All Hallow's Read 2013

I love reading scary books. Love it. But I have a problem. I'm a huge fraidy-cat! I get spooked all the time. Getting into bed and I catch my reflection in the mirror? Frozen in terror and can't sleep. Hear the neighbors dog barking and then it suddenly stops? Heart pounding. Walking across the street and a bird flies up in my face? Duck and cover. I  don't even have to have read or seen anything scary; my imagination is happy to do all the work. The lamest things get my adrenaline going and kick my flight instinct into gear (I have yet to determine if a fight instinct is present, but so far it looks like not). But despite all that, I love wrapping my self up in a blanket, listening to the rain (I'm in Seattle; it's probably raining), having some candles lit, and reading something decidedly creepy. Unsettling. Eerie even. I love that feeling of being so perfectly uncomfortable.

Reading about vengeful houses or blood-soaked ghosts or evil ventriloquist dummies just doesn't really do it in June though. What that means for me is that all of my scary reading gets done in the fall and early winter. But since I get so scared so easily, I can only take so much before my heart will give out, so really it just ends up being October that I read the scary stuff (and maybe it's not even that scary...). This lines up perfectly with All Hallow's Read!

Don't know about All Hallow's Read? Just watch. Neil Gaiman will explain it all.

I know, I know. All Hallow's Read is about giving someone else a scary book to read. I'll still do that! I'm all about giving books. But I add extra flair by reading scary books too. Because I'm all about scary books in October. And extra flair.

Here's my All Hallow's Read lineup for 2013:

The White Devil by Justin Evans

American social outcast Andrew Taylor is shipped off to a prestigious London boarding school where his classmates think he murdered their star athlete and a very pale boy haunts his every move.

The Ghost Writer by John Harwood

Uncovering the ghost stories written by his great-grandmother has disturbed some family secrets and Gerard learns more about his mysterious family than he ever wanted to know.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Coraline meets her "other" parents on the far side of a mysterious passageway in a strangely paralleled and perfect world, but not all is as idyllic as it seems.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

A visiting cousin disrupts the lives of two bizarrely sinister sisters and reveals their possibly violent past in this suspenseful and psychological novel.

I might not get to all of them, but that's the plan. Okay. That's enough. Just thinking about my All Hallow's Reading is creeping me out.

What are you reading for All Hallow's Read? What terror are you gifting?
Leave a Comment telling me about your All Hallow's Read plans and you might be the recipient of one of my All Hallow's Read gifts!