe.

Tolly is my ideal type of kid: imaginative, playing pretend, with a sense of adventure, and a love of ghosts-that-might-be-friends. He is akin to many of my other favorite literary characters: Aveline Jones, Tilly from Pages & Co., the narrator from The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Hilda, and many others.
His great-grandmother has this sort of spirit and personality as well, and I so want to be like her as I grow through my life.

This book is simply written, but the imagination within is so alive with adventure and stories. I did also like the parts where Tolly’s great-grandmother told him stories by the fire – it made the whole thing so very cozy, especially now in the last of the winter months.

I recommend this book to those who want a quiet and cozy adventure in a gothic setting to bring them back to their childhood.



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Book Review – The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

~ A. Siegelster

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill


Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black really is a classic ghost story. The protagonist, Arthur Kipps, prompted by his family to tell them a ghost story, recounts his experiences performing his duties as a solicitor for the dead Mrs. Drablow at the isolated Eel Marsh House. There he sees what is known there as ‘the woman in black’ and learns of her cruel history, and the cruel revenge her spirit takes in turn.

Of course I started reading this because I saw the movie, but if I had known The Woman In Black was a book first, I would have dived right in. This ghost story is up there with stories by Shirley Jackson, and the gothic works of Edith Wharton and Henry James. However, I think this is one of my favorites so far.

It’s such an atmospheric novel, I could feel the cold and wet of the marshes surrounding Eel Marsh House, could hear the squelch of the mud as the horse and carriage were heard by Arthur to sink and die in the marsh over and over, repeating that singular moment in time.
One gets the sense of looking back into the gothic, stepping through the threshold of the present into a past as grey and grim as death.

There are actually only a few differences between the book and the movie. (Spoilers ahead)
Arthur lives past the tragedy of the woman in black and into old age, though still mourning the death of his son.
They do not actually find the carriage and dead son of the woman in black, though Arthur was able to figure out the entire mystery based on papers and the apparitions he saw and heard.

I listened to The Woman In Black on audiobook, which was a wonderful experience. The book was read by Paul Ansdell.

I recommend this book to all who want a classic ghost story, to all who want to step into the past, no matter how foreboding it might be.



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