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A Renowned Horror Author

A Chilling Tale by Shirley Jackson

I encountered this story long ago and it has haunted me ever since. The so-called vacationers are the Allisons from the city, who rent the same off-grid lakeside house every summer. This time, instead of going back to urban life, they decide to prolong their vacation a few more weeks – an action that appears to unsettle each resident in the nearby town. All pass on an identical cryptic advice that no one has ever stayed by the water beyond the end of summer. Regardless, they insist to stay, and that’s when things start to get increasingly weird. The man who brings the kerosene refuses to sell to the couple. Not a single person agrees to bring groceries to the cottage, and at the time the family endeavor to travel to the community, the automobile won’t start. Bad weather approaches, the power in the radio die, and when night comes, “the two old people huddled together within their rental and expected”. What are the Allisons waiting for? What might the townspeople be aware of? Every time I read Jackson’s unnerving and influential tale, I remember that the finest fright comes from the unspoken.

An Acclaimed Writer

An Eerie Story by a noted author

In this brief tale a pair travel to an ordinary coastal village where church bells toll constantly, a perpetual pealing that is bothersome and unexplainable. The first truly frightening episode happens at night, at the time they decide to take a walk and they fail to see the water. There’s sand, the scent exists of putrid marine life and salt, waves crash, but the sea appears spectral, or a different entity and even more alarming. It is simply insanely sinister and whenever I travel to the shore at night I recall this tale which spoiled the beach in the evening to my mind – positively.

The recent spouses – the wife is youthful, he’s not – go back to the inn and discover the cause of the ringing, through an extended episode of confinement, gruesome festivities and death-and-the-maiden intersects with grim ballet bedlam. It’s an unnerving meditation regarding craving and decline, two bodies growing old jointly as partners, the connection and brutality and tenderness in matrimony.

Not just the scariest, but probably among the finest short stories available, and a beloved choice. I read it in Spanish, in the debut release of this author’s works to appear in this country a decade ago.

A Prominent Novelist

A Dark Novel by an esteemed writer

I read this book by a pool in the French countryside a few years ago. Although it was sunny I felt a chill over me. I also experienced the excitement of fascination. I was writing my third novel, and I encountered a wall. I didn’t know if there was any good way to craft some of the fearful things the story includes. Going through this book, I saw that there was a way.

Published in 1995, the story is a grim journey into the thoughts of a young serial killer, Quentin P, inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer who murdered and dismembered 17 young men and boys in the Midwest over a decade. Notoriously, the killer was fixated with making a compliant victim who would stay by his side and attempted numerous grisly attempts to achieve this.

The deeds the book depicts are horrific, but just as scary is its own mental realism. Quentin P’s awful, broken reality is simply narrated in spare prose, identities hidden. You is immersed stuck in his mind, compelled to witness ideas and deeds that shock. The alien nature of his thinking resembles a physical shock – or being stranded on a desolate planet. Starting this book is not just reading than a full body experience. You are consumed entirely.

Daisy Johnson

A Haunting Novel from a gifted writer

When I was a child, I was a somnambulist and subsequently commenced suffering from bad dreams. Once, the terror featured a nightmare in which I was confined inside a container and, as I roused, I found that I had removed the slat from the window, trying to get out. That house was decaying; when storms came the entranceway flooded, insect eggs dropped from above on to my parents’ bed, and once a large rat ascended the window coverings in the bedroom.

Once a companion presented me with this author’s book, I was residing elsewhere at my family home, but the tale about the home perched on the cliffs seemed recognizable to me, longing as I was. This is a novel featuring a possessed clamorous, emotional house and a female character who eats limestone off the rocks. I adored the story immensely and returned frequently to the story, consistently uncovering {something