Floating Staircase by Ronald Malfi

I'm a sucker for a haunted house story. I love nothing more than curling up with a book that makes me quiver at every strange bump in the night. A marker of a good horror novel is if you have to stay up late watching sitcoms on Netflix in order to take your mind off the scary stuff so that you can get some sleep.

Floating Staircase is the story of Travis Glasgow, a horror writer who moves into an old, run-down house with his wife. Haunted hijinks ensue. Malfi truly has a talent for describing those creaks and thuds that could just be the house settling... or could be something more sinister.

Throughout the course of the book, Travis investigates the death of a young boy who drowned (or did he??) in the lake behind their house the summer before the Glasgows moved in. Through his investigations Travis also has to confront his guilt over the death of his younger brother, who drowned in a lake when they were kids. So not all the ghosts of this book are of the paranormal kind, there are the more common ghosts of human memory as well.

For the most part, I would recommend checking out this book if you're a fan of the horror genre. But, be warned that most of the best spooky stuff is concentrated in the earlier chapters of the book. At some point the book shifts away from straight-up horror to a more standard murder mystery. I would have preferred a little more intense spookiness at the climax of the book, but really, when wouldn't I prefer a little more spookiness? I liked this book, but I wish I would have just rented the library's copy, because I don't feel this is going to be a re-read a la 'Salem's Lot.

Just After Sunset: The Gingerbread Girl and Harvey's Dream

While Willa was a disappointment, The Gingerbread Girl and Harvey's Dream are much much better.

The Gingerbread Girl is much longer than Willa was, almost twice the length, and it takes much more care in describing the characters and the situations. The Gingerbread Girl is more what I would consider to be classic Stephen King. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing supernatural in this story. The only monster is human. It tells the story of Emily, who takes up running to cope with the death of her infant daughter, Amy. She runs runs runs, as fast as she can to get away from the emotionally painful past, and ends up running right into the clutches of a mad man. This was one of those incredibly suspenseful stories where you start skimming paragraphs instead of reading because you just want to find out what happens already!

Harvey's Dream is a very simple story about a husband explaining his dream to his wife. King works his magic in making even this simple, rather mundane task suspenseful. I didn't like it nearly as much as I liked The Gingerbread Girl, but I didn't predict the end halfway through, so it's already way better than Willa.

I'm a few pages in to the next story Rest Stop, and I will have a lot to say about that story when I finish it. I also just finished reading Noises Off, but we'll wait to see if I'm cast in the play before I review it here.

Just After Sunset by Stephen King: Willa

I picked up this collection of Stephen King short stories at a garage sale this morning, and I just finished the first story, Willa. I'm a King fan, and I don't think I've written about him here before. I have several of his books on my "To Read" shelves, including Under the Dome, which I've already read about 200 pages of, but since that's still only about 15% of the book, it may be some time before I've worked up the energy to tackle that again. A collection of short stories seems to be the perfect option for me right now, since I seem to have trouble finishing books that I start. I like to blame the fact that I work with books all day, five days a week (I'm a cataloger at a library), so when I get home I usually don't want to curl up with another book. I'd like to blame my job, but it's probably the fact that I'm lazy and have a short attention span. So it's nice to have some bite-size fiction to get me back into the swing of being a Reader again.

That being said, I was decidedly underwhelmed by Willa. It's not that it's badly written, it's just kind of obvious. (Spoilers) It's a story about a group of ghosts who don't know they're ghosts, and how two of them figure it out and try to convince the others. But, in the beginning, we're not supposed to know they're ghosts either. The thing is, if you've ever read King before, or really any type of supernatural/horror fiction... you know what's going on from page one. There's minimal conflict, and not really much going on. I just read a review though that says that Willa is the worst story of the bunch, and King himself admits as much. Hopefully the next story will live up to what I expect from Stephen King.

Reviews forthcoming: Going in Circles by Pamela Ribon, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, and Noises Off by Michael Frayn.

The Keeper by Sarah Langan

The Keeper is a pretty good horror novel. Sure the story's been done before (unspeakable evil destroys small Maine town), but Sarah Langan is a very talented writer. I actually started losing my shit when I thought bad things were about to happen to my favorite character (bad things did happen, but not what I thought). The characters and relationships are all handled very well, even the tertiary characters. Langan manages to bring depth to characters who only get maybe a few paragraphs. It's impressive, really, that by the end you feel like you know the people in Bedford, you're familiar with the different families. It's great because when you care so much about so many characters, it makes it really difficult to predict who is going to be killed off. In lesser novels you may only be really introduced to a few characters, and it's usually pretty easy to pick out which ones are being set up to die. Not so in The Keeper.

The story is actually pretty complicated to spell out here, but if you're interested AlabamaPink (RIP) did a wonderful review over at Pajiba. The Basics: Susan Marley, once a pretty, normal girl, has withered away, both physically and mentally. She wanders the town daily (and through the dreams of the townfolk), never speaking. People say she's a witch. Her former lover, Paul Martin, failed-husband, high school teacher, and town drunk, tries to help Susan and unwittingly sets in motion events that lead to horrifying evil being released upon Bedford. Susan's sister, Liz, is the protagonist of the story, but it's hard to say if she's the main character. Liz and her boyfriend Bobby (the son of Bedford's only doctor) have dreams of moving out of Bedford and never returning, but Susan has other plans for them.

Really there are so many secondary and tertiary characters that it's impossible to even begin to list. And I can't tell my favorite parts of the story without giving away some of the plot. It's not the best horror novel I've read (that title still belongs to King's 'Salem's Lot) but it's definitely worth a read.