Skulls in the Stars

For day 8 of Blogtober, let me share again a post about Larry Blamire’s sublime collection of Western horror stories, set in his unique setting of the haunted Callamo Mountains! Since the first collection came out, there has been a second — More Tales of the Callamo Mountains, and I hope even more will come at some point!

Day 7 of my Blogtober series to celebrate the Halloween month!

What better way to celebrate the spooky season than a story about a haunted house? While at the bookstore recently, the recently released debut novel of Carissa Orlando, The September House (2023), caught my eye.

Margaret and Hal, after years of moving from place to place, finally find their dream house — a gorgeous Victorian house that is available at a remarkably reasonable price. There’s only one small problem with it, that they learn after they move in: it is very, very haunted. But when you find a house that is otherwise perfect, you aren’t going to let a few phantoms scare you away, especially when most of them are innocuous Victorian children, and one is a genuinely helpful housekeeper. There’s only the thing in the basement that only the ghosts are afraid of that’s the real problem, and they can keep the basement door covered with bible pages and boarded up.

The only time that’s a real problem is the month of September, when everything goes crazy. Screams echo through the house, growing in volume and frequency as the month progresses. Blood starts dripping from the walls, starting upstairs and making its way down the house as September continues. Still, it is manageable, as long as one knows the rules for dealing with the inhabitants, and Margaret and Hal have managed several years — and several Septembers — with only minor incidents, like getting bitten by the ghost child Elias.

But now Hal has had enough, and has moved out, not leaving any indication of where he went. And their adult daughter Katherine, who has never been to the house, is frantic to find him. She’s coming to the house to look for him, and ignores any efforts by her mother to dissuade her. And it is the start of September.

For day 6 of Blogtober, I look back at one of the most unconventional novels by my favorite horror author, Ramsey Campbell. Is it a supernatural story or a murder mystery? Or both?

Day 4 of Blogtober! Here I reblog a post about a relatively unknown but absolutely wonderful 1914 novel of supernatural horror, curses, and unfathomable monsters.

For day 3 of my “October days of horror blogging,” I revisit one of my favorite weird horror novels of all time! Scott Thomas’ The Sea of Ash is a stunningly imaginative and unpredictable tale of strange things that lurk all around our mundane reality, and it presents a unique supernatural world to get lost in.

For day 2 of “blog a horror book every day of October,” here’s a post I did waaaaaay back in 2008 about an incredibly intense novel by Graham Masterton! Masterton is best known for his 1975 novel The Manitou, about a vengeful native American spirit reincarnating himself through the tumor of a woman! Tengu continues on with similar themes of sins of the past coming back to haunt those in the present.

Now that October is officially here, I thought I would blog or reblog about horror fiction every day of the month, leading up to Halloween! And what better place to start than Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October, a charming book that is traditionally read one chapter at a time per day through all of October?

Still getting myself back in the swing of reading, and looking for any books that immediately pique my interest with their premise so I’m motivated to read them immediately! On a recent jaunt to my local B&N, the short horror novel Dark Harvest (2006) by Norman Partridge caught my eye.

Even though the book originally came out in 2006, I imagine it was displayed prominently because a movie adaptation is coming out online on October 11! Furthermore, as the cover indicates, it was the winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction of 2006, so it was definitely worth checking out.