The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

★★★★ 1/2

"Madness is a wonderful excuse, don't you think?"

When Ruthie's most mysteriously disappears, she and her sister must find a way to get her back.  In doing so, they discover the hidden diary of Sara Harrison Shea from over a century ago - and they suddenly find themselves in a modern-day ghost story of their own.

Part history/thriller/horror/mystery - this novel has everything needed for wonderfully engrossing page-turner that I couldn't put down.  Luckily my husband was up north hunting all weekend and my daughter went to bed early so I was able to stay up way-to-late finishing it!  The writing was beautiful and brilliant and I loved the historical aspects.  And it completely freaked me out more than a couple of times.  There goes my dream of wanting to live in the middle of the woods. Eh.

This book was #8 on my top ten list of 2015.

The Shining by Stephen King

★★★★

"Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters."

In this horror novel, Jack Torrance and his family find themselves in more than they bargained for at the Overlook Hotel.  Jack is a recovering alcoholic dealing with anger issues and hopes to find a new start. When he is hired as the Overlook’s off-season caretaker, he brings a long his wife Wendy and five-year-old son Danny.  He is warned that a previous caretaker went crazy in the hotel and killed his wife and two daughters, but Jack dismissed the thought and feels that spending the winter in an isolated hotel is just what his family needs.  Since he was a young boy, Danny has possessed the ability to read people’s minds and is visited by warned of the dangers of the hotel.

As the winter approaches, Danny begins to see the supernatural power that the hotel posses.  At first his parents don’t believe him, but soon they start seeing and hearing things as well.  There is a dead woman in a bathtub, the topiary animals come to life, and there is a masking party in the ballroom.  Jack also discovers a scrapbook in the attic and learns more about the hotel’s haunted past.  His struggle with his writing and pressure from his family leads to cabin fever at the Overlook slowly takes over Jack’s mind.  Eventually, the ghost of the previous caretaker convinces him to kill his wife and son.  After a long battle, Wendy and Danny escape with the help of Dick, the hotel’s cook who comes to the rescue when he receives a telepathic message from Danny.  Jack regains control, but is killed when the hotel’s boiler explodes.

I normally don’t read horror novels, but I really enjoyed reading Stephen King’s book 11/22/63 and thought I would give this one a try because of the recommendation in Genreflecting.  Even though I didn’t necessarily like all of the horror elements, I found the story fascinating.  It was very fast-paced and left me quickly wanting to turn the page to find out what was going to happen.  I also really enjoyed the writing style and loved how the author was able to bring the reader into the minds of the characters.

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian (audio)

★★★ 1/2

"My mother used to talk about passages and, once and awhile, about ordeals.  We all have them; we are all shaped by them.  She thought the key to find the healing in the hurt."

This is the second book I've read by Chris Bohjalian (the other one was The Sandcastle Girls).  I really like his writing style and characters.  Plus my local library has a lot of his books on playaway!!!

The Night Stranger was pretty good.  After a devastating plane crash that kills 39 people, the pilot Chip relocated his wife Emily and twin daughters to New Hampshire.  The old Victorian house that they move into holds many secrets - a door bolted shut in the basement and stories of a young boy committing suicide years before - the family is for more then they bargained for.  The story gets stranger as Chip meets some of the dead passengers from the plane crash in his basement and the herbalist neighbors begin to take a strong and almost obsessive interest in the twin girls.  This modern-day ghost story is full of town secrets and and the strange people that live there.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

★★★★ 1/2

"I was not a lovable child, and I'd grown up to be a deeply unloveable adult.  Draw a picture of my soul, and it'd be a scribble of frogs."

I don't normally read crime/thriller novels, but after finishing this book, I may need to read a few more!! The book caught my interest from the very beginning and I couldn't put it done.  I read "Gone Girl" a couple a months ago and was excited that this title was on the list for a workshop that I am going to next weekend.

Libby Day was seven years old when her mother and two sisters were murdered. Libby was the only one to escaped and later testified that her 15-year-old brother Ben was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Libby is a troubled and lonely adult and her brother still sits in prison. The money that she was given when her family was killed is quickly running out and she is contacted by a "Kill Club" that is willing to give her money to talk to them about the murders and help prove that her brother is innocent. Left with few other options, Libby decides to meet with the club and agrees to revisit her past and the people that may have paid a part in the murders. The more she learns the more invested she becomes in not only the money, but finding out what happened the night her family was killed. As the true story begins to unravel she is suddenly finds herself in danger herself.

The novel alternates between Libby's story in the present and her mom's and Ben's the day the murders happened. I really liked that the book was set up this way...as Libby was putting the pieces together of what happened, the stories of those who were actually involved play out throughout the day of the murders. I couldn't wait to find out what happened and was really surprised by the ending. The pieces fit so perfectly together and it was an insightful and intriguing story of the affect that tragedy has on  it's victims.

This book was #7 on my top ten list of 2013.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

★★★

"Of all the weapons she had commanded, Elizabeth knew the least of love; and of all the weapons in the world, love was the most dangerous."

The Walking Dead: Compendium One, Vol. 1-48 by Robert Kirkman

★★★
"Maybe we were just fooling ourselves until something happened that was big enough to make us stop and realize how crazy our world really is."

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

★★★

"As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it.  And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes history itself inexarably forward for us with its shadowy claws."

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

★★★

"It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root.  This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history."

The Waste Lands by Stephen King

★★★

"Jake went in, aware that he had, for the first time in three weeks, opened a door without hoping madly to find another world on the other side.  A bell jingled overhead.  The mild, spicy smell of old books hit him, and the smell was somehow like coming home."

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

★★★

"What was like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common..."

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

★★★★

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

"Go then, there are other worlds than these."

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

★★★★

"Sometime.  Mostly, no.  It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way.  Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.  If you see what I mean."

Coraline by Neil Gailman

★★★★

"The names are the first things to go, after the breath has gone, and the beating of the heart.  We keep our memories longer than our names."

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

★★★★

"Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had."