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Ghost Novel Review: Help for the Haunted

Ghost Novel Review: Help for the Haunted

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Help for the Haunted by John Searles Publisher: William Morrow, 368 pages Format: hardcover Source: Guest review The premise of this novel attracted me right away: A married couple counsels people tormented by ghosts. This couple never knows when someone will call with an urgent need for help–often these calls come in the middle of the night. Imagine being the teen daughter of parents such as these. Help for the Haunted is a coming-of-age story with a supernatural twist. I’m…

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Book Review: The Haunted House by Charles Dickens

Book Review: The Haunted House by Charles Dickens

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Review: The Haunted House Publisher: Dover Publications Format: Print, 136 pages Source: Purchased The Haunted House is an anthology of connected stories, three of which Charles Dickens wrote, the others penned by writers of his time. The premise is that the narrator, for reasons of health (have you noticed how prominent discussions of health are in Victorian literature?) rents a country house for three months with his sister. They fall in love with the house and decide to invite their…

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Wings of Fire by Charles Todd

Wings of Fire by Charles Todd

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Book Review: Wings of Fire by Charles Todd Publisher: St. Martin’s Format: Print, 323 pages Source: White Elephant Sale at the Oakland Museum In Wings of Fire by Charles Todd, Ian Rutledge is a damaged Scotland Yard inspector, recently returned from the horrific conditions of World War I. He’s something of a pariah in the stuffy bureaucracy, suffering from a debilitating case of “shell shock.” I must confess I did not fully grasp how horrific World War I was until…

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Review: Heartless by Gail Carriger

Review: Heartless by Gail Carriger

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Heartless by Gail Carriger Heartless is the first novel I’m reviewing for the 2014 R.I.P. Challenge at Stainless Steel Droppings. image courtesy of Abigail Larson I made the acquaintance of the Parasol Protectorate series with the first book, Soulless. Alexia Tarabotti, a misunderstood misfit preternatural resides in an alternate, steam punk Victorian England replete with foppish vampires and rustic werewolves. (The werewolves are, after all, from the wilds of Scotland.) Soulless is a delight. Despite the smart beginning to the series, I…

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Author Interview with Marsha A. Moore

Author Interview with Marsha A. Moore

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 Today I’d like to welcome author Marsha A. Moore, author of Shadows of Serenity. It’s a treat to sit down with someone else who gets my ghost novel obsession. Thank you, Marsha, for joining in a discussion of your novel! Can you tell us a little about Shadows of Serenity?  Joyce Runsey spends her life savings to open a yoga studio in an historic Victorian St Augustine house, only to discover the property is haunted. A female ghost’s abusive and very…

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Ghost Novel Review: Notes from Ghost Town

Ghost Novel Review: Notes from Ghost Town

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Notes from Ghost Town by Kate Ellison Olivia will always regret not confessing her undying love to best friend Lucas, for just as she begins to tell him, fate intervenes. The next time Olivia sees Lucas, he’s a ghost. So begins Notes from Ghost Town by Kate Ellison that I read as part of the RIP challenge at Stainless Steel Droppings. Olivia, a promising artist, faces multiple problems for one so young. Someone killed Lucas, and she must discover who…

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Ghost Novel Review: The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

Ghost Novel Review: The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

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For my next selection of the R.I.P. challenge, I read The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo. This reading ended up as a serendipitous survey of literature based in Malaya (present day Malaysia). In the last two years, quite unplanned, I’ve read three works set in this country, all as different as they can be. The first novel I read is Old Filth by Jane Gardam about a cynical octogenarian barrister of British ancestry; the second was The Garden of Evening…

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Twelve for Twelve: 12 Ghost Novels for 2012

Twelve for Twelve: 12 Ghost Novels for 2012

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The clock is striking twelve on 2012! So, it must be time for those cherished year-end lists. Everybody’s doing it. At least all the book reviewers seem to be. And as Yossarian said in one of my very favorite books, Catch-22, “Then I’d be a damn fool to think any different.” So here are the top twelve ghost novels I read (with links if reviewed) in 2012: 12. In the Night Room by Peter Straub In the Night Room opened…

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The Graveyard Book Readalong: Conclusion

The Graveyard Book Readalong: Conclusion

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In her commencement speech to the Barnard class of 2010, Meryl Streep said, “There is only change, and resistance to it and then more change” (Graduation Wisdom). If you think about it, that word “commencement” is so cool because your first thought at such a moment is of graduation or end. For me, Meryl Streep’s thoughts encapsulate the theme of change–at the end of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and at the beginning of Bod’s coming life. The narrator sets…

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Ghost Novel Review: The Graveyard Book Part One

Ghost Novel Review: The Graveyard Book Part One

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Today we begin our three part discussion of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman as part of Carl’s group read over at Stainless Steel Droppings. The book opens with a visit from a knife-wielding Jack who kills a family minus one toddler. Said toddler wanders into a cemetery where he is quickly adopted by kind-hearted nonliving beings (aka ghosts) and one crusty undead curmudgeon with a soft center. In an effort to keep the child safe from knife-wielding Jack, the…

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Ghost Novel Review In Honor of Banned Book Week: The Lovely Bones

Ghost Novel Review In Honor of Banned Book Week: The Lovely Bones

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Welcome to Banned Book Week 2012! I love the irony inherent in turning a dusty, fusty institution on its head, don’t you? Here at Pen in her Hand, we’ve already reviewed two banned ghost books. They are Beloved and The Headless Cupid. Check them out. I liked them both, and I believe Beloved is a true tour de force. Today, we’re going to discuss one more banned ghost novel, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. A true ghost book, the…

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Ghost Novel Review: The Night Strangers

Ghost Novel Review: The Night Strangers

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The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian I LOVED this book. That is, I loved half of this book. Here are some of my notes to self–“right from the start I adore the style,” “this is refreshing after the last lackluster book,” and “Thank you, Crown Publishers for not italicizing the prologue!” (For more on the great prologue controversy, read my post on prologues here.) It begins so well. A goose-downed (as in a-gaggle-of-geese-downed-the) plane ends in  a failed landing (notwithstanding…

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Water Ghosts by Shawna Yang Ryan

Water Ghosts by Shawna Yang Ryan

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Water Ghosts by Shawna Yang Ryan With Ghost Month starting this week, this is the perfect time to review Water Ghosts. This book was originally published under the title Locke 1928, and until I neared the end of the book, I would have said Locke 1928 was a better title than Water Ghosts. This is one of those novels in which the town becomes a kind of character, similar to Empire Falls by Richard Russo. And indeed, author Ryan paints…

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