Best Ghost Stories of J. S. LeFanu

Last fall, I wrote about M. R. James who many consider the master of the English ghost story. The other contestant for that title is the Irish writer Joseph Sheridan LeFanu. Born two generations earlier than James, LeFanu was a true Victorian, having lived from 1814 to 1873. If you like the leisurely-paced novels of [...]

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The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

As I mentioned yesterday, in England ghost stories are  common fare for the Christmas season. In that tradition, James begins his chilling tale as a story offered at a holiday gathering long after the events of the tale have occurred. The guests at a holiday celebration gather around to hear one of their members relate [...]

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High Spirits, by Robertson Davies

Although we generally associate ghost stories with Halloween and October, there is a long tradition in Great Britain of telling ghost stories around the Christmas season. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a classic example, with Scrooge being haunted by spirits who offer him one last chance to see the error of his ways. Robertson [...]

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The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories

When autumn rolls around, it is always good to pull out a scary story or two. I am generally not a fan of visceral horror writing, where the horizon is strewn with blood and body parts at the end of the tale. I prefer a more mannered, genteel approach to my horror; I look for [...]

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Hell, by Robert Olen Butler

Welcome to Hell. The toilets are backed up, a new Wal-Mart opened today, and the weather forecast calls for scattered sulfurous fiery storms. There are cockroaches everywhere, but no trees or animals (but they don’t deserve to be here, do they?). There are lots and lots and lots of people—Stalin and Hitler (no surprises there) and [...]

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The Demon’s Lexicon, by Sarah Rees Brennan

Wisecracking brothers with swords and guns, on the run from the demons that killed their father. This could have been a run-of-the-mill teenage urban fantasy with demon hunting and chase scenes, but first-time author Brennan also gives us an intriguing, sardonic narrator who hooked me into a story I didn’t expect.
Sixteen-year-old Nick Ryves is a [...]

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Pretty Little Devils, by Nancy Holder

Every school has them, the popular clique of girls whom everyone wants to date or be best friends with. The Pretty Little Devils (PLDs) are such a group of girls, at Brookhaven High School in California. While they are pretty and intelligent, they are also manipulative, and can get away with anything, maybe [...]

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Fade, by Robert Cormier

Here’s the plot hook: at the age of thirteen, Paul Moreaux discovers that he can turn invisible.
Here’s what would have happened in the hands of lesser writers: the invisible Paul would have stolen lots of stuff and watched girls undress and pulled harmless pranks.
Here’s what happened in the hands of Robert Cormier: the invisible Paul [...]

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Already Dead, by Charlie Huston

Charlie Huston is not the first writer to blend vampires into crime fiction, but he may be the wisest in how he melds the two genres. Casting a vampire as detective in the hard-boiled noir tradition makes a surprising amount of sense. Let’s consider how the two traditions overlap:
A hard-boiled detective keeps late hours and [...]

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The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book opens with a mass murder in progress. The mom has been killed, the dad has been killed, the sibling has been killed: three down, one to go.
Why can’t all children’s books start this way?
Now if the victim-to-be had not been a restless toddler, this would have been a very short book indeed. [...]

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