The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

I just finished this book it was a long book but kept me engaged. Just wish I understood more what really killed the 2 main characters. Was it the DR he does seem all along to be too interested in the house.

Starred Review. Waters (The Night Watch) reflects on the collapse of the British class system after WWII in a stunning haunted house tale whose ghosts are as horrifying as any in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Doctor Faraday, a lonely bachelor, first visited Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked as a parlor maid, at age 10 in 1919. When Faraday returns 30 years later to treat a servant, he becomes obsessed with Hundreds's elegant owner, Mrs. Ayres; her 24-year-old son, Roderick, an RAF airman wounded during the war who now oversees the family farm; and her slightly older daughter, Caroline, considered a natural spinster by the locals, for whom the doctor develops a particular fondness. Supernatural trouble kicks in after Caroline's mild-mannered black Lab, Gyp, attacks a visiting child. A damaging fire, a suicide and worse follow. Faraday, one of literature's more unreliable narrators, carries the reader swiftly along to the devastating conclusion. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

At its core, The Little Stranger is an old-fashioned ghost story, complete with spooky house, eccentric inhabitants, an air of general madness and malcontent, and a narrator who may not be as mild-mannered as he seems. What elevates this novel from the crowded genre is Waters’s ability to evoke the subtleties of the past as she skillfully weaves tension and dread into each paragraph. The reviewer from Newsday likened this tale to the psychological classic The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Perhaps the critic from the Telegraph (who voiced only a very minor complaint about the ending) summed up the reviewers’ opinions best of all by hailing this novel as a genuinely creepy story “guaranteed to make anyone with a pulse gibber in fright.”
Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

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The Spiritualist

Set in 1857 New York City, this erotically charged chiller from Chance (An Inconvenient Wife) features spirit rappings, table tippings, deception and murder among its titillating treats. Michel Jourdain, a captivating Creole medium, has enthralled Dorothy Bennett, a sickly society matron who holds regular spirit circles to communicate with deceased loved ones. At one séance—attended by Evelyn Evie Atherton; Peter, her attorney husband, whom people suspect she married for his fortune; and Ben Rampling, Peter's law partner—an errant pistol shot nearly kills Michel. Suspecting the misfire was no accident, Peter determines to investigate, but winds up dead from a knife wound in the East River just days later. When society shuns the upstart Evie, who's charged with Peter's murder, Ben offers his legal assistance. Dorothy gives Evie refuge at her mansion, where the seductive Michel, whom Dorothy plans to adopt, instructs Evie in spiritualism. Evie's eerie discovery that the thirst for justice can reach beyond the grave enhances the neat resolution. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I liked this book, it was a good mystery with some plot twist.

Wallace Simpson and prince albert I think

Read about thes two in  the kings speech and another master piece mystery

Sep 2nd

i am now reading the spiritualist by by Megan Change and I am very frustrated by the way the main character is attracted to the medium after the death of her husband not a few days before which she professed to love. Some parts of this book just don't  ring true

Sunday Aug 28

Summer is coming to a end fall is in the air, cool nights, warm days.  In a nutshell perfect unless you like very warm water to swim.

The tale of Halcyon Crane

Good book. Halcyon Crane finds out that the mother she thought was dead has been alive the hole time.
Father faked there death to get her away from haunted house where a murder took place.  She comes back and inherates the house and the mystery. I loved it

A young woman travels alone to a remote island to uncover a past she never knew was hers in this thrilling modern ghost story.

When a mysterious letter lands in Hallie James’s mailbox, her life is upended. Hallie was raised by her loving father, having been told her mother died in a fire decades earlier. But it turns out that her mother, Madlyn, was alive until very recently. Why would Hallie’s father have taken her away from Madlyn? What really happened to her family thirty years ago?
In search of answers, Hallie travels to the place where her mother lived, a remote island in the middle of the Great Lakes. The stiff islanders fix her first with icy stares and then unabashed amazement as they recognize why she looks so familiar, and Hallie quickly realizes her family’s dark secrets are enmeshed in the history of this strange place. But not everyone greets her with such a chilly reception—a coffee-shop owner and the family’s lawyer both warm to Hallie, and the possibility of romance blooms. And then there’s the grand Victorian house bequeathed to her—maybe it’s the eerie atmosphere or maybe it’s the prim, elderly maid who used to work for her mother, but Hallie just can’t shake the feeling that strange things are starting to happen . . .
In The Tale of Halcyon Crane, Wendy Webb has created a haunting story full of delicious thrills, vibrant characters, and family secrets.

1. Hallie’s father talks about seeing Madlyn at the nursing home the day before he died. Do you think he really saw her spirit, coming for him? Why or why not? Do you believe the veil between the liv­ing and the dead is lifted as a person passes from one life to the next?
2. Hallie has twice been sidelined by men she loved: her husband and her father both were different men than she knew them to be. How did their deception—nonmalicious though it was—affect her? Did she do the right thing by ultimately trusting Will?
3. Each child born of the spell from the Witch of Summer Glen has a special otherworldly ability or gift. With Hallie, her gift develops the longer she stays on the island. Do you think Hallie simply grew more aware of her innate talent, or did being on the island somehow change and enhance her abilities?
4. What is the significance of mirrors with respect to Hallie’s ability to “see”?
5. Why couldn’t Madlyn understand the danger the island posed to her young daughter Hallie? Was Madlyn a good mother?
6. Was Hallie’s father justified in taking his child away from his wife and their home? Did you think he could have handled that situation differently—perhaps more openly and truthfully?
7. Mira befriends Hallie, but she also harbors a great secret that isn’t revealed until the end of the book. Did you understand Mira’s decision to keep the truth to herself for so long, given that she barely knew Hallie, or should she have revealed it sooner? What secrets would you keep from a friend?
8. Did you enjoy the way Hallie’s “tale” is slowly revealed to her? Are there storytellers in your fam­ily who have kept family lore alive?
9. Forgiveness is one of the themes in this novel. Who most needed to be able to forgive? Who most needed to be forgiven?
10. Have you ever seen a ghost? Do you know anyone who has? What are some of the best ghost sto­ries you know?

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There I found an enormous main room with a fireplace tucked into one corner. On the wall across from the king sized bed cherry wood headboard antique I assumed hung a flat screen television a nice mix of old and new it was in a word awesome and I don't use that word lightly it was a perfect place for me and Eden I didn't need any other part of the house. I could've lived right there.  Books were piled on the nightstand a couple of recent  best sellers a big bay window bigger than the one at the manitou inn looked out onto the lake it seemed to be a feature of many of the houses here next i poled my head into the bathroom i was delighted to see a hug claw foot tub under one of the windows and a tiled shower in one corer  the bedroom opened up to another room a study book shelves lined the walls and other fireplace stood in a corner. big overstuffed leather chairs with ottomans stood in front of the fireplace with a comfy chaise on the opposite walls back in the bedroom I opened a door to find a walk=in closet  with clothers hanging from long reach on both walls


This is what I want by bedroom to be like if I ever get to build it.

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