Murder Most Haunted by Emma Mason

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Fifty-five-year-old Midge McGowan is retiring after thirty years as a police detective and her colleagues have given her a very unusual retirement gift: a ticket to spend the weekend before Christmas in a haunted house. The reason? The tour company, Haunting Holiday Excursions, is run by a former police officer, John Rendell, and HR get discounted tickets. Midge doesn’t want to go, especially as it will mean leaving behind her wife, Bridie, who is having chemotherapy, but Bridie persuades her that she’ll be fine for a few days and that it will be a good experience for Midge.

Soon, Midge finds herself getting off the bus at Atherton Hall with a small group of other guests: Dr Mortimer and his invalid wife, Gloria; Noah, who hosts a paranormal podcast; and Rona, a pop star in remission from a drug addiction. The bus driver, Harold, also ends up staying at the Hall with them after heavy snow leaves the roads impassable and cuts them off from the rest of the world. Almost as soon as they arrive, the guests begin to experience sightings of the White Lady of Atherton Moor drifting around the grounds of the estate, although not everyone believes they have truly seen a ghost. When their host, Rendell, is found dead in the bath, however, they have to decide whether ghosts are the culprits or whether there’s a human killer on the loose.

This is the book I thought A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Solving a Murder was going to be! Unlike that other book (which was good, but not as advertised), this one has an actual ghost hunter in it, in the form of Noah who arrives with his cameras and recording equipment hoping to get new material for his podcast. The book also has an interesting and unusual detective character in Midge, who is quickly dismissed – sometimes very cruelly – by the others as an overweight, middle-aged woman with no fashion sense and no social skills. It was great to see her come into her own and find her own identity away from the slightly overpowering Bridie.

Apart from Midge, the other characters feel like stereotypes at first: Noah, the ‘woke’ young person who clashes with Harold, the racist, sexist older man; Rona, the shallow pop star with a wild lifestyle; the domineering doctor and his fragile wife who takes to her bed at the first sign of danger. However, most of these people turn out to have secrets or hidden depths and aren’t quite what they appear to be on the surface.

The murder mystery element of the book is interesting; Midge never seriously considers Noah’s theory that ghostly activity is responsible, but even she has to admit that there are some spooky similarities between the murders taking place in the present and those described in an old diary belonging to the Atherton family doctor. My only criticism is that I found the killer and the motive too easy to guess, so wasn’t surprised at all when the solution was revealed. Still, this was an entertaining novel and the good news is that it’s the first in a series, with the second Midge McGowan mystery coming next year!

Thanks to Bantam for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 5 for RIP XX

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Horror Novels I Read Before Blogging

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This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “Halloween Freebie”.

Usually, when I put my TTT lists together I only include books I’ve reviewed on my blog, but this time I decided to highlight some books I read long before I started blogging in 2009. To fit the Halloween topic, these are all horror novels, a genre I don’t read as much as I used to – I do still like dark, unsettling novels but I prefer not to be too frightened! I think I was braver when I was younger.

1. The Shining by Stephen King

Let’s start with probably the most famous horror writer of them all. I read quite a few Stephen King books as a teenager and I think my favourite was his 1977 novel The Shining, set in the lonely Overlook Hotel, although I also remember enjoying Misery, The Dark Half and Rose Madder. His fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Dragon, was another one I liked.

2. The Fog by James Herbert

I also read several James Herbert novels, but the only ones I can really remember are The Magic Cottage and this one, The Fog, about a sinister fog that descends over England and begins to drive people mad.

3. The Resurrectionists by Kim Wilkins

I read this one sometime in the early 2000s and loved it. It’s about an Australian woman uncovering family secrets in a small Yorkshire village and has a wonderfully atmospheric setting with a lonely cottage beside a clifftop cemetery.

4. Obsession by Ramsey Campbell

I really enjoyed this psychological horror novel about a group of teenagers who receive a letter from an unknown sender promising to make their wishes come true. Later, they find that there’s a terrible price to pay.

5. The Violin by Anne Rice

I never read any of Anne Rice’s more famous Interview with the Vampire books, but I did read this one, which I think was more of a ghost story.

6. The Point Horror series

I’m cheating slightly here and including this whole series of young adult horror novels, because I read a lot of them and can’t remember much about the individual books. They were written by a variety of different authors; I think my favourites were Richie Tankersley Cusick and R.L. Stine.

7. The Town by Bentley Little

This is a completely bizzare novel set in a small town in Arizona. All I remember about it is that a woman gives birth to a cactus and a church grows hair. I think I may have read other books by Bentley Little but this is the only one that has stayed in my mind.

8. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

I’m sure many of you will be familiar with this one, if not the book then the film starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins in which a young FBI trainee tries to catch a serial killer who removes the skin of his victims. I read it, but it wasn’t really for me!

9. The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

This book terrified me as a teenager. It’s supposedly the true story of George and Kathy Lutz, who move into a house that was the scene of a mass murder the previous year and flee again four weeks later after experiencing paranormal activity. There have since been various lawsuits over the book’s accuracy and truthfulness.

10. Audrey Rose by Frank De Felitta

I often find books about reincarnation very creepy. In this book, Eliot Hoover becomes convinced that eleven-year-old Ivy Templeton is the reincarnation of his own daughter, Audrey Rose, killed in a car crash at the age of three. There’s a sequel, For Love of Audrey Rose, but I didn’t like that one as much.

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Do you read horror? Have you read any of these?

Nonfiction November: Week 1 – My Year in Nonfiction

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I’m taking part in Nonfiction November which starts today and is hosted by Heather of Based on a True Story, Frances of Volatile Rune, Liz of Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home, Rebekah of She Seeks Nonfiction and Deb of Readerbuzz.

This week, Heather has posted the following questions for us to answer:

Week 1 – Your Year in Nonfiction:

What books have you read?
What were your favorites?
Is there a topic you want to read about more?
What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

I’m not someone who reads a huge amount of nonfiction, but this year I’ve read more of it than usual – seven books so far and I am in the middle of an eighth. Here are the links to my reviews:

1. Britain’s Greatest Private Detective by Nell Darby
2. That Dark Spring by Susannah Stapleton
3. The Crying of the Wind: Ireland by Ithell Colquhoun
4. Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie
5. Masquerade Balls in Regency Britain by Anne Glover
6. The Living Stones: Cornwall by Ithell Colquhoun
7. A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke

These are all either history, true crime, memoirs or travel books, which isn’t very surprising as these are the topics I tend to always be drawn to when it comes to nonfiction. Of these seven books, my favourites are Christie’s Come, Tell Me How You Live, her account of accompanying her archaeologist husband on digs in Syria in the 1930s, and A History of England in 25 Poems, which I found fascinating (and much more of a history book than a poetry anthology).

I’m hoping that taking part in Nonfiction November will encourage me to read more nonfiction and find some new books and authors to add to my nonfiction TBR (which is much, much smaller than my fiction TBR).

Do you like to read nonfiction? Will you be joining in with Nonfiction November this year?

The Black Cabinet by Patricia Wentworth – #1925Club

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Twenty-year-old orphan Chloe Dane has always loved her family’s ancestral home, Danesborough, but since the family fell on hard times, the house has been bought by a wealthy distant relative, Mitchell Dane, whom Chloe has never met. It comes as a big surprise to her, then, when Mr Dane tells her he would like to adopt her and make her his heir. Chloe is quite happy with her current life – she’s working as a dressmaker’s assistant and has plenty of admirers, although she’s not ready to accept any of them yet – and she tells Mr Dane she’s not interested in his money. That doesn’t stop him from leaving everything to her anyway when he dies unexpectedly soon afterwards.

Arriving at Danesborough, Chloe is immediately drawn to the black cabinet in the drawing room, which she remembers from her childhood. Before his death, Mr Dane had told her that the cabinet contained a safe and had sworn her to secrecy before telling her the combination to open it. When she opens the safe, Chloe finds some items that could be dangerous if they fall into the wrong hands – and when she discovers that the late Mr Dane’s secretary, Leonard Wroughton, is desperate to access the safe’s contents, she resolves to do whatever it takes to stop him.

This is my second book for 1925 Club, hosted by Simon and Karen this week, and was another great choice. I found it very similar to The Red Lacquer Case, published the previous year, which I also enjoyed, but the heroine in this one is more engaging. Chloe is a lovely person, principled, passionate and courageous – but at the same time, like Sally in The Red Lacquer Case, she’s too trusting, which leads her into danger over and over again. It’s frustrating, but also adds excitement to the plot – and, to be fair, I couldn’t always decide who could and couldn’t be trusted either.

Mr Wroughton is an obvious villain, along with his accomplice, the mysterious ‘Stran’, whose true identity isn’t known until the end of the book. However, there are other characters who are more ambiguous. Michael and Martin are both love interests of Chloe’s and it’s clear, at least to the reader, that one of them is trying to help her while the other is working against her. The question is, which is which? I was impressed by how cleverly Wentworth leads us to suspect first one, then the other, so that I found myself changing my mind several times throughout the book!

I thoroughly enjoyed The Black Cabinet, my only problem being that I couldn’t understand why Chloe didn’t just go straight to the police when she discovered what was inside the safe. I suppose the answer is that there would have been no story otherwise! I’m glad I picked such a fun book for 1925 Club. I’m looking forward to reading more by Patricia Wentworth as I’ve read very little of her work so far.

#1925Club – My Top 10 Reads from 10 Years of Clubs!

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As part of 1925 Club (hosted this week by Karen and Simon), we’re invited to join in the celebrations marking the 10th anniversary of the clubs. Yes, beginning in 2015 with 1924 Club, the club reading weeks have now been held twice annually for ten years! I’ve taken part in all of them and have discovered lots of great books, as well as being inspired to try some new authors for the first time. Having looked back at all the titles I read for the various club years, I have picked out ten favourites to highlight below. The books are listed in order of publication year.

1. Beau Geste by P.C. Wren (1924 Club)
Part adventure novel, part mystery, this was the book I read for Simon and Karen’s first club ten years ago and it was a great choice.

2. The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge (1940 Club) – I really enjoyed this first book in a trilogy following the lives of Lucilla Eliot and her children and grandchildren. I must read the second book soon!

3. They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie (1951 Club)
This is one of Christie’s standalone thrillers (no Poirot or Miss Marple here). It’s great fun and has a very engaging heroine in Victoria Jones.

4. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken (1962 Club)
I missed out on reading Joan Aiken’s Wolves Chronicles as a child, so I took the opportunity to read this one for 1962 Club!

5. Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper (1965 Club)
The first in Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series and another children’s book that I came to as an adult and loved.

6. Chocky by John Wyndham (1968 Club)
As someone who doesn’t read much science fiction, I didn’t expect to love this novel about a boy with a very unusual imaginary friend, but I found it fascinating!

7. God is an Englishman by RF Delderfield (1970 Club)
This is the first book in Delderfield’s Swann Saga about a family who establish a haulage business in Victorian Britain. I will definitely be reading the next book at some point.

8. Don’t Go to Sleep in the Dark by Celia Fremlin (1970 Club)
A wonderful collection of thirteen dark, unsettling stories in which Fremlin creates tension from domestic settings and everyday situations.

9. Castle Barebane by Joan Aiken (1976 Club)
Another Aiken book, this time a very entertaining adult Gothic novel set in 19th century Scotland.

10. Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym (1977 Club) – A surprisingly dark and poigant Pym novel, about four lonely people who share an office. It has stayed with me because of the sadness I felt for the characters.

Some honourable mentions:

Live Alone and Like It by Marjorie Hillis (1936 Club)
The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes (1940 Club)
Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham (1944 Club)
The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff (1954 Club)
A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (1977 Club)

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Have you read any of these? If you join in with the clubs, what are the best books you’ve read for them?

Simon the Coldheart by Georgette Heyer – #1925Club

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This week, Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon of Stuck in a Book are hosting another of their very popular clubs, where we all read and write about books published in the same year. This time it’s 1925! When deciding what to read for the clubs, I usually start by looking to see whether any of my favourite authors had a book published in that year. Georgette Heyer had such a long career there’s nearly always something suitable for whichever year it is and she didn’t disappoint this time.

Simon the Coldheart, published (obviously) in 1925, is one of several straight historical novels Heyer wrote, rather than one of the Georgian or Regency romances for which she’s most famous. It does feel very different and I don’t think it will necessarily appeal to fans of her other books, but I still liked it.

We first meet Simon in the early 1400s when, at the age of fourteen, he presents himself at the castle of Fulk of Montlice, demanding to join his service. Simon is the illegitimate son of Fulk’s bitter enemy, Lord Geoffrey of Malvallet, but Fulk is impressed by his confidence and determination and offers him a position as page. As the years go by, Simon repays Fulk’s faith in him, serving him well for several years before being knighted by the King and gifted lands of his own.

Now known as Sir Simon of Beauvallet (a play on the name of his father, Malvallet, and on the name of his lands, Fair Pastures), Simon has his life in order, exactly as he wants it. His friend Alan, Fulk’s son, and his half-brother Geoffrey, however, believe there’s still something missing from Simon’s life: a wife. Simon insists that he has no interest in women and no plans to get married. But when he meets Lady Margaret of Belrémy, it seems he may have met his match.

I’ve been meaning to read Simon the Coldheart since I read Heyer’s Beauvallet a few years ago – technically a sequel to this book, although it’s set several generations later and features completely different characters. I didn’t find this one as much fun as Beauvallet, which is an Elizabethan pirate novel, but I still found it quite enjoyable. Simon is a strong character, if not particularly easy to like at first – he becomes known as Coldheart for a reason – but later in the book we start to see a more human side to him, first in the close friendships he forms with Alan and Geoffrey, then in his kindness to children and finally his romance with Margaret, which forms a relatively small part of the novel. I also loved his relationship with Fulk, who comes to love him like a son (sometimes, it seems, more than his real son).

As she always does, Heyer attempts to write using language appropriate to the era, which in this case means lots of ‘thees’ and ‘thous’. Today’s historical fiction authors tend not to do this, so it does make the book feel dated – which again won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I didn’t have a problem with it. I didn’t find the romance element of the book particularly satisfying, though; Margaret is introduced quite late in the novel and Heyer’s usual witty dialogue between hero and heroine isn’t much in evidence here. I found Margaret a more interesting character when she’s away having adventures on her own than I did in her scenes with Simon.

Apparently Simon the Coldheart was one of six books Heyer tried to suppress in the 1930s (the others were another historical novel, The Great Roxhythe, and four contemporary novels) as she considered them inferior early works. In 1977, a few years after her death, her son gave permission for this one to be republished. In general I believe an author’s wishes should be respected, but I also think she was maybe being too hard on Simon the Coldheart – it obviously isn’t one of her best, but it’s not a bad book at all. It got my 1925 Club reading off to a good start and I hope to post another review later in the week, as well as looking at some of my favourite reads from previous club years.

Plans for November

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November is always one of the busiest months in the book blogging calendar and having seen other bloggers planning ahead, I thought I would do the same. There are lots of different events happening in November and I like to support as many as I can, although I don’t always manage it.

First, there’s Nonfiction November which has five co-hosts this year: Heather of Based on a True Story, Frances of Volatile Rune, Liz of Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home, Rebekah of She Seeks Nonfiction and Deb of Readerbuzz. There are weekly prompts to take part in and I’m already thinking about my answers to some of them. I also have a review I would like to post and reading-wise I’m going to focus on finishing my current non-fiction read The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor and I may also read 100 Books to Live By by Joseph Piercy which I have from NetGalley.

Novellas in November is hosted by Rebecca at Bookish Beck and Cathy at 746 Books. For the purposes of the event, novellas are classed as anything under 200 pages (even nonfiction). I’m planning to read at least two novellas: Air by John Boyne, the final book in his Elements quartet, and The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas, a Norwegian author I discovered recently.

It’s also Margaret Atwood Reading Month in November, hosted by Marcie at Buried in Print. Last year I started to read The Blind Assassin but got distracted by other things. I would still like to read it but am not sure I’ll have time for such a long book this November. I do have a few of her other books on the TBR, including Surfacing which is also a novella so would count for more than one event.

Caroline of Beauty is a Sleeping Cat and Tony of Tony’s Reading List are hosting German Literature Month, where the only rule is to read books that were originally written in German. I’m not sure what I’ll be reading for this either; I have an unread volume of short stories by one of my favourite German authors, Hans Fallada, but could decide to try a new author instead.

Finally, November is also SciFi Month hosted by Annemieke of A Dance With Books, Lisa of Dear Geek Place, Mayri of Bookforager and Imyril of There’s Always Room For One More. I probably won’t be joining in with this as I don’t read much SciFi, but I’m including it here in case anyone else is interested.

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Are you planning to take part in any of these? And is there anything else happening in November that I’ve missed?