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Book Review: Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

 

cover art for Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

Wednesday Books, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250787101

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

 

Within These Wicked Walls takes its inspiration from the classic gothic romance Jane Eyre. Set in England, Jane is an orphan who arrives to work as a governess in Thornfield Hall, home to the wealthy Edward Rochester, and the two fall in love. Author Lauren Blackwood moves the story to contemporary Ethiopia, replacing Jane with Andi, an impoverished Black debtera, who is hired to exorcise the malevolent spirits haunting the opulent Thorne House and its owner, nineteen-year-old Magnus Thorne. The book is focused in on Andi and Magnus and their attempts to eliminate the curse of the Evil Eye that dooms anyone who looks into Magnus’ eyes and causes the deeply disturbing hauntings in the house. Blackwood turns the horror and the supernatural up and intensifies the romance, creating an emotional whirlwind that will blow the reader away. Blackwood does not shy away from addressing race, women’s independence, and colonialism, all of which impact the story in a much different manner than in the original book.

 

Recommended for readers, especially teens, in the mood for a gothic romance, an African-inspired fantasy, a terrifying haunted house, or any combination.

 

Contains: body horror, gore, violence, death, physical and emotional abuse, references to suicide.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on February 8, 2022 by , Reply

Haunted Travels: Salem, Massachussetts

photo of The House of Seven Gables, in Salem, Massachusetts,c. 1915, courtesy of the Detroit Publishing Co.

The House of Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts, c. 1915, courtesy of the Detroit Publishing Co. Available through the Library of Congress.

 

Most people who think of Salem, Massachusetts think of the infamous Salem Witch Trials (there’s a museum there, dedicated to the trials) and the city and its residents have definitely capitalized on that. There are additional museums, memorials, and tours of the area, including ghost walks, walking tours, food tours, and harbor cruises devoted to the topic. October includes two major festivals. Salem Haunted Happenings  is a celebration of Halloween that lasts the entire month, and Festival of the Dead focuses on spirits and the “mysteries of death”, witha Salem Witches’ Halloween Ball on October 30. Whether you’re visiting for a more secular celebration or something witchier, Salem has it for you, especially in October.

Salem is also the hometown of Nathaniel Hawthorne, best known for that required reading we all had to do in high school, The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne also wrote The House of Seven Gables, named for a real place, the House of Seven Gables (which actually does not have seven gables, but does have some unique architectural features, according to Duncan Ralston, the author of Ghostland). It has also been a settlement house for immigrants and is now a historic site and community resource. The historic site does have tours, and it’s suggested you book in advance. A look at the website shows that it is not nearly as creepy-looking as you’d expect from a hundreds-year-old haunted house.

There are a couple of ghost tours that visit the house, the Requiem for Salem Walking Ghost Tour , and The Ghosts of Salem Walking Tour.

If you want to see more than the spooky side to Salem, it’s been around long enough that many other historical people and places are associated with it, but October is the time for haunted travels there.

For some books you can take along on your trip, check out this book list.

Posted on October 2, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Liar: Memoir of a Haunting by E.F. Schraeder

cover art for Liar: Memoir of a Haunting

Liar: Memoir of a Haunting by E.F. Schraeder

Omnium Gatherum, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1949054347

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

 

Alex and Rainey, a lesbian couple ready to escape their home in the hostile Midwest, embark on a long process of visiting Vermont and searching for a house so they can move there. Each house they visit has an ominous feel or dark history… that is, until they visit the Sugar House, a beautiful but isolated property with the primary disadvantage being that it is in a cell phone black hole. Together, they decide to buy the house and move there. Or do they? Told in alternating points of view, piecing together what actually happened is difficult to do. Rainey talks about having misgivings over the house and Alex talking her into it, with the understanding that they’ll live there together. Alex says she never planned to move there and talks about Rainey saying she wanted the peace and quiet of an off-grid life. Rainey finds herself living there alone as Alex travels for work and cares for her mother, who has dementia, in their hometown. It turns out that vacationing in Vermont as a couple is much different than being a lesbian living alone in an insular community and an isolated area, without a reliable way to communicate with the outside world, and gun-toting men frequently knocking on your door to ask if you are home alone and have a working phone. Rainey, who has worked hard to deal with past trauma, finds that it is emerging again. She develops insomnia, becomes obsessed with the trees over the house and local disappearances, and begins to sound more and more paranoid and lost. Despite regular calls, she isn’t getting though to either her therapist or to Alex about how disorienting and disturbing both her exterior and interior lives are becoming.

 

Alex, tied up with work, travel, and caring for her mother, is discovering the Rainey she knew is changing into someone who is exhausting to talk to and deal with. Alex is becoming frustrated– how terrible can it really be to live in peace and quiet with nature all around you? Her weekends in Vermont are no longer relaxing: they’re taken up with chores. When Rainey suddenly goes quiet and Alex receives a phone call from a neighbor, she rushes to the Sugar House to search for Rainey and finds and reads her journal for clues. On Rainey’s mysterious return, they both acknowledge that there is some kind of presence in the Sugar House.

 

You would think that these major miscommunications and red flag behaviors would be a death knell for a relationship. Rainey, a humanities professor, gets meta when Alex suggests writing about the experience as a haunted house story, noting that in haunted house stories it’s practically a trope for the story to document the fracturing of a self or of a relationship. Certainly we do see the cracks into Rainey’s sense of self, but while Rainey and Alex’s relationship struggles, the two of them never talk about breaking things off. Rather than discuss what they’re thinking or feeling with each other, they paper it over. People in relationships do this, but it was so frustrating that nothing was resolved.

 

Schraeder writes with vivid descriptions of the outdoors. I could almost see the snow and hear the aspens shaking. I did feel like the ending got a little confusing, and feel like it could have been fleshed out a little more. Rainey’s thoughts and experiences as she went down the rabbit hole seemed very believable. Liar: Memoir of a Haunting is definitely a different take on the haunted house story.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on July 13, 2021 by , Reply
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