Your responses to last week’s post were fun to read! Thank you for sharing your candy loves and leading me to try some new things. Candy corn with peanuts? Eating a Snickers like I eat a Heath Bar–the chocolate coating first? And I enjoyed connecting with all the Halloween memories. As always, thank you for stopping by.

Now that Halloween is upon us this week, what better kind of Book Review Monday than a collection of ghost stories and eerie tales. I’m not a fan of gory, slasher kinds of movies or books, but having grown up watching The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and as my sister pointed out, Dark Shadows, I do like a good ghost story and those legends that make me shiver or consider such tales could be true. So of course, for this month I had to read something that included a ghost. Here’s this month’s selection.

I’ve read some of Louise Erdrich’s other books and I like her writing. She’s a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of the Chippewa so her stories reflect that heritage. I also chose this story because the ghost, Flora, haunts a bookstore!

From the back cover blurb: A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store’s most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls’ Day, but she simply won’t leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading “with murderous attention,” must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

I’m to the point in the book when Flora has just ‘arrived’ back at the store after her untimely demise. She makes her presence known in all the annoying little ways she did when she was alive–leaving books open, the noises she made as she pottered around the store–but so far only Tookie has noticed. It promises to be a good book and I’m curious if Flora reveals herself only to Tookie for some reason, or if the other characters who work in the store will eventually sense her too. I’ll pace myself so I finish it on Halloween, maybe with a candy bar or two and some warm apple cider.

As you can see, I’m a collector of ghost stories and eerie tales. Some are from travels: Haunted Alaska by Bill Wendt, Haunts of Mackinac by Todd Clements, and A Haunted History of Knoxville by Laura Still. Some people buy magnets as souvenirs when they travel, I often look for the local ghost stories. On our recent trip to Knoxville, Hubby, our friends and I took a walking tour guided by Laura Still. She was a great storyteller along the way so I’m sure she’s recounted these tales in that same voice.

I have a deep interest in and affection for Appalachia and some of my collection reflect that interest: Civil War Ghosts of South Carolina by Tally Johnson, 23 Tales: Appalachian Ghost Stories, Legends & Other Mysteries by various authors, Appalachian Magazine’s Mountain Superstitions, Ghost Stories & Haint Tales by various authors. Several friends have a piece in these books which makes the stories a fun read because I can hear my friends reading them.

My Apologies, Mr. Poe: and other Stories that Chill the Soul by Grace W. Looper, another friend I spent many years with in writing group. She was an older woman who wrote Christian romance but when she came out with these ghost stories–and a murder mystery!–she surprised all of us.

Ghost, a novel by Alan Lightman, was part of my friend Pat’s collection. Ghosts, A Folly Beach Mystery by Bill Noel is also a novel, one of several by Bill Noel, all taking place on Folly Beach, SC. Folly is one of our favorite places so reading Noel’s books and knowing the places he writes into his mysteries puts me more intimately into the mystery.

Milt Chaney’s Tavern by Don L. McCorkle really hits close to home, literally about five miles from my house. McCorkle is a former county council member. Milt Chaney’s Tavern was a real place that seemed to be ‘the last stop’ for many riders on their travels between Columbia, SC and Charlotte, NC. Men, most often, would go missing and the last known place was this little tavern along the way north or south. The building no longer exists, but rumor has it, years ago when workers were widening a road, body remains did still exist …

So, what about you? Do you like a good ghost story, especially at this time of year, or around a fire pit? What books or authors can you suggest that might find their way to my collection?

It’s planting season finally in the Carolinas, so I’ll be playing in the dirt this week. And I may be chopping down one of the large chinaberry trees. I’ll post before and after pics if I do. I hope you have a wonderful week and will stop by again next Monday! Happy Halloween!