WWAR Oct 2023 Spooky Reads

Dark and Stormy Book Club

WWAR October 2023
Show Notes
Today is WWAR for October and our theme is Horror or Spooky reads.
Tracey reported on Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey. Just Like Home is a darkly gothic thriller perfect for
fans of Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House as well as HBO's true crime masterpiece I'll Be Gone in the Dark.
“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the
memories ― she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and
the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family.
Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A
parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare
parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting... but who
else could it possibly be?
There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them
and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes.
She then touched on Mary by Nat Cassidy (Tor Nightfire 7/22). Mary is a quiet, middle-aged woman doing
her best to blend into the background. Unremarkable. Invisible. Unknown even to herself.
But lately, things have been changing inside Mary. Along with the hot flashes and body aches, she can’t look
in a mirror without passing out, and the voices in her head have been urging her to do unspeakable things.
Fired from her job in New York, she moves back to her hometown, hoping to reconnect with her past and
inner self. Instead, visions of terrifying, mutilated specters overwhelm her with increasing regularity and she
begins auto-writing strange thoughts and phrases. Mary discovers that these experiences are echoes of an
infamous serial killer.
Then the killings begin again.
Mary’s definitely going to find herself.
Ann reported on the book Holly by Stephen King (Scribner 9/5/23). It really isn't a horror novel but it
does have a very spooky vibe.
Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have
witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to
Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective
in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and
brilliantly disguised adversaries.
When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter,
Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just
died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible
for Holly to turn her down.
Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the
picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong
academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one
that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are
up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.
Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors
in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.
Her second book is much more or a horror novel. She reported on the book Knock, Knock, Open Wide by
Neil Sharpson. (Tor Nightfire 10/3/23)
Knock Knock, Open Wide weaves horror and Celtic myth into a terrifying, heartbreaking supernatural tale of
fractured family bonds, the secrets we carry, and the veiled forces that guide Irish life.
Driving home late one night, Etain Larkin finds a corpse on a pitch-black country road deep in the Irish
countryside. She takes the corpse to a remote farmhouse. So begins a night of unspeakable horror that will
take her to the very brink of sanity.
She will never speak of it again.
Two decades later, Betty Fitzpatrick, newly arrived at college in Dublin, has already fallen in love with the
drama society, and the beautiful but troubled Ashling Mallen. As their relationship blossoms, Ashling goes to
great lengths to keep Betty away from her family, especially her alcoholic mother, Etain.
As their relationship blossoms, Betty learns her lover's terrifying family history, and Ashling's secret obsession.
Ashling has become convinced that the horrors inflicted on her family are connected to a seemingly innocent
children's TV show. Everyone in Ireland watched this show in their youth, but Ash soon discovers that no one
remembers it quite the same way. And only Ashling seems to remember its star: a small black goat puppet
who lives in a box and only comes out if you don’t behave. They say he’s never come out.
Misty reported on the book “The 2nd
Grave On the Left” by Darynda Jones. It is the second book in the
Charley Davidson Mystery series. (St. Martins 8/2011)
When Charley Davidson and Cookie (her best friend/receptionist) have to track down a missing woman, the
case is not quite as open and shut as they anticipate. A friend of Cookie's named Mimi disappeared five days
earlier. This friend then sends Cookie a cryptic message telling them to meet her at a nearby coffee shop. The
coffee is brewing, but Mimi's still missing. There is, however, a clue left on the bathroom wall: a woman's
name, scribbled by Mimi. Mimi's husband explains that his wife had been acting strange since she found out
an old friend of hers from high school had been murdered a couple weeks prior. The same woman Mimi had
named in her message.
Meanwhile, Reyes Alexander Farrow (otherwise known as the Son of Satan. Yes. Literally) has left his
corporeal body and is haunting Charley. He's left his body because he's being tortured by demons who want
to lure Charley closer. But Reyes can't let that happen. Because if the demons get to Charley, they'll have a
portal to heaven. And if they have a portal to heaven...well, let's just say it wouldn't be pretty. Can Charley
handle hot nights with Reyes and even hotter days tracking down a missing woman? Can she keep those she
loves out of harm's way? And is there enough coffee and chocolate in the world to fuel her as she does?
Here is your signpost for the most hilarious read of the summer: Second Grave On The Left.
TRIVIA
Last week's question was:
Author Stephen King has become well known for appearing in film adaptations of his own
books. What made his first appearance in a movie notable?
a. He was just passing by
b. He wrote himself into the story
c. the movie was not from one of his books
d. He was high
The answer is c. The movie was not from one of his books. King appeared in George A
Romero's “Knightriders”. He played Hoagie Man and would go on to appear in the adaptation of
Creepshow in 1982.
This week's question is:
Which mystery author was born with the name Howard Allen Frances O'Brien?
a. Dick Francis
b. Ann Rice
c. Maureen Jennings
d. Harold Pinter
Tune in next week for4 the answer