Haunted Humpday: Books that make me go JUMP in the night

I’m joining in on the Haunted Humpday fun this year! Thanks so much to Incipient Wings for creating & hosting this fun blog hop. :)

I’m already in a fall & Halloween mood, and I want to really get as much out of this spooky season as I can. A new blog party to join in each week sounds like JUST the thing to kick the celebrating up a few notches! :D

To start off my participation, I want to tell you about some books that I’ve been reading & loving & that are making me go JUMP in the night…seriously! I live very happily alone and am not ever scared or overly imaginative—despite having a very active imagination & able to think up all kinds of silly stories, when it comes to “real life” I’m hopelessly realistic & pragmatic. Kind of an attitude of, “I wish I could see a ghost, but I know such things don’t exist, so I know it’s not possible.” Maybe that’s why I enjoy spooky stories this time of year…the imaginative part of me loves the idea, but the practical side of me knows there’s no real danger or anything to fear.

Or is there?

Well, no, of course there isn’t, but dang if there aren’t some books out there that make me jump at every noise!

And why is it, when you’re reading certain books, noises happen that NEVER happen at any other time, when you’re reading any other book?

Hmmmm.

So anyway, the books!

THE VANISHING by Wendy Webb

I bought The Vanishing on a whim some months ago & loved it. It’s not overly scary and not at all gory or anything like that…it’s got just the right amount of atmospheric spookiness, and ghosts & poltergeists sprinkled in it, to make it a perfect scary read. After I finished it I immediately bought Webb’s other two books.

Here’s the description on Amazon:

“Recently widowed and rendered penniless by her Ponzi-scheming husband, Julia Bishop is eager to start anew. So when a stranger appears on her doorstep with a job offer, she finds herself accepting the mysterious yet unique position: caretaker to his mother, Amaris Sinclair, the famous and rather eccentric horror novelist whom Julia has always admired . . . and who the world believes is dead.

“When she arrives at the Sinclairs’ enormous estate on Lake Superior, Julia begins to suspect that there may be sinister undercurrents to her “too-good-to-be-true” position. As Julia delves into the reasons of why Amaris chose to abandon her successful writing career and withdraw from the public eye, her search leads to unsettling connections to her own family tree, making her wonder why she really was invited to Havenwood in the first place, and what monstrous secrets are still held prisoner within its walls.”

The thing is, when I was in the middle of reading it, all curled up in my room with my kitty curled up with me, absorbed in the books…CRASH! A pile of boxes fell over in my laundry room, and I about jumped out of my skin! Even my kitty was on her toes, fur sticking out, and then looking at me like, “What was that, mama?” I laughed nervously at our jumpiness, reassured myself that there was no ghost in my laundry room, and went to look. Just boxes that had fallen over. Nothing to be scared about.

Of course, boxes never fall over in my laundry room.

Anyway…

Next book…

THE WHISPERING by Sarah Rayne

I’ve just started this, but it had a great beginning that sucked me in & as of last night, I was hearing a few odd noises again…right about the time the narrator was having spooky things happen…funny how that’s always the timing of these things, right?

I may have jumped once. Or twice.

Here’s Amazon’s description:

“Fosse House, home of the reclusive Luisa Gilmore, harbours curious secrets – secrets that stretch back almost a century, to the ill-fated Palestrina Choir in its remote Belgian convent.

“When Oxford don Michael Flint travels to the house to trace the origins of the long-dead Choir, he is at once aware of the house’s eerie menace. Who is the shadowy young man who lurks in the grounds, and why does his exact likeness appear in a sketch from 1917? What is the strange whispering that echoes through the corridors? And why is Luisa so afraid when a storm makes it necessary for Michael to spend the night inside the house?

“Back in Oxford, when Nell West uncovers the story of the infamous 1917 ‘Holzminden sketch’ – the lost, legendary drawing from World War I – a dark fragment of the past begins to stir. A fragment that Michael, in the lonely old house, may not be able to resist.”

I’m a sucker for stories featuring Oxford or Cambridge academics (it’s what sucked me into the book A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES and made the TV series “Inspector Lewis” one of my favorites), so this book’s opening with letters exchanged by Oxford dons had me sighing happily. Then we get to go to the spooky house and spooky things start to happen, and then I’m utterly sucked into the story. Here’s hoping it stays this enjoyable and keeps me jumping all the way through! :)

Now I’m in the mood to start watching scary movies, too. I think…

*eyes the laundry room warily*

Happy Haunted Humpday! :)