Time for a seasonal book tag!

This tag was originally created by Clever Fox and you can watch her video here if you want.

Let’s get our spook on!

What goes bump in the night?: Name a book that has legitimately scared you while reading it.

So many to choose from for this one, and many of them penned by Stephen King which will not surprise anyone. In the end, though, I think I will go for Cell because of all the Stephen King novels, that was the one that unnerved me the most whilst reading it.

The idea of a deadly virus being transmitted through mobile phones? Made me even more reluctant to answer my phone than usual, that’s for sure!

Jack O’ Lanterns and Classic Costumes: A book you always reach for during Hallowe’en time.

Brother In The Land by Robert Swindells is my go-to scary book. I have lost count of how many times I have read and reread it over the years. My copy is looking very well loved indeed these days – it has been loaned to multiple friends and family, Tori has read it a couple of times, and I’m pretty sure I have made Caius read it as well.

It is technically a children’s book, but it stands up well to being read as an adult as well. A short novel set in the immediate fallout of a nuclear apocalypse in the UK, it has lingered with me forever and I enjoy reading it, and being unsettled by it, every single time.

Black Cats and Magic Mirrors: A book you love that is laced with superstition and/or magic.

The first thing that came to mind for this one was another children’s book/series: Beaver Towers by Nigel Hinton.

My Year 5 teacher read us this, chapter by chapter, at the end of the school day, and I was obsessed. I got the series out at the library over and over again, entranced by the magic of Philip being whisked away by a magic kite to an island with talking beavers and witches and all sorts of adventures. I bought myself the full set to reread when I was at university and doing a module on writing for children, and loved it all over again.

I guess it’s a bit like a more modern Narnia series, just with less religion and no random book about guinea pigs.

Witch’s Brew: Favourite witch character in any book/series.

I think by this point I have made it very clear that my favourite witch is Rachel Morgan from Kim Harrison’s The Hollows, so I am going to try and come up with another favourite witch for this one…

After overcoming my immediate brain-block where my mind basically went ‘wHaT aRe WiTcHeS??’ I have decided that I am going to go with Jesper Fahey from Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse novels.

Grisha are the witches of the universe and they can be men or women, and they have different classes of magic.

Jesper is a Fabrikator (or Materialnik), which means he has magical powers that allow him to manipulate composite materials and create new and innovative materials from them.

That is not why I love him though, I love him because he is quick-witted and clever, funny, but has a heart of cold buried under his silver tongue. He’s a hopeless gambling addict, and sometimes needs lessons in how to do simple things like apologise to his friends, but he is loyal and fierce and charming. And I absolutely adore his relationship with Wylan and how it develops and changes through the books.

Ghouls and Ghosts: A book that still haunts you to this day (good or bad).

I’m going to pick Blame by Simon Mayo for this one. It was such a horrible but also entirely believable near-future, that the idea has lingered with me and especially in the current political climate disaster it never feels too far away.

The premise is simply that as well as imprisoning criminals, the government have also started imprisoning their families on the grounds that all crimes should be punished and living off the proceeds of your family member’s previous felony is as bad as committing the crime itself. This is known as Heritage Crime, and has resulted in thousands of families, including children, being imprisoned because as the world economy started to fall apart, people were desperate to find people to blame, both in the past as well as the present.

So yeah, watching the economy fall apart in real time has kind of has Blame ghosting around in my brain recently…

Haunted Graveyard: You’re all alone in a haunted graveyard, you get ONE book to give you comfort, which is it?

The House In The Cerulean Sea by T J Klune because it is a warm hug in a book, and I feel like that would be helpful if I were stuck in a haunted graveyard by myself.

The Undead: Favourite supernatural creatures to read about (i.e. vamps, zombies, werewolves, etc).

Agh, always with the making me choose! I think shape-shifters are my favourite (not just werewolves, were-anything!) because I’d still quite like to wake up one day and be able to transform into some sort of cool animal. Remember the Animorphs books? The. Actual. Dream.

But yeah, werewolves, werebears, any old animal-shifter will do. They are my catnip.

In the dead of night: Pick a book with a black cover.

*looks at bookshelves*

I have a lot of those…

Okay, let’s pick one of my favourite black book covers (on a book I haven’t actually read yet… but shush, that wasn’t a criteria) which actually leans in really hard to the whole black cover thing by having black sprayed edges as well!

Trick or Treat?

You can choose between book trailers for this (or have both if you feel like it)

Treat

Trick

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Have you ready any/many of these? What are your favourite spooky or scary reads?