Top Ten Tuesday: TOP TEN BOOKS To Read During the Halloween Season

Top Ten Tuesday is the weekly meme hosted by the gals at THE BROKE AND THE BOOKISH. Don't forget to check their blog for a complete list of all of today's participating bloggers.

I don't read much 'horror' so if you were expecting that sort of list, mine will be a disappointment. But just to be contrary, I have recently read Bram Stoker's DRACULA and loved it. So there's always the exception to the rule.

My list is kind of varied and I've included a couple of funny books in the mix just to keep things lively.

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REVENGE OF THE COOTIE GIRLS by Sparkle Hayter

A bizarre Halloween Girls' Night Out in NYC where anything and everything can happen to TV newshound Robin Hudson and her pals. When Robin's intern Kathy, who was supposed to join them on their Halloween jaunt, goes missing, it's up to 'the girls' to find her. A night of mischief and mayhem follows.

This book has to be read to be believed. It is truly hilarious.

DRACULA by Bram Stoker

Okay, now we get serious. A vampire on the move, planning a to turn England into a country of the walking dead, is serious business. I read and reviewed DRACULA a couple of weeks ago and I must admit I loved it. It was creepy, yeah, it was dark and weird and ghoulish and frightening - all of the above - but I couldn't stop reading.

I've said before and I'll say it again, I am SO NOT a fan of vampire books and yet, I seem to have two on my list (the only two strictly vampire books I've ever read - the one with Bela Lugosi doesn't count because he wasn't a REAL vampire.)

ODD THOMAS by Dean Koontz

Yes, you've heard me talk about this book before. Can't help it. It is, to my mind, Dean Koontz's masterpiece. Just brilliant story telling featuring one of the most unforgettable characters you will ever meet. Odd Thomas is a self-effacing short order cook who can see the dead. Because of this, he is a bit reclusive.Wouldn't you be?

This is a book where everything depends on the main character's quiet and oddly charming personality.

THE TAKING by Dean Koontz

The end of our world as only Dean Koontz can envision it. A world-wide alien invasion focuses on a small California town. This has, as in a lot of Koontz's work, a strong female character whom we root for every inch of the way. A macabre tale which turns out to be not exactly what you thought it was.

FOOTSTEPS IN THE DARK by Georgette Heyer

I'm a recent Georgette Heyer convert turned groupie. I love her Regencies - the few I've read anyway. But I'm also smitten with her mysteries. They are of the Agatha Christie school - set in that world - and very well written. They came as somewhat of a surprise to me since I hadn't known Heyer had written mysteries. FOOTSTEPS IN THE DARK is set in an old, run-down but atmospheric, English country house recently inherited by siblings, Peter, Margaret and Elizabeth.

The house comes equipped with tales of ghostly night sightings, not to mention a mysterious cowled figure known as The Monk.

Thanks to Elizabeth Grace Foley for the recommendation. It was a good one!

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I think what is often forgotten in descriptions of this Sherlock Holmes story is just how spooky it is. It's all dark and mysterious and full of inhospitable doings on the grim, gray moor. Perfect for Halloween.

THE YELLOW ROOM by Mary Roberts Rinehart

A Rinehart speciality, mysterious doings in a big old house in the country - this time it's a summer house. Carol Spencer finds a dead body when she arrives to open the house for the summer. With servants refusing to stay (always a problem in Rinehart's world) and dreaded doings at night making her more and more uneasy, Carol begins to fear for her life as she becomes a suspect in the first murder.

If you're not familiar with Mary Roberts Rinehart's books, I say: what are you waiting for?

THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Third in the Pendergast series and the first one I read a few years ago. Based on this spooky, spine-tingling novel set in a very dark and gloomy NYC, I began reading the rest of the books in the series.

Agent Pendergast is not your typical FBI agent, he is unique in style and operation and seems to be in charge of the FBI's most macabre cases. Scary but manageable.

SUNSHINE by Robin McKinley

The only vampire story I would EVER recommend, besides DRACULA.  This brilliant fantasy take on vampires and ghoulies and many strange things that go bump in the night is set in a sort of alternate universe similar to ours except for the odd assortment of beasties and demons. It is also, despite its dark core, occasionally very funny.

The heroine is Rae 'Sunshine' Seddon, a baker at her step-father's coffee house. The 'hero' is named Constantine. He's a vampire. Forget TWILIGHT, read this instead.

Robin McKinley has a wonderful sense of the absurd and this book shows it. Just wonderful.

NEVER CROSS A VAMPIRE - A Toby Peters Mystery by Stuart Kaminsky

When Hungarian actor, Bela Lugosi, suspects he's being stalked, he turns to L.A. private eye, Toby Peters, for help. It's the mid 1940's, war is raging in Europe and back home in California, movie stars and celebrities keep getting into trouble.

I love this series. It's funny while at the same time there's an actual mystery (with a bit of private-eye noir) to be solved.

Halloween Mysteries: Compiled by Janet Rudolph...

...at her blog, MYSTERY FANFARE. Check out Janet's comprehensive list of Halloween themed mysteries. LINK. 

There's bound to be something you'll want to read at this ghoulish time of year.

Saturday Salon: A Few More Halloween Reads

Okay, only 8 more days until Halloween and if you're still looking around for a book to read that doesn't include heavy-handed horror or excess blood-splatter, look no further. As I've often said, I do not read horror so any books I recommend for Ghosts and Ghoulies day will be mysterious, entertaining, maybe creepy and cryptic with a dead body or two or three, but I would never classify them as horror. So fear not. Oh, and here's a link to my previous list of

recommended reads in case you missed those.

THE PALE HORSE by Agatha Christie

A favorite book for this time of year, it features not one, not two but THREE witches! Not to mention one of the more ingenious murder devices I've ever read and a very likable hero and heroine.

PERSUADER by Lee Child

A ghoulish amount of violence it is true, but most of it done so entertainingly that even I didn't mind. Knight in shining armor Jack Reacher is, after all, a world unto himself. Because it is so over the top, I've always maintained that this book reads sort of like an opera libretto. You'll see what I mean if you read it. I love the setting, a spooky house with various strange types hanging about including a murderous 'giant'. It also has one of the best and most finely written episodes of underwater bedlam that I've ever read. Lee Child is a helluva writer.

BROTHER ODD by Dean Koontz

After his classic, ODD THOMAS (read that first), I recommend reading this and ignoring the second Odd Thomas book which is nowhere near as good as Brother Odd which takes place in a dark and lonely and, needless to say, creepy old monastery in the middle of nowhere. Perfect for this time of year.

LOVER IN THE SHADOWS by Lindsay Longford

For you romance lovers, this is a pip of a book. Full of dark shadows and things that go bump in the night - but in a good way. It also has an element of fantasy: the hero turns into....well, you'll read and find out for yourself. No, not a vampire. I can say no more. My lips are sealed.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED by E.J. Copperman

I reviewed this charming book a while back, but it now occurs to me that it makes for perfect Halloween reading since ghosts are definitely involved. Two ghosts to be exact: a private eye and his client. When a young divorcee buys a house at the Jersey shore with plans to renovate, she and her daughter stumble across murder most foul. Terrific debut of a new series.

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

A wonderfully illustrated (in pencil and watercolor) story to read aloud with your younger children. An 8 year old boy kidnapped by brigands in the Italian countryside must make up stories to entertain his captors. A very funny read.

Halloween Reading

Ok, I was going to wait until it was Officially October before I posted a bunch of titles that might make fine reading for the Halloween season (yes, I suppose it is now a season on its own) but over the weekend, I saw some front yards already decorated with humongous blow-up pumpkins, scarecrows, etc and thought: if I wait for October, Christmas will be upon us and I'll be a day late and a dollar short with my list. Long sentence, I know. I'm prone to that.

Anyway, so let's talk about mysteries, beasties, ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. None of my recommendations are horror per se, because, well, I never read horror-HORROR. (Well, hardly ever, I do occasionally read Dean Koontz.) I do read thrillers and horrible stuff happens in them, but they're not qualified as horror, unless it's John Connolly and I never read him - too scary. (Although I admit he's a terrific writer.)

I thought I'd just make my list a bit different from others by not including titles you'd probably see everywhere. I hope I've made my list a fun melange of different sorts of books. Things I think are perfect for this time of year when ghosts, witches and goblins lurk on every corner.

There's only one vampire book, because, as a rule, I don't read vampire books. But Sunshine by Robin McKinley is the rare exception. I've read this twice and the second time held up as well as the first. I'm about to break the rule for a second time, though as I have The Passage by Justin Cronin sitting here waiting to be read. Can't recommend it though, 'cause I haven't read it yet. I also don't read Stephen King, so that explains the absence of his books.

I'm only going to post a couple of sentences about each book shown above, because otherwise this post will go on indefinitely and we can't have that. I like to talk books too much as it is.

HALLOWE'EN PARTY by Agatha Christie

(Well, with a title like this, how could you not read this for Halloween?) Eccentric mystery writer Ariadne Oliver calls upon Hercule Poirot to solve a nasty murder which took place at a party she attended.

PASSAGE by Connie Willis

Willis is one of the premier American sci-fi writers. I wish she were much better known. I think if she weren't writing in genre, she'd be world famous, that's how good she is, plus it's what she deserves. Passage takes place at a gloomy hospital where a group of doctors/students are studying the near-death experience a little too closely. No, it's not what you immediately think.

AND THEN THERE WERE NONE by Agatha Christie

The classic mystery in a classic setting. Guests are stranded on an island estate after being invited for the weekend by an unknown host.

SUNSHINE by Robin McKinley

As I mentioned, this is the only vampire novel I've ever liked and finished reading. I wish this one had been made into a movie. It is quirky, funny, erotic and scary. Quite an accomplishment.
THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEAD by Kevin Brockmeier

This beguiling, sad and intriguing story takes place in two realities. In one, it is a few years into the future and a great plague has wiped out most of mankind. In the other, we're in a city in which the dead exist as long as they are remembered by those still left alive. A brilliantly conceived book.

THE ALIENIST by Caleb Carr

One of the first historical suspense novels (it takes place in early 20th century New York), to dwell on the new science of crime psychology - the first book in which a serial killer comes to be recognized as such. Ghoulish, but so well written you put up with it.

SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD by Robert McCammon

An epic suspense novel, so big it was published in two books. The Carolinas, 1699. A beautiful widow is accused of being a witch and bringing disaster to the town of Fount Royal. The pages fly by in this so you're never really aware you're reading this mammoth undertaking.

ODD THOMAS by Dean Koontz

In my view, this is Koontz's masterpiece. Yes he is a horror writer, but I admit to reading some of his books and this is one that I, thankfully, did not pass up. Brilliant doesn't quite cover Koontz's extraordinary achievement. Odd Thomas is a quiet, self-effacing, self-aware, short-order cook who, oh by the way, can see the dead - it is a Koontz book, after all. Of course, there's bloody stuff happening, but the character of Odd Thomas makes it all worthwhile.

THE MEPHISTO CLUB by Tess Gerritsen

This was my introduction to Gerritsen's Rizzoli and Isles series. (Rizzoli is a Boston medical examiner and Isles, a cop.)It is a violent read and not something I would have ordinarily picked up, but somehow it kept me turning the pages while giving me the creeps. Though the book takes place over the Christmas holidays, it is anything BUT a happy holidays book. Not for the faint of heart.

LIVES OF THE MONSTER DOGS by Kristen Bakis

An eerie, grotesque story of dogs genetically engineered by a 19th century German scientist - the monster dogs in the title - to walk upright and speak with the help of voice boxes. They arrive in NYC, with prosthetic human hands, dressed in Victorian clothing and seeking, as Frankenstein's monster did, their place in the world. The book is hard to find as it is out of print, but in my view, it is well worth looking for in the secondary market.

THE HEARSE YOU CAME IN ON by Tim Cockey

On a much lighter note, this is the first book in the Hitchcock Sewell series, written a few years ago, set in Baltimore. Hitch is an undertaker who solves murders. Yeah, makes no sense, but it's a great deal of fun. Tim Cockey is a terrific writer who should be much better known.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES by Arthur Conan Doyle

Doyle's classic. Sherlock Holmes and Watson must solve a creepy murder on the moors. Are the Baskervilles doomed to death by violence? "Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"

THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Special FBI Agent Pendergast (eccentric with a Capital E) is on the job again, searching for a nasty, inventive serial killer in NYC. This is another ghoulish read from Preston and Child, but it is also fast moving, creepy fun, in between the dead bodies. There are several books in this series and you can really jump in anywhere. I picked this one because it was my first one.

THE TAKING by Dean Koontz

I read this when I first discovered Koontz and was not disappointed. It's one of his more frightening end of the world as we know it, books. I could not put it down.

MISTRESS OF MELLYN by Victoria Holt

A terrifically moody gothic if you're in a gothic/suspense/love story mood. Has a high creep quotient too, that's why I've included it. Try to find one with the wonderful original cover if you're buying.

A DIRTY JOB by Christopher Moore

After a startlingly sad beginning, this book settles into the kind of thing that Moore is famous for, with his usual cast of characters: ghouls, beasties, humans with second sight - the usual. I LOVE this book. Can't recommend it enough. Moore can be an acquired taste, but if I were you I'd acquire it immediately.

I will wait until October to post my nice list of scary movies for those of you who like the sort of scary I like. (NO exploding stomachs, NO flinging of brains, that sort of thing.) I'm already stocking up on popcorn.

I have read all the book recommendations on this list, so I'm knowing whereof I am speaking when I say these are good reads for times when it gets dark early, leaves are falling, the wind is blowing and a chill has begun to creep into your bones making the whole thing official: winter is coming, the geese are getting fat.