September didn't feel very autumn-like for the most part, save for a few teaser days. October has been wet and humid, but maybe fall will finally make an appearance. I'll blame it on the weather that my RIP-reading has been sluggish at best. I have dipped into a few books that sound very promising, but they have just not quite taken off for me. Maybe I can redeem myself this month as my new prompt is "ghosts and hauntings", though I have been looking for books that are maybe just a little off the beaten path.
So far I have come up with . . . books that are not necessarily scary yet still 'ghostly' in their own way.
Linda Newbery's Set in Stone is a YA novel that seems to be in the vein of Henry James's Turn of the Screw. There is a governess, two daughters with one a little "excitable", an artist who has come to tutor the girls and a manor house called Fourwinds that "holds mysteries of its own". It is set just at the very end of the Victorian-era. Of course. It has a certain appeal for me at the moment.
Elaine Bergstrom's The Door Through Washington Square has long (and I do mean long . . .) been sitting on my shelves. How about a house in NYC's Washington Square that literary has a doorway that opens on to the past, through which a young woman steps through and meets her grandmother as a young woman. Aleister Crowley makes an appearance.
I could read the book and then watch the movie adaptation of R.A. Dick's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. "This romantic tale explores how love can develop without boundaries, both in this life and beyond. Rex Harrison as the love interest? Hmm. It could work. Hes not exactly who I would have in mind, but there is much to be said about a nice accent and a captivating personality!
Of course it is a given that a Mary Stewart novel should be included. How about Thornyhold and its enchanted cottage of the same name? There is a resident black cat and the gift of second sight.
Here is the first of two unusual stories. Peter Beagle's A Fine and Private Place is set in a cemetery half the size of Central Park. This one literally has two ghosts, a young couple with a blossoming romance. And more ghosts? How about Thorne Smith's Topper featuring two witty and urbane ghosts who haunt the automobile in which they met their untimely end. Apparently the adventures they have are "madcap". (I quite like the sound of this one).
And one more YA novel with a very interesting slant. A young woman is a medium who is part of the Spirit Corps in WWI in Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal. Soldiers who die at the front report back after death with military intelligence on the enemy.
This is a nice mishmash of stories and hopefully one or two will catch my attention and hold it, but as my other prompts have been very successful I am optimistic my selections will be equally as enticing. Now . . . which to start with? I am still contemplating a new year of monthly prompts (and thanks for the suggestions given so far!).