2015 Halloween Reading Challenge

Reading Every Season is hosting a month long Halloween Reading Challenge and the rules are simple - read at least one book which which must be horror, thriller, mystery, supernatural or have subjects that deal with Halloween between October 1 - October 31.  You can click on the link to get all the details and sign up if interested.  A fellow blogger from A Night's Dream of Books pointed this out, and since it fit so well with what I was reading anyway, I thought I might as well sign up. Below I will showcase at least 3 ARCs I would like to make sure to read this month.

The Subterranean Season: Dale Bailey - Ph.D. student Alex Kern is having trouble passing his exams, hanging on to his girlfriend, and teaching his composition class—and that doesn’t include the strange hole he’s discovered in his scummy office deep under the football stadium, where more than 100,000 students, citizens, and alumni of West Georgia U gather every Saturday to worship at the feet of the mighty Fighting Bobcats.

As for the hole, it seemingly has no bottom, as Alex discovers when he drops in first a rock, then his cherished Bobble Head Freud, and finally—during an especially challenging student conference—a troublesome undergraduate. Alex steels himself for the investigation to come, but no one seems to notice the missing student. Things go from bad to worse when Alex is forced to dispose of the world's foremost expert on Ezra Pound in the same way. Once again he steels himself for the consequences—and once again, no one seems to notice. Lowly student or chaired professor—either way, it doesn't seem to matter. West Georgia U can do without them.

What it can’t do without is its star quarterback, Ulysses Moreno. And when Alex drops him down the hole, all hell breaks loose at West Georgia U…

Wonderland: Jennifer Hillier - Welcome to Wonderland. By day, it’s a magical place boasting a certain retro charm. Excited children, hands sticky with cotton candy, run frenetically from the Giant Octopus ride to the Spinning Sombrero, while the tinkling carnival music of the giant Wonder Wheel—the oldest Ferris wheel in the Pacific Northwest—fills the air. But before daybreak, an eerie feeling descends. Maybe it’s the Clown Museum, home to creepy wax replicas of movie stars and a massive collection of antique porcelain dolls. Or maybe it’s the terrifyingly real House of Horrors. Or…maybe it’s the dead, decaying body left in the midway for all the Wonder Workers to see.

Vanessa Castro’s first day as deputy police chief of Seaside, Washington, is off to a bang. The unidentifiable homeless man rotting inside the tiny town’s main tourist attraction is strange enough, but now a teenage employee—whose defiant picture at the top of the Wonder Wheel went viral that same morning—is missing. As the clues in those seemingly disparate crimes lead her down a mysterious shared path of missing persons that goes back decades, she suspects the seedy rumors surrounding the amusement park’s dark history might just be true. She moved to Seaside to escape her own scandalous past, but has she brought her family to the center of an insidious killer’s twisted game? Acclaimed author Jennifer Hillier’s bone-chilling thriller is masterful and fast-paced, hurtling toward a shocking, bloody conclusion.

Night Music Nocturnes Volume 2: John Connolly - A decade after Nocturnes first terrified and delighted readers, John Connolly, bestselling author of thirteen acclaimed thrillers featuring private investigator Charlie Parker, gives us a second volume of tales of the supernatural. From stories of the monstrous for dark winter nights to fables of fantastic libraries and haunted books, from a tender account of love after death to a frank, personal, and revealing account of the author's affection for myths of ghosts and demons, this is a collection that will surprise, delight—and terrify.

Night Music: Nocturnes 2 also contains two novellas: the multi-award-winning The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository and The Fractured Atlas.

Night Music: Nocturnes 2 is a masterly collection to be read with the lights on—menace has never been so seductive. 

Why don't you consider joining as well!