I grew up in an extremely rural area before the internet, where there was no cable. So, I read. Reading led to my desire to write, and I have. When Jackie discussed the characters of The Waking Bell with me, I envisioned an American version of Rebecca, where the protagonist is a naïve young woman who follows her heart in a dark, gothic setting. While I didn’t grow up in the mountains, I have experienced the differences between people from different backgrounds that live in the same rural area. Those experiences are whereThe Waking Bell begins.
Peyton Place. Saying the title conjures up all sorts of images. This book rocked the literary world when it was released by tackling the intricacies of small-town life, especially gossip. I will say it’s not just the characters that stand with me after reading the book, but the story itself. The book captures the reality of the consequences of these scandals and the secrets kept.
When Grace Metalious's debut novel about the dark underside of a small, respectable New England town was published in 1956, it quickly soared to the top of the bestseller lists. A landmark in twentieth-century American popular culture, Peyton Place spawned a successful feature film and a long-running television series—the first prime-time soap opera.
Contemporary readers of Peyton Place will be captivated by its vivid characters, earthy prose, and shocking incidents. Through her riveting, uninhibited narrative, Metalious skillfully exposes the intricate social anatomy of a small community, examining the lives of its people—their passions and vices, their ambitions and defeats, their…
Some writers (and readers) prefer the sledgehammer to the scalpel.
I prefer the scalpel and find that Elizabeth Strout consistently wields her blade with skill, subtlety, and soul. As we travel with brothers Jim and Bob from NYC back to the small New England town of their childhood, Strout unravels mysteries that will feel familiar to everyone with siblings.
Their mission is to save their nephew – son of their sister Susan – who has been accused of a hate crime. I find realism a key ingredient in Strout’s writing. These characters are flawed, but that is what makes them relatable.
Families are not neat and clean. They’re messy. Everyone knows that. Stout never shies from it. It’s what kept me reading, this book and everything else she’s written.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “What truly makes Strout exceptional . . . is the perfect balance she achieves between the tides of story and depths of feeling.”—Chicago Tribune
This edition includes an original essay by Elizabeth Strout about the origins of The Burgess Boys.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • Good Housekeeping
Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown of Shirley Falls for New York City as soon as they possibly could. Jim, a…
This book won the University of Notre Dame Fiction Prize in 2004.
What I liked about this, to my mind, increasingly autobiographical collection of short stories is Vivante’s voice. His writing is as authentic and straightforward as you’ll find in any literary fiction—no gimmicks, no self-regarding cleverness, just a plainspoken realist who touches a nerve, or two, in every story.
Set in Italy, Canada, and the United States, you get geographical as well as thematic diversity, but as far as I can tell, much is focused on the ups and downs of his own professional and family life. I found the clean prose a breath of fresh air.
Solitude and Other Stories represents Arturo Vivante's quest to use writing to uncover hidden truths. These twenty-four short stories-set in Italy, New England, and Canada-explore various themes, including, as the title story says, solitude. Vivante begins the narrative with a self-oblivious solitude that will become loneliness. Day after day, night after night, Vivante's narrator becomes aware of his isolation, and he decides to seek the company of others. Companionship, therefore, becomes another theme developed in these stories.
Although not explicitly autobiographical, many of these stories do have an autobiographical tone. Vivante writes about things that may have happened in his…
James Malloy is a ferry captain--or used to be, until he was unceremoniously fired and replaced by a "girl" named Courtney Farris. Now, instead of piloting Brenton Island’s daily lifeline to the glitzy docks of Newport, Rhode Island, James spends his days beached, bitter, and bored.
When he discovers a plan for a private golf course on wilderness sacred to his dying best friend, James is determined to stop such "improvements." But despite Brenton's nickname as "Cooperation Island," he's used to working solo. To keep historic trees and ocean shoreline open to all, he'll have to learn to cooperate with other islanders--including Captain Courtney, who might just morph from irritant to irresistible once James learns a secret that's been kept from him for years.
Loner James Malloy is a ferry captain-or used to be, until he was unceremoniously fired and replaced by a girl named Courtney Farris. Now, instead of piloting Brenton Island's daily lifeline to the glitzy docks of Newport, Rhode Island, James spends his days beached, bitter, and bored.
When he discovers a private golf course staked out across wilderness sacred to his dying best friend, a Narragansett Indian, James is determined to stop such "improvements." But despite Brenton's nickname as "Cooperation Island," he's used to working solo. To keep rocky bluffs, historic trees, and ocean shoreline open to all, he'll have…
I was a computer programmer (BA and MA in math) for several organizations, including NASA and the Savannah River Ecology Lab before retirement, went to the Clarion and Tulane SF&F Workshops, and read the slush pile for Amazing/Fantastic. I’ve done a lot of theatre as actor and lighting tech, have always liked to hike in the woods, have written 11 novels (including 3 published SF novels), had 5 plays given full production, and have 2 CDs of my original songs. In my copious spare time, I sleep.
Being a New Englander, I don’t care much about Southern literature but Wolfe transcends it and also influenced Jack Kerouac, who would be my sixth choice. It was recommended to me by Joe Fineman, son of novelist Irving Fineman, after I flunked out of Caltech (Joe didn’t), saying “This is your book.” I have no idea who my influences are but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me that they thought Thomas Wolfe was one of them. He probably is.
You Can't Go Home Again is a novel by Thomas Wolfe published posthumously in 1940. The novel tells the story of George Webber, a fledgling author, who writes a book that makes frequent references to his home town of Libya Hill. The book is a national success but the residents of the town, unhappy with what they view as Webber's distorted depiction of them, send the author menacing letters and death threats. (Wikipedia)
I’ve been a writer of nonfiction and fiction and full-time editor since my college years, and a publisher (Smart Rhino Publications). I’ve read horror and suspense fiction all my life, but it’s only been in the past decade or so that my reading has turned more and more toward police procedurals, noir, and crime fiction. It was only natural that I’d turn to writing a police procedural series, starting with Harvester of Sorrow. I hope you’ll read all the wonderful books I’ve recommended!
Ghosts was the first book of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series that I read, primarily because I was interested in the paranormal aspect—I’ve always been a sucker for ghost stories. This was the first true police procedural I’d read, and I was most impressed with McBain’s mastery of writing dialogue. I was hooked and I’ve read most of the series since. As I wrote my own debut novel I referred to McBain’s novels many times to see how he handled dialogue tags and beats throughout his books. His dialogue is almost seamless. I’d recommend the 87th Precinct series to any writer serious about writing police procedurals.
A young woman stops at the grocery store after work, but she never makes it home—at least not all the way. She is stabbed to death in front of her building, her groceries strewn across the cold pavement. Upstairs her neighbor and popular ghost story author Gregory Craig lay dead as well, stabbed in his apartment. When Craig’s publisher is found murdered just days later, Detective Steve Carella has a deadly mystery on his hands, one unlike any he’s ever had before.
Searching for clues, Carella instead finds Craig’s girlfriend, a medium whose spooky predictions keep him guessing. When some…
I grew up in an isolated rural pub in England. My love of folk horror was born of a strong nostalgia for that time and it has fed into both my writing and my reading. I understood isolation, small communities, the effect of strangers, as well as the sense of ‘otherness’ in the atmosphere of the countryside – the calm before the storm, the liminal twilight. It also meant that I could tell when a writer had captured the ‘essence’ of folk horror. When the author weaves a story between the landscape and man, blends traditions and mythology – they take me to that place I know.
Think folk horror and you think rural setting, pretty cottages, white picket fences, and lurking ritual. Harvest Home is a folk horror classic and hits these expectations spot on.
A city couple escapes to the village of Cornwall Coombe to give their daughter a better quality of life. Everything is perfect until the husband discovers they were welcomed for a very specific reason. This discovery, becoming more evident as the harvest ritual approaches, leaves him in fear of losing his life and his family.
I loved this gradual teasing out of horror, subtle nuances that build to the awful climax. The ending is chilling, contrasting so sharply as it does against the background of a rural paradise, giving me one of those ‘oh!’ moments.
A family flees the crime-ridden city-and finds something worse-in "a brilliantly imagined horror story" by the New York Times-bestselling author (The Boston Globe).
After watching his asthmatic daughter suffer in the foul city air, Theodore Constantine decides to get back to the land. When he and his wife search New England for the perfect nineteenth-century home, they find no township more charming, no countryside more idyllic than the farming village of Cornwall Coombe. Here they begin a new life: simple, pure, close to nature-and ultimately more terrifying than Manhattan's darkest alley.
When the Constantines win the friendship of the town…
Jamilla Counts born in Chicago during 1973 and raised in Memphis, Tennessee where she currently resides now. Graduated from Pulaski Technical college in Arkansas. Moving on to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock presuing a Bachelor's Degree in Social work. I'm featured in a book released by Tiffany Ludwig in the Rutgers University Press; Fifth or Later Edition (November 30, 2007) called Trappings: Stories of Women, Power, and Clothing, I'm a single parent of two daughters and one grandchild.
Searching for a sense of family and belonging. Steve searches for his biological parents, but no one in the government system can help him. No one can tell him why, with obvious African-American features with the last name of Klakowicz. Puts me in the mind of why no one in my family can tell me why I'm named after the household maid.
It was impossible to drag me from the book. A Chance In The World is the unbelievable true story told by Steve Pemberton about this broken boy destined to become a man of resilience and vision. The book was turned into a movie.
"Pemberton's beautifully told story is a rags to riches journey-beginning in a place and with a jarring set of experiences that could have destroyed his life. But Steve's refusal to give in to those forces, and his resolve to create a better life, shows a courage and resilience that is an example for many of us to follow."
-Stedman Graham, author, educator
Home is the place where our life stories begin. A Chance in the World is the astonishing true story of a boy destined to become a man of
I write historical fiction set in New England and based on the lives of real people. My New England roots go back to the 1630s when my English ancestors first came to the region so I’m steeped in its traditions and literature. I love doing the research for my books, especially when my characters lead me in new directions. I spent ten years digging into the conflict between the Puritans and the indigenous Natives and in the process discovered a largely forgotten story that has long-lasting implications for our day.
Mary Rowlandson’s narrative of her captivity experience with Native Americans during King Philip’s War was one of the first bestsellers in the English colonies. And it’s the first published “captivity narrative” in what was to become a popular American literary genre. Rowlandson’s book is a fast-moving and dramatic account that describes in detail the attack that destroyed her home and culminated in her capture. She includes a harrowing account of carrying her fatally wounded daughter on an arduous journey, her despair when her daughter dies, her struggles to survive among people she’s been taught to revile, and her eventual ransom and release. This book has long been one of the most important primary sources documenting Native culture in New England at the time of English colonization.
Considered the first American "bestseller", this early captivity narrative follows Mary Rowlandson's three month holding by the American Algonquian Indians. The first by an Anglo-American woman, Mrs. Rowlandson's "Narrative" remains a classic. Captivating to readers since its initial publication in 1682, this account presents a unique perspective on transcultural interaction between early American settlers and their Native American counterparts. Following King Phillip's War, Mary and her three children were seized by Algonquian Indians in her town of Lancaster, Massachusetts. What ensued is a harrowing journey of tremendous hardship up to her release per ransom. Rowlandson integrates Puritan ideologies and Biblical…
My name is Polly Schattel, and I’m a novelist, screenwriter, and film director. I wrote and directed the films Sinkhole, Alison, and Quiet River,and my written work includesThe Occultists, Shadowdays, and the novella 8:59:29.I grew up loving fantasy—Tolkien, Moorcock, Zelazny—but phased out of it somewhat when I discovered writers like Raymond Carver, EL Doctorow, and Denis Johnson. Their books seemed more adult and more complex, not to mention the prose itself was absolutely transporting. In comparison, the fantasy I’d read often felt quite rushed and thin, with get-it-done prose. I drifted away from genre fiction a bit, but dove back to it with my first novel, the historical dark fantasy The Occultists.
There’s a valid argument to be made that Shadowlandis perhaps more of a horror novel than fantasy, but it’s never really out-and-out scary.
It’s certainly more magical than bloody, concerning two friends in the 1950s who spend a hallucinatory summer at an uncle’s place in the Vermont woods. And man do things get weird.
After a long, lovely prelude at a boarding school, Tom and Del have to navigate their failing friendship and the strange happenings in the woods, but most of all they have to look out for Del’s uncle Cole, an old-school magician who, it turns out, is far from an avuncular old guardian.
Full of fairy tales and fables and wonderful digressions (with Straub, the digressions are often the point), Shadowlandfeels timeless in a way Stephen King never does. It might be the best book I’ve ever read.
A classic tale of supernatural horror from the acclaimed author of Koko, The Talisman and Mr X. Now part of the Voyager Classics collection.
IF YOUR SHADOW DOESN'T MOVE WHEN YOU DO, THEN YOU'RE IN SHADOWLAND
In a private school in New England, a friendship is forged between two boys that will change their lives for ever. As Del Nightingale and Tom Flanagan battle to survive the oppressive regime of bullying and terror overseen by the sadistic headmaster, Del introduces Tom to his world of magic tricks. But when they escape to spend the summer holiday together at Shadowland -…
If it's possible for a 600-page doorstopper to be a romp, this is a romp—a Gothic confection with layers of story held together by the delicious buttercream of dangerous secrets.
There's a creaky haunted house (with a turret library!), portentous (possibly sentient!) yellow jackets, and sexy frenemies—plus, much of the action takes place on the windswept cliffs of Rhode Island overlooking the thrashing Atlantic. What's not to love?
The prose is sharp and entertaining; the (melo)dramatic revelations made it impossible for me to put this book down. So many sapphic love triangles and delicious drama! Plus, it's embellished with charmingly sarcastic footnotes and a narrator who addresses the reader from time to time in arch-Victorian fashion. It's like if Jane Eyre got snarky and sexy, and there's no higher praise I can give a novel.
'It's a terrible story and one way to tell it is this: two girls in love and a fog of wasps cursed the place forever after...'
BROOKHANTS SCHOOL FOR GIRLS: Infamous site of a series of tragic deaths over a hundred years ago. Soon to be the subject of a controversial horror movie about the rumoured 'Brookhants curse':…
