Ghosts and ghouls

Monday on Halloween Book Week is all about ghosts and ghouls…

I find that some of the scariest ghost stories aren’t actually ghost stories after all – or else they’re the ones where you never really know if it’s a ghost. The truly overt, I’m-going-to-get-you ghosts aren’t as scary (for the most part) as the unknown. One of my all-time-favourite ghost stories is The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (since it’s in the public domain there’s also a free Kindle version – and you’ll find a free version on most platforms) and I still feel a shiver just imagining the woman in white walking down that lane. And then there’s Jane Eyre (again, there’s also a free Kindle version) which, while it does have some mystical ghost bits in it, it’s what’s in the attic that’s scary – and perhaps all the more so for being of this earth. Of actual ghosts, though, it’s the child ghosts that get to me the worst – the twins in The Shining (the film version has no eclipsed the book in my head, so I can’t get rid of that image).

A couple of brilliant ghost stories I’ve read in recent years are Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger (which I reviewed a couple of years ago) and A Cold Season by Alison Littlewood. The first is more magical and mysterious, but the second is very, very frightening and one to make sure you have the curtains closed for.

There’s a new children’s ghost story that’s just been released by Hot Key Books called Constable & Toop. It’s written by award-winning writer Gareth P. Jones and is described as a “darkly comic Dickensian ghost story”. We’ve been sent a copy, though haven’t had a chance to read it fully yet. We’re really looking forward to getting into it soon but, in the meantime, I’ll be putting some more details up tomorrow when the theme is “Children’s scary and suspenseful books”.

Later today we have two excellent guest posts (from Mrs M from At Home With Mrs M! and Adele from Circus Queen) and , both of which deal with the best ghost stories of all – those passed down orally. The oral story-telling tradition is an amazing thing – and I love that we still have it today, albeit perhaps to a smaller scale. It’s fascinating to hear about the stories that others have told around campfires, or under sleeping bags. When I was a teenager, a friend and I used to have horror night sleepovers every Friday night (and her parents would drive to town to get us chips to eat, too). We would watch a horror film and then we’d curl up and tell ghost stories and horror stories. I still have a really vivid memory of leaving her living room to go to the toilet and being confronted by my own reflection in the glass door of her parents’ room. I screamed. (I’ll leave telling you about the ghost that lived in her junk room for another time, because that’s a lot scarier than a reflection.)

So, don’t forget to come back later for some ghoulish tales…