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Showing posts with label ghost stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ghost stories. Show all posts

Monday, October 3, 2016

"Ghosts couldn't hurt you directly. They couldn't push you off a cliff, but the could lead you off one, if you were stupid enough to follow..." Razorhurst, Justine Larbalestier. 
"Ghosts couldn't hurt you directly. They couldn't push you off a cliff, but the could lead you off one, if you were stupid enough to follow..." Razorhurst, Justine Larbalestier. 

Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson

The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson
When she and her boyfriend, Dom, move into a crumbling Provencal house, Eve never expects to be drawn into the hamlet's mystery. Charmed by Dom in Switzerland, Eve quickly moves in with him.
Eve never questions her boyfriend's past or why he left his ex-wife Rachel. A mystery woman, Sabine, seems to have some of the answers but Dom wants to force Eve and Sabine apart.
Strange events, flickering lights, strange scents, stones thrown against a window pane and a falling light fixture cause Eve alarm; plus, there is a growing distance between her and Dom.
Under a floorboard, she finds a child's book of Provencal tales and the history of the house's former owners, the Lincels, begisn to unfold. Eve is fascinated by the Lincel's story--Pierre's cruelty and Marthe's determination to become a perfume maker despite her blindness. After creating a famous scent, Lavande du Nuit, Marthe disappears under mysterious circumstances.
The author who spends much of her time in Provence drew inspiration for this book from the fact that the company, L'Occitane en Provence, formed a foundation in 1997 to introduce visually impaired children to perfume creation.
If you like mysteries and books set in Provence, you will love The Lantern. For a similar work, try the equally fascinating, Ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyes.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Vanishing of Katharina Linden

In Helen Grant's debut novel a precocious narrator, Pia Kolvenbach, ponders the strange disappearances of several children in post World War II Germany. Pia has more than most ten year old's share of problems.

Her grandmother dies in a freak accident, her parents argue, her classmates tease her, and the medieval town is divided against itself. Most of the town is quite willing to believe idle gossip--that Herr Dussel has been kidnapping several young girls. Her only friend, Stefan, wants her to investigate the disappearances.

Grant lived in Germany for six years and she brings a unique perspective--that of an English woman writing about a German town. Notably Pia is half-English. To Pia's dismay her mother wants to take Pia back to Middlesex, England to discover the "English" side of herself.

Despite being ostracized in school, Pia wants to stay in Germany to find out what happened to the missing girls. Ghost stories and fables, mostly unique to Bad Munstereifel, act as a backdrop to the main story. Pia's elderly friend and town historian, Herr Schiller, keeps her well stocked with spine-chilling stories. Pia and Stefan feel compelled to investigate any connection between the town's ghostly tales and the missing girls.

This is a first-rate debut by an author who is worth watching.

For more information about Helen Grant, www.helengrantbooks.com

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Deborah Noyes' The Ghosts of Kerfol


 

Ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyes
The Ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyes.


Don't miss Deborah Noyes fascinating tribute to Edith Wharton's short story "Kerfol." The cursed house, Kerfol, figures prominently in each short story. When a lonely wife, Anne de Barrigan comforts herself with pet dogs, her husband, Yves de Cornault, retaliates by killing them. A chambermaid, Perrette, narrates what happens when the ghosts of her mistress' dogs exact revenge. The rest of the stories move forward and backwards in time as characters of various decades enter the house as owners, tourists, and restorers.


"These Heads Would Speak" is set shortly after the French Revolution when a recently impoverished nobleman, Victor, is set to inherit Kerfol. Victor, an artist at heart, has no idea why the servants vacate the house on a certain day, the anniversary of a particularly gruesome death. In "The Figure Under the Sheet," an American man and his spoiled daughter have inherited Kerfol. Noyes interweaves a Breton folktale, a rich king and his ungrateful daughter, that oddly mirror Kerfol's most recent owners.


Tourists in the 1980s story "When I Love You Best" learn about the murder of Suze, the young woman who dies under mysterious circumstances in "The Figure Under the Sheet." The house and its ghosts continue to haunt new inhabitants in the final story where a deaf boy hears ghosts speak.  Anyone interested Ghosts of Kerfol may also be interested in Edith Wharton's
Collected Stories, 1917-1937.
Collected Stories 1917-1937
For more books by Deborah Noyes please see her official site,
http://www.deborahnoyes.com/books.html

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