Monthly Archives: February 2015

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2198596-tale-of-terror-a-study-of-the-gothic-romance-by-edith-birkhead

For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed

Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free Tales of Terror classic authors.

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Filed under dark fantasy, fiction, horror, horror blogs, literary horror, short stories, supernatural, tales of terror, Women In Horror, Women in Horror Month

Tagged as Classic Tales of Terror, George Eliot, Mary Anne Evans, The Lifted Veil, WiHM

February 18, 2015 · 6:32 pm

NIGHT SEA JOURNEY by PAULA CAPPA – BOOK REVIEW

Latest Book Review, 5 -stars, from Amies Book Reviews:
Night Sea Journey

Amie's Book Reviews

cappanightseajourneysmallimage

NIGHT SEA JOURNEY: A Tale of the Supernatural
By: Paula Cappa

I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Kip Livingston is an artist living in an isolated cottage on Horn Island. Every night she experiences vivid nightmares. But her nightmares are much more extreme than other people’s. In fact, it seems that her nightmares follow her into real life and she has no idea how to make them stop.

Father Garcia is a Street Preacher in Chicago who is anything but traditional and whose goal is to help the inner city’s youth to escape the cycle of drugs and violence. Father Garcia is not a traditional Catholic priest. He covertly runs a needle exchange for addicts. He preaches in parks and on the street. And he is secretly married and the father of an infant son. During the course of…

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Devils Club

The Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly by Rosa Mulholland (1891)

Classic Tales From Women in Horror , WIHM

Tuesday’s Tale of Terror, February 17, 2015

We are in the midst of a wild thunderstorm in the village of Hurly Burly. July roses hang their blossoms under the torrents. A great house sits a mile from the local shops. In the vast drawing room, Mistress and Master Hurly rest with a hot tea urn and muffins when a visitor arrives—and on such a dreadful night. Lisa, a small lovely creature claims she’s arrived to play music for them on their beautiful organ. The Hurlys’ are perplexed. Lisa tells them that their son has sent her.

“Our son—“ began Mistress Hurly, but her mouth twitched, her voice broke, and she looked piteously towards her husband.

“Our son,” says Master Hurly, making an effort to conquer the quavering in his voice, “our son is long dead.”

So begins this haunted tale of supernatural music and evil power of the Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly. I am especially interested in supernatural music and working on a novel of how music can possess and exhibit evil powers. E.T.A. Hoffman believed that music could lead into the “dark abysses of the soul.” What do you think? Have you ever had a mysterious experience while listening to music?

Try this haunted organ music at YouTube: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by J.S. Bach

WIHM author Rosa Mulholland is an Irish poet and novelist (1841-1921). The Princess Grace Library lists over fifty novels, novellas, and short stories of this forgotten author. So many of her stories are out of print now, it’s no wonder. She was highly favored by Charles Dickens who encouraged her to write. Dickens, in fact, published a good deal of Mulholland’s stories in his All the Year Round in the 1860s. Some of her best known titles were The Wild Birds of Killeevy, Banshee Castle, Mystery of Hall-In-The-Wood, The Wicked Woods of Toobereevil, Spirit and Dust (poems).

You can read the Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly at SearchEngine.org.UK/ebooks/PDF.

Listen to the audio version on YouTube. Nicely done!

I expect you are more likely to find Mulholland’s stories in libraries than on Amazon, although there are a few available here.

[Sketch above by Sam McKim of Ken Anderson’s original sketch (Shipley-Lydecker House, Baltimore, Maryland]

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ARE YOU INTERESTED IN GOTHIC POETRY? CHECK THIS OUT ON GOODREADS:

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Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free Tales of Terror classic authors.

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Filed under dark fantasy, fiction, horror, horror blogs, Reading Fiction, short stories, tales of terror, Women In Horror, Women in Horror Month

Tagged as haunted music, Rosa Mulholland, supernatural music, tales of terror, WiHM, Women in horror

February 13, 2015 · 5:27 pm

Valentine’s Day Ghostly Romance, Short Story

99 cents!!! This weekend only on Amazon, KINDLE. “Beyond Castle Frankenstein” for Valentine’s Day. A Ghostly Romance.
Fact: Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, kept her husband’s calcified heart in a silk handkerchief for years after he died. What a romance she had with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Do you know who removed P.B. Shelley’s heart from the cremation fires because the organ refused to burn? Read the fictionalized short story of the author and the poet, a perfect Valentine’s Day romance with a ghostly twist.

[Image is “The Funeral” by Louis Edward Fournier, 1889, a rendering of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s cremation.]

“Beyond Castle Frankenstein” is my short story published in JOURNALS OF HORROR, FOUND FICTION ANTHOLOGY, PUBLISHED BY PLEASANT STORM ENTERTAINMENT, EDITOR TERRY M. WEST.

Buy the anthology on Amazon.com for 99 cents this Valentine’s weekend only.

Lots of horror stories for your weekend reading.

Beyond Victorian Vampirism

Good Lady Ducayne by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1896)

Tuesday’s Tale of Terror February 9, 2015 Classic Tales from Women In Horror

This is the second week of celebrating Women in Horror Month. Are you ready to explore the short stories of Mary Elizabeth Braddon?

“They were dreamers—and they dreamt themselves into the cemetery.”

Young and healthy Bella Rolleston takes a job as a companion with Old Lady Ducayne. Bella quickly learns that Ducayne’s previous two companions became ill and died while caring for her. Mosquito bites? Or something more sinister? When Bella begins to show the same symptoms, dreams of whirring of wheels, sinking into an abyss, and struggling to regain consciousness, she is too innocent to see the truth of her employer and the local physician Dr. Parravicini.

What is curious in this story is how the author Mary Elizabeth Braddon uses science and medicine instead of the supernatural to build a chilling story of suspense. Aging and vanity vs. youth and beauty are the hallmarks of this story not to mention poverty vs. money. The subtext runs a lovely quiet horror tone that is smoothly written by a master writer.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon, born in London in 1835, wrote some ninety books, short stories, essays, and plays and was revered for her ‘sensation novels.’ She was rated alongside Wilkie Collins and admired by Charles Dickens and Henry James. Lady Audley’s Secret was her most popular novel. She introduced one of the first female detectives Eleanor Vane in Eleanor’s Victory (1863) and then again in 1864 created sleuth Margaret Wilmot in Henry Dunbar. At Chrighton Abbey, Dead Love Has Chains, and The Doctor’s Wife are worthy of rediscovery.

You can read Good Lady Ducayne online at Gutenberg.net.au. Scroll down to the title.

Listen to audio versions of Braddon’s short stories (Sorry, Lady Ducayne is not among them but other short stories here are quite good) at Librivox.org Library.

I can highly recommend Braddon’s At Chrighton Abbey. This is Downton Abbey with a ghost. Sarah Chrighton returns to her homestead Chrighton Abbey, to the wintery “fairy forests and snow wreathed trees.” The abbey is a stately grey stone, ivy- and moss-covered estate. Carriage rides, drawing room firesides, hunts and hounds, a servant’s ball, and of course the Butler Truefold and Housekeeper Mrs. Marjurum make this short story a snuggle-up read. Not to mention the family curse coupled with shadowy presences that only Sarah can see. I found this story to be one of Braddon’s most gracefully written ghost stories ever. Read it here at Gutenberg.net.au.

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Other Reading Web Sites to Visit

For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed

Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free Tales of Terror classic authors.

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Filed under Christmas ghost stories, fiction, ghost stories, horror, horror blogs, literary horror, literature, quiet horror, short stories, soft horror, supernatural, tales of terror, vampires, Women In Horror, Women in Horror Month

Tagged as Chrighton Abbey, classic short stories, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, short stories, vampirism, Women in horror month, women writers in literature

February 2, 2015 · 9:15 am

The Feet of the Dead

Bewitched by Edith Wharton (1926)

Tuesday’s Tale of Terror, February 3, 2015 Classic Tales from Women In Horror

It’s February, Women in Horror Month. This is the time to recognize your favorite women horror writers, buy their books, read their stories, comment, and give your support. As a horror reader and author myself, especially ghost stories, I so enjoy sharing my favorite women authors in our history with you this month.

Today we are recognizing Edith Wharton. She wrote 38 novels, some 50 short stories, and wrote her first novel at age 11. Did you know that Wharton could not sleep in a room with a book containing a ghost story? She was that haunted. I think we can say that a good deal of her ghost stories evolved from a true and immediate sense of the supernatural. She is one of our most prestigious Women of Horror.

Bewitched is a story that has everything for a winter’s bleak reading experience. We are on the dark side of New England. A stinging wind with snow is falling thickly upon the old and isolated Rutledge house in Starkfield, an abandoned stretch of land between North Ashmore and Cold Corners.

Prudence Rutledge is dressed in black calico and a grey woolen shawl. She tells her three visitors at the door …

“There’s a spell been cast over Mr. Rutledge.”

The Deacon looked up sharply, an incredulous smile pinching his thin lips. “A spell?”

“That’s what I said: he’s bewitched.”

Mrs. Rutledge is accusing her husband Saul of adultery with the dead woman Ora Brand.

This is more than just any old haunting. We’ve got adultery and necrophilia and insanity going on. And more.

This Pulitzer-prize winning (The Age of Innocence) author is known for her patterns of imagery and psychological insights. What is so amazing about Wharton’s writing is that you can read her stories again and again and still find them deliciously haunting. You can read more about her ghostly history at The Mount, her home in Lennox, Massachusetts, where ghosts are said to still haunt her property: http://www.edithwharton.org/programs-and-events/ghosts/

Read Bewitched at Ebook.Adelaide.edu

I couldn’t find an audio version of Bewitched but did find Tales of Men and Ghosts, which includes several of Wharton’s ghost stories. I can personally recommend “The Eyes” and “Afterward.”

Listen to the audio version of Bewitched at Librivox.org

For more about Women in Horror Month, visit their web site

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Stop by the Horror Society this month to see their tribute to Women In Horror

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