Gothic Fiction for Halloween picked by Greenmetroplis.com

There's a ghostly gothic revival afoot! Yes, it seems we like nothing more than a good old-fashioned scary story, with family curses, gloomy manor houses and ghostly goings on, so grab your nightgown and prepare to hide under the covers as we embark on a tour of our favourite spooky stories, set in an age when superstition and seances were forces to be reckoned with.
 

The Drowning Pool by Syd Moore
A stunning reinvention of the classic ghost story and an exploration of a 19th-century Essex witch hunt. Relocated to a coastal town, widowed teacher Sarah Grey is slowly rebuilding her life, along with her young son Alfie. But after an inadvertent seance one drunken night, her world is shaken when she starts to experience frightening visions and soon comes to realise that she is the victim of a terrifying haunting by her 19th century namesake ...

The Small Hand by Susan Hill
From the bestselling author of THE WOMAN IN BLACK comes an exceptional chilling tale! Late one summers evening, antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow is returning from a client visit when he takes a wrong turn. He stumbles across a derelict Edwardian house, and compelled by curiosity, approaches the door. Standing before the entrance, he feels the unmistakable sensation of a small cold hand creeping into his own ...

 
 

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
A true ghost story which will chill, terrify and haunt you and a perfect read for the dark cold nights! 1937 and 28-year-old Londoner Jack gets the chance to join an expedition to the Norwegian Arctic. The expedition arrives in the uninhabited wilderness, but as the Arctic night falls and the sun sets for winter, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice. Go or stay alone - but he's not alone, as something walks in the dark ...

 
 

The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore
In the winter of 1952, Isabel Carey moves to the East Riding of Yorkshire with her GP husband Philip. With Philip spending long hours on call, Isabel finds herself isolated and lonely. Woken by intense cold one night, she discovers an old RA greatcoat hidden in the back of a cupboard. Sleeping under it for warmth, she starts to dream, and not long afterwards, she's startled by a knock at her window ...

 

 

Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday
A ghost story, a psychological thriller and a tale of love rediscovered, from the author of SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN. Michael and Elizabeth have been married for ten uneventful years. But when they visit a friends country house, Michael is drawn to a painting on the landing, where in the background he sees the figure of a girl, but the next morning, the girl is not there. A truly astonishing take on what appears on the surface to be the onset of mental illness but turns out to be something far darker ...

 

The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
From the bestselling author of THE SHADOW OF THE WIND, comes a haunting story of a ghostly ship and an age-old curse. 1943 and war sweeps across Europe, Max Carver's father moves his family away from the city, to an old wooden house on the coast. But as soon as they arrive, strange things begin to happen. As Max delves into the past, he encounters the terrifying story of the Prince of Mist, a sinister shadow who emerges from the night to settle old scores, then disappears with the first mists of dawn ...

 

Affinity by Sarah Waters
Sarah Waters' eerie and utterly compelling ghost story set in a smog-bound Victorian London. Margaret Prior decides to become a Lady Visitor at Millbank prison, intent on pursuing 'good work' deeds by helping the less fortunate, but she soon becomes ensnared by the spiritualist prisoner Selina Dawes, and finds herself dabbling in a twilight world of seances, shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions. A ghost story with a twist in the tale ...

 

Sweet Heart by Peter James
When Charley and her husband Tom decide to buy Elmwood Mill, a dilapidated 15th-century mill house in Sussex, they think they've found their ideal home. But Charley has a strange sense of deja vu, and when strange things start happening she begins to doubt her sanity. Haunted by memories which become increasingly vivid and terrifying, Charley becomes desperate and is persuaded to undergo hypnosis - but in searching deep into her past, she unwitting opens a Pandora's box of evil, and now the terror is free ...


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Puffin Virtually Live with Michelle Paver and Charlie Higson this November

FUTURE EVENTS:

  The next Puffin Virtually Live webcast is taking place on
Monday 5th November 2-2.45pm GMT with bestselling author
Michelle Paver.

Michelle will be talking about GODS AND WARRIORS, the first book in an epic new five-part Bronze Age series for adventure-loving girls and boys aged 9+.

See Michelle researching her second book including learning the art of Falconry, the world of the Bronze Age Mediterranean and how dolphins experience life. There's also a preparation pack which includes class notes, reading lists, extracts from the books and lesson ideas so the class can think about the book before the webcast.

And you will be able to have your questions answered by Michelle live during the webcast.

LOG IN or REGISTER now to get involved.



PLUS Puffin Virtually Live Brings you Skype in the Classroom with Charlie Higson!
 Take part in a Halloween Skype Special with writer, actor and comedian Charlie Higson, author of the phenomenally successful Young Bond series of novels and best selling zombie adventure series for teenagers; The Enemy. Join Charlie for some eyeball-popping stories as he talks about his writing and his lastest teen book The Sacrifice. The star of the Fast Show has three sons of his own and knows how to terrify and captivate teens in equal measure!

Puffin Virtually Live has a number of places for assembly sessions for whole year groups to take part on Tuesday 6th November 2-2.40pm GMT.  Sign up here.

Our Recommended Reads from July 2012

Check out the reviews section of our website for the latest recommended reads - from children's fiction to poetry and classic reads we're sure there is something for everyone. We also welcome your reviews too - email them to 'Reviews' at info@bookapoet.co.uk and we'll let you know when we use it!

Below are the titles we recommended during July 2012:

‘Nefertiti in the Flak Tower’ by Clive James (Picador Poetry)

'I Spy with My Little Eye on the Farm' by Edward Gibbs (Templar Publishing)

‘My Brother Simple’ by Marie-Aude Murail (Bloomsbury)

‘Call Down Thunder’ by Daniel Finn (Macmillan Children’s Books)

‘The Dragon Prophecy: The Dragonology Chronicles’ by Dugald A. Steer (Templar Publishing)

‘Tiger Wars: The Falcon Chronicles’ (Book 1) by Steve Backshall (Orion Books)
 'Gods and Warriors' by Michelle Paver (Puffin)

‘Icespell’ by C J Busby (Templar Publishing)

‘Why Owls Are the Wisest Birds’ by Eric Pullin / Illustrated by Chris Davis (Barny Books)

‘The Ring of Sky: Young Samurai’ (Book 8) by Chris Bradford (Puffin)

August's recommended reads will start to appear on the website from next week. A selection of reviews will be published here too, as well as on our Facebook page and Twitter account.

A Note from Michelle Paver - Award-Winning Author

"Gods and Warriors" is the first book in an epic new five-part Bronze Age series for adventure-loving girls and boys aged 9+, here Michelle Paver tells us about her brand new series ...

"The story of Hylas and Pirra takes place three and a half thousand years ago, in what we now call the Bronze Age. As you may have gathered, it happens in the land we call Ancient Greece. However, the Greece of the Bronze Age was very different from the Ancient Greece of marble temples and classical sculpture with which you may be familiar. The Bronze Age was long before that. It was even before the Greeks ranged their gods and goddesses into an orderly pantheon of Zeus, Hera, Hades and all the others.
   
We don’t know as much about Bronze Age Greece as we do about what came afterwards, because its people left so few written records. However, we know something about the astonishing cultures which flourished at that time, and which we call the Mycenaeans and the Minoans. Theirs is the world of Gods and Warriors.
   
Here I need to say a quick word about the place names in the story. What Hylas calls Akea (or Achaea, as it’s usually spelled) is the ancient name for mainland Greece; and Lykonia is my name for present-day Lakonia, in south-west Greece; but I’ve kept the name Mycenae unaltered, as it’s so well-known. Concerning Pirra’s people, I’ve adopted the name ‘Keftian’ for the great Cretan civilization which we call Minoan. However it’s one of the mysteries of the ancient world that we don’t actually know what the people of that civilization called themselves; depending on which book you read, they may have called themselves Keftians, or that may just have been a name given to them by the Ancient Egyptians. As for the Egyptians themselves, although the name ‘Egyptian’ comes from the name given to them by the Greeks, I’ve used it in the story because, like Mycenae, it felt too awkward and artificial to change it.
   
In creating the world of Hylas and Pirra, I’ve studied the archaeology of the Aegean Bronze Age, particularly its tombs and strongholds, artefacts and weapons. But to get an idea of how people thought and what they believed, I’ve also drawn on the beliefs of more recent peoples who still live in traditional ways, just as I did when I wrote about the Stone Age in Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. And even though people in Hylas’ time lived mostly by farming or fishing, rather than by hunting and gathering, as they did in the Stone Age, I’ve no doubt that many of the skills and beliefs of those earlier hunter-gatherers would have lingered on into the Bronze Age, particularly among the poorer and more isolated people, such as Hylas himself.
   
Concerning the geographical setting for the story, many people believe that Bronze Age Greece was a land of scattered chieftaincies separated by great mountain ranges and forests. It’s also thought to have been wetter and greener than it is today, with far more wild animals both on land and in the Sea. In creating the Island of the Goddess, I didn’t have a specific Greek island in mind, but based it on my sojourns over the decades on the islands of Ithaka, Kephalonia and Alonissos. More recently, and to gain inspiration for Lykonia, I visited Lakonia, including the Acropolis at Sparta, the Eurotas river and the deserted and immensely evocative ruins of the nearby Menelaion. To get a feel for Hylas’ mountain home, I explored the Langada Gorge that winds through the Taÿgetos Mountains, and stayed for several days at the top of the Langada Pass. Wild boar still haunt the forests there; one morning, I had a slightly unnerving encounter with five piglets and their watchful mother.
   
To experience the caves in which Hylas and Pirra hide out, I explored the extensive, watery cave system of Vlychada, on the Bay of Diros in south-west Lakonia, as well as its small but highly informative local museum. There I learnt of the dreadful fate of some of the cave’s earlier inhabitants, one of whose calcified remains sparked the idea for Pirra’s encounter with the Vanished Ones. To get a feel for Keftiu, I visited Crete, where the ruins at Knossos and Phaestos, as well as the museums of Iraklion and Archanes, provided much inspiration for Pirra’s homeland.
   
Spirit is, of course, one of the most important characters in the story, and to get to know him better I swam with socialized dolphins in Florida, where one of them kindly gave me a fin-ride, as Spirit does for Hylas and Pirra. I then travelled to the mid-Atlantic islands of the Azores, where I spent days observing wild dolphins of different species: Striped, Atlantic Spotted, Common, Risso’s and Spirit’s own kind, the Bottlenose. It was only when I saw wild dolphins in their natural habitat that I truly appreciated the mysterious synchronicity of their swimming. Snorkelling with them gave me a powerful sense of their otherworldliness, which made it easy to imagine how Hylas feels when he sees the dolphins swimming in the phosphorescence which he calls ‘the blue fire’. Above all, watching those wild dolphins gave me an imaginative insight into how Spirit experiences life in his deep blue world."

Michelle Paver Bio 

Born in Malawi in 1960 to a Belgian mother and a father who ran the tiny 'Nyasaland Times', Michelle Paver moved to the UK when she was three. She was brought up in Wimbledon and, following a Biochemistry Degree from Oxford, she became a partner in a big City law firm. She gave up the City to follow her long-held dream of becoming a writer. She is the author of the brilliantly successful children's series, "Chronicles of Ancient Darkness". "Gods and Warriors" is the first book in the story of Hylas and Pirra, which tells of their adventures in Akea and beyond, and of their fight to vanquish the Crows. The next book in the series will be published in autumn 2013. Visit Michelle’s hugely popular website, THE CLAN for exclusive features: http://jointheclan.com/. Michelle Paver is the winner of the 2010 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize - for her sixth and last book in the "Chronicles of Ancient Darkness" series and her books have sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide and are published in over 35 languages.

'Gods and Warriors'

By Michelle Paver

Published by Puffin, 28th August 2012

RRP £12.99 (hardback)

ISBN 9780141339269

In the turbulent world of the Mediterranean Bronze Age, a boy and a girl battle for survival with the help of three animal allies…

Set long before the Greek Myths and before the Trojan War, Gods and Warriors tells the tale of a young boy called Hylas and a young girl called Pirra who get thrown into battle. Hylas is a lowly 12-year-old goatherd, thief and outsider. His story starts in the mountains of Greece where in a single night, his world is overturned – his camp is attacked, his dog is dead and his sister is missing - setting Hylas on a journey that will take him far from the mountains and across the seas as far afield as Crete and Egypt.

Through Hylas’ adventures bonds will be formed and allies will be made with animals - including a lion, a falcon and a dolphin – against a backdrop of chariots, ocean-going ships, slaves, warriors, myths and magic. Can Hylas and Pirra defeat tyranny and withstand the elemental powers of the gods of land and sea?

Highly recommended for readers aged 9+