Read Women discussion

Are you a Hallowe'en fan? Maybe you just like dipping into ghost, creepy, horror or gothic stories as the season's change. Share the spooky reads you are looking forward to reading this October.

I love spooky season. I am planning on reading Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite by Zoraida Córdova.

I'm reading the 1818 version of Frankenstein: The 1818 Text with another GR group and am delighted to finally be getting around to it. Victor Frankenstein - what a thoughtless doofus - is my very sophisticated initial reaction : )

I have 5 creepy, unsettling reads this month. Finishing up Death of the Author which so far I'm not ready to categorize as creepy. The only other book written by a woman is The Monsters We Defy.

My others are:
The Trees (my first percival everett)
Dark Intelligence (cleaning up tbr - older unread scifi)
The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan

Carol wrote: "what a thoughtless doofus - is my very sophisticated initial reaction : )"

Hahahaha! Love it.

I am enjoying Vampires Never Get Old. It is a collection of vampire stories, most of which are by BIPOC women. I am also reading Gold by Catherine Winters - which is the third book in a vampire trilogy. It's a vampire spooky season for me I guess! Love the spooky, ghoulish, vampiric, monster stuff! So, what am I going as for Halloween? A vampire? A witch? A zombie? No. A hotdog vendor! LOL. That is because my dog is going to be a hot dog. LOL. I mean, we're doing a trunk 'n treat at my church where I am the choir director, so I couldn't really do anything too ghoulish. :)

Misty wrote: "Carol wrote: "what a thoughtless doofus - is my very sophisticated initial reaction : )"

Hahahaha! Love it.

I am enjoying Vampires Never Get Old. It is a collection of vampire stories, most of wh..."

I like that! (and love imagining you as a choir director, too).

Off topic: I have a friend trying to get me to participate in Trunk or Treat at my church and I'm a bit overwhelmed at how big my way-back is and what it would take from a design standpoint to fill it, e.g., man that's a lot of candy even if there's only 5 - 6 containers. Like ... after I buy the amazon decor kit, it still seems like a lot. Is there a trick to this? (no pun intended)

Back to books - I really like leaning into vampires vs other horror. I should try that. I don't really want to read creepy/scary before I go to bed, but vamps don't hit me the same way as "a bad guy in the house with me" stories. Thanks for the inspo.

I saw in Kindle monthly deals a couple of qualifying items:

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due for $2.99 (the original take on the Dozier School for Boys - also the subject of The Nickel Boys)
Phantasma by Kaylie Smith $1.99 (dark romantasy)
The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer (historical fiction) $1.99

and, it's not horror, but hey - Sadeqa Johnson's Yellow Wife is on sale for $1.99

I just started Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías. Bonus it’s translated. Just started so no thoughts. I’ve been going into my reads as blind as possible.

If you enjoy reading books about books, I’d recommend The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece by Roseanne Montillo with or after your read of Frankenstein.

that looks great, Anita. thanks for the rec.

Carol wrote: "Like ... after I buy the amazon decor kit, it still seems like a lot. Is there a trick to this? (no pun intended)"

I have absolutely no idea! This is only my second one. We are doing a carnival theme. I'm going to put a sheet in the back of our SUV. My husband and my son are building a game. I told them what I was wanting to do, and they just took over! LOL. They ordered a motor. They've been to Lowe's multiple times. I love it. We're building a carnival type game. It's a board that spins. We were going to put bottles on it and have rings that people can try to toss over the bottles as it spins. My husband forgot that part of it, so he is not sure the motor is going to be big enough! :) So, we might just get really big nails (like the 6-8" long ones), paint those, and hammer them into the wood. I'm going to get a black light to shine on it and paint it with colors that will look good under the black light. The kids get to play the game, and then they get candy. I have no idea how other places do Trunk 'n Treat! We also have a whole table of food. I'm going to make creepy deviled eggs. You boil them then crack them all over and put them in a bag with black food coloring for a while. Then when you peel them, they have all these purplish spider veins. Then I dye the yolks part green and put olive pieces on top to look like spiders. I usually make "pumpkin juice," but this year, I think my kiddo and I are going to make "fairy juice." Since I'm going to be a hot dog vendor, I'm going to actually have veggie hot dogs in my box, and we're putting a sign on the food table that says "For veggie dogs, see the hot dog vendor!" You may be realizing about now just how dorky I am....... ;) LOL.

Misty wrote: "Carol wrote: "Like ... after I buy the amazon decor kit, it still seems like a lot. Is there a trick to this? (no pun intended)"

I have absolutely no idea! This is only my second one. We are doing..."

i love all of these ideas !! i can even do the creepy deviled eggs so yay. your game idea sounds absolutely marvelous and im
in awe of your family’s collective ability to execute against your fab vision. thanks so much for sharing so many ideas 🧟‍♀️

I checked out Nigerian author Nuzo Onoh finally! I read her 2022 book A Dance For the Dead and it was an easy and entertaining read which made it perfect during a hectic time of travel and in-laws. I would definitely read more of her especially when I'm wanting something easy and entertaining again. I personally didn't get horror vibes from it. I wasn't ever feeling very tense or unsettled by it. I see it more as low+dark fantasy. The author has won the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award which google says is for horror and dark fantasy, so it fits. I really liked her characters.

Misty wrote: "Carol wrote: "Like ... after I buy the amazon decor kit, it still seems like a lot. Is there a trick to this? (no pun intended)"

I have absolutely no idea! This is only my second one. We are doing..."

That’s amazing Misty! The kids will love it. Also in awe of your family putting their heads together to make it happen.

On a side note, I started Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher, and it’s giving sufficient low spooky vibes with a gothic atmosphere. I quickly fell in love with the MC’s personality and voice.

It may not come in until November, but I learned about The Hong Kong Widow and immediately put it on hold - it fits a spooky fall. Split between 1930s Shanghai and 1950s and contemporary Hong Kong, it has ghosts, a haunted house and an author who wanted to stick close to historical facts. (Who knew that 1937 Shanghai had a Jewish ghetto?)

This Asian Review of Books explains the appeal, but if you're one who likes to go into books knowing as little as possible, it might give you more details than you prefer.

https://asianreviewofbooks.com/the-ho...

Carol wrote: "It may not come in until November, but I learned about The Hong Kong Widow ..."

ooooooh, rhis looks terrific! (and I skimmed the review). I think someone (ahem) should nominate this for a monthly read!

GailW wrote: "Carol wrote: "It may not come in until November, but I learned about The Hong Kong Widow ..."

ooooooh, rhis looks terrific! (and I skimmed the review). I think someone (ahem) shou..."

IKR? I'd like to see Love Medicine nominated another time, too.

Carol wrote: "It may not come in until November, but I learned about The Hong Kong Widow and immediately put it on hold - it fits a spooky fall. Split b..."

Okay - it looks good. I'm sold. I bought the audiobook. I'm going to listen to it after I finished the book I am listening to now (Time's Convert by Deborah Harkness).

GailW wrote: "ooooooh, rhis looks terrific! (and I skimmed the review). I think someone (ahem) should nominate this for a monthly read!"

Dooooo iiiiittttttt!!!!!!!!!!

If anyone's looking for a literary gothic and potentially amazing find under 200 pages, I downloaded an ARC from Edelweiss+ of Poor Baby by Canadian-British author, Sarah Bernstein. Check out the lovely, appropriately dreary cover.



For readers of Claire-Louise Bennett, Gwendoline Riley, and Rachel Cusk, a modern Gothic in which a woman newly arrived to a vast estate finds herself besieged by mysterious letters, resonant silences, and the uncanny persistence of history.

At first Emil and I did not know about the big house. Or if we knew about it, we did not think about it, hidden as it was from Westermoy. It was impossible to get an unbroken view of any part of the building, not left to right, not up or down. Sane, not sane, houses such as this one held gravity differently than other buildings.

A woman and her partner arrive at a gameskeeper’s cottage deep in the woods to begin a new life. There, they will undertake an ambitious regenerative agriculture project on behalf of the estate—observing mosses and lichens, planting birch and aspen trees, developing plans to reclaim polluted soils. They learn that soon they will also have their first child.

But even from the first happy evening of their arrival, there are spaces where the woman does not like to tread: an anteroom she passes as quickly as she can, a corner in the raised beds where nothing grows, a glasshouse where she invariably feels watched. Then Emil is called away on business, and letters begin to arrive—strange intimations about the estate, thickets of claim and counterclaim.

They came to Westermoy to get out ahead of their panic, to try to live a “good life”—to focus on what was in front of them, work with their hands, water and mulch. But neither the garden walls nor the boundaries of the estate can contain what has already taken root. The future they are building must also, unavoidably, rest on the past.

A novel of thresholds, secrets, and silences, Poor Baby asks what is left of the world to inherit, and whether it is possible to live ethically within a system one wishes to disavow. It marks the US debut of a major voice in fiction: precise, intelligent, and bracingly new.

Do you have any spooky reading on deck for October? What are your fave lesser-known recommendations?

Has anyone read Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker? There was a lot of buzz when it was released in April, but I haven't seen much in the way of reviews from GR friends or the like. What's the word?

I don't know about spooky. Creepy is probably a better word to describe my planned October Halloweenish read Lakewood by Megan Giddings

Monica wrote: "I don't know about spooky. Creepy is probably a better word to describe my planned October Halloweenish read Lakewood by Megan Giddings"

"Creepy" it is, then. A medical thriller, eh? I love that cover art. I look forward to seeing what you think of it, but I'm putting it on hold at my library, too.

Carol wrote: "Has anyone read Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker? There was a lot of buzz when it was released in April, but I haven't seen much in the way of reviews from GR f..."

That does look really interesting. I've heard good things about bat eater but nothing on this one yet

I want to read Monstera by Delilah S. Dawson. It comes out next month, and I am pre-ordering it today!

Misty wrote: "I want to read Monstera by Delilah S. Dawson. It comes out next month, and I am pre-ordering it today!"

This sounds similar to our recent read of On Sundays She Picked Flowers.... tempting....

***full disclosure*** Dawson is my friend. I mean, she's a very prolific author who does not need my promotion, and I'm not trying to promote her book! I love her stuff though, so I am excited to read it.