Spooky Reads for Halloween

I'm not on about gore-fests or full-on horror - no. I'm talking proper old-fashioned, spooky stories with haunted houses, ghoulish ghosts and other things to make you shiver...

The Winter Ghosts

Devastated by the death of his older brother during WW1, Freddie Watson goes abroad in search of solace. Driving through the foothills of the Pyrenees, his car spins off the road in a snowstorm. Freddie takes refuge in an isolated village and there meets a captivating woman. But by daybreak, Fabrissa has disappeared and Freddie realises he holds the key to an ancient mystery that has been concealed for 700 years...

The Beaumont Bequest   When Patrick Peto destroys the last will and testament of his uncle Rex Beaumont, he has no qualms about ignoring his request to leave "all my books to Barbara". But when he illegally obtains possession of the Heartsease estate and consigns the author's stories to the flames, he awakens vengeful forces that are determined to set matters right and make sure that Barbara Dane receives what is rightfully hers.

As Patrick imposes his own vision on Rex’s old house, the author's imaginary worlds invade Patrick's reality until he can no longer distinguish fact from fiction. He becomes a prisoner at Heartsease where Rex's fictional creations put him on trial for murder. He is sentenced to death, but after a plea for mercy from one of the characters, his sentence is reduced to 90 days and 90 nights, during which time he must recreate every story he has destroyed.

The Little Stranger     One post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive, is now in decline. Its owners - mother, son, and daughter - are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his. 

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The Woman In White  "There in the middle of the broad, bright high-road-there, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven-stood the figure of a solitary woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments."

And this is how young Walter Hartright first meets the mysterious woman in white. Secrets, mistaken identities, surprise revelations, amnesia, locked rooms and locked asylums, and an unorthodox villain made this mystery thriller an instant success when it first appeared in 1860, and it has continued to enthrall readers ever since.

So those are my spooky picks for Halloween.

If you have any of your own you'd like to share, feel free

to leave a comment below!