The Haunting Season: Eight Ghostly Tales for Long Winter Nights

Long before Dickens and James popularized the tradition, the shadowy nights of winter have been a time for people to gather together by the flicker of candlelight and experience the intoxicating thrill of a spooky tale.

Now nine bestselling, award-winning authors - all of them master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre - bring the tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding new collection of original spine-tingling tales.

Taking you from the frosty fens of Cambridgeshire, to the snow-covered grounds of a country estate, to a bustling London Christmas market, these mesmerizing stories will capture your imagination and serve as your indispensable companion to cold, dark nights. So curl up, light a candle, and fall under the ghostly spell of winters past.

In need of a break from the summer heat I delved in to The Haunting Season with it's cold, driving rain, drifting snow storms, and of course ghostly apparitions.

In my favorite stories I discovered a haunted wheel chair, met a new mother anxious to protect her child, a woman seeking shelter from her abusive husband, who finds help not from family but from an unexpected entity, and a recovering alcoholic who meets an influence much darker than the drink. 

These chilling stories are a perfect way to welcome in the shorter days and cooler nights. Not all of the spirits have evil intent, but even a well meaning warning of impending doom can be frightening when it comes from beyond the grave.

I would recommend it to all who enjoy a good old fashioned ghost story.

4 out of 5 stars 

I received an advance copy for review.

Available for pre-order

 

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

 

A Heian-era mansion stands abandoned, its foundations resting on the bones of a bride and its walls packed with the remains of the girls sacrificed to keep her company.

It’s the perfect wedding venue for a group of thrill-seeking friends.

But a night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare. For lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart.

And she gets lonely down there in the dirt.

A group of friends go to a haunted mansion for a wedding. The run down, abandoned house is the final resting place of a former would be bride and holds the remains of girls who were buried alive to keep her company.

The cover and  synopsis is what pulled me in. The characters and purple prose is what nearly stopped me from finishing. I could not really connect with the writing style. Just because someone knows a lot of words doesn't mean they all need to be crammed in. It reminds me of the way middle grade kids will go back and add as many words as possible to pad out a school report to the required number of paragraphs. I didn't connect with any of the characters. I didn't like any of them and they didn't like each other much either. This was not the terrifying ghost story I was hoping for. You may enjoy it more than I did. I seem to be in the minority of disappointed readers.

2 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy for review.

Bobcats by Matthew Weber

 

Growing up is hard to do, when people try to kill you. Thirteen-year-old Joey Kilgore learns this lesson the hard way, as he and his friends, who’ve dubbed themselves “the Bobcats,” embark on a weekend hiking trip across the ridge of Black Oak Mountain. Completing the hike along The Gauntlet is a local rite of passage that separates the men from the boys, but when the gang happens upon a pair of cold-blooded killers disposing of fresh corpses, it leads to a nightmarish chase through a storm-ravaged forest that will test their mettle like they never expected.

This was a suspenseful tale of true friendship and survival. These boys have only themselves and each other to rely on, as they are being hunted in the woods.

Joey and his friends weren't meant to be alone with no adult supervision for this hiking weekend. It had already been planned when Joey's dad passed away. Since they had all looked forward to it so much and since they knew it was important to Joey, his friends rallied round, and with a few white lies told to unsuspecting parents, decided to go ahead with their trip. They knew the weather was likely to turn against them, but they never expected to stumble upon a hitman dumping bodies or to be in a fight for their very survival.

What begins as a rite of passage ends as a deadly hike through hell. Who will live to tell what happened on Black Oak Mountain? 

4 out of 5 stars 

I received a complimentary copy.

Get a copy

Author's Website

Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

 

A spirited young Englishwoman, Abitha, arrives at a Puritan colony betrothed to a stranger – only to become quickly widowed when her husband dies under mysterious circumstances. All alone in this pious and patriarchal society, Abitha fights for what little freedom she can grasp onto, while trying to stay true to herself and her past.

Enter Slewfoot, a powerful spirit of antiquity newly woken… and trying to find his own role in the world. Healer or destroyer? Protector or predator? But as the shadows walk and villagers start dying, a new rumor is whispered: Witch.

Both Abitha and Slewfoot must swiftly decide who they are, and what they must do to survive in a world intent on hanging any who meddle in the dark arts.

Abitha is trying her best to fit in to this strange new world, America where she is wedded to a man she never knew until her father sold her off from England. Though not necessarily in love with her new husband there is an affection there, and she does what she can to be a good wife. Her husband's brother is a selfish and greedy man while her husband is often too meek to stand up to him. The villagers are Puritans, and are more realistically portrayed in this work of historical fiction than in the actual history book I was made to study as a child. They are not people who believe in religious freedom, they are my way or the highway kind of people who would sooner shackle you and stone you than let you get away with being 2 minutes late for a sermon, and heaven help you if a lock of hair ever escaped from under your cap! When Abitha's husband is killed, his brother expects Abitha to become his servant. He tried to tell her she was weak, that she did not matter because she was only a woman, he tried to sabotage her efforts, however she was stronger and more powerful than he knew, and with some magical helpers she will have her revenge.

This book is so many things in one. It's horror, fantasy, historical fiction, and a harrowing tale of revenge. It begins in 1666 and has a perfect ending in a 1970s epilogue. It is at times hauntingly beautiful and at others graphic and gory. I loved the way Abitha awakened to her true self. 

4 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy for review.

Get a copy

About the author