Happy Haunts & Halloween Ghost Stories

Boo to you and you and you and you!

When hinges creak in doorless chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls…whenever candle lights flicker…where the air is deathly still — that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight…

Happy Halloween, friends! I hope you’re all having a spooktacular weekend full of frights and fun. This month has been the fifth anniversary of the Boo to You Readathon, and I wrapped things up in ultimate Haunted Mansion style with a stay in a…haunted mansion! Well, it was definitely Victorian and spooky, but maybe not really haunted. 😂 We were on a family road trip this month and found this incredible AirBnB called the Cargill-Pettibone House in the town of LaCrosse, WI. It could not have been a more perfect setting for my 2022 Boo to You wrap-up, complete with an evening spent swapping ghost stories in front of the fire with my brother Athos.

I picked a variety of different lines from the Haunted Mansion ride script and soundtrack as inspiration for my Boo to You Readathon TBR…but it seemed that one way or another, most of the books ended up falling into the “only ghost stories, of course” category! There was the traditional but humorous spook at the heart of The Canterville Ghost…a haunting of heredity and an ancestral feud in The Heir of Redclyffe…the psychological ghosts that the imagination can conjure up in My Cousin Rachel…the eerie other-worldliness of Grimms’ Fairytales…and finally Perelandra’s literally demonic “Un-man” bogeyman, the tragic result of a will choosing a path of corruption. Without further ado, here’s a recap of what I read in October!

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

“To her immense surprise…it was the Canterville Ghost himself! He was sitting by the window, watching the ruined gold of the yellowing trees fly through the air, and the red leaves dancing madly down the long avenue.”

It’s so much fun when a classic author turns their hand to the ghost story genre! In years past, I’ve read spooky stories by the likes of Mark Twain and Edith Wharton for Boo to You, but I think this might be my favorite. Oscar Wilde hits just the right mark with his goofy grim grinning ghost and trademark wry humor. If you’re still looking for something seasonal to read before the 31st, this would be a quick Halloween-y pick!

The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte Mary Yonge

“It was as if the influences of the prayers breathed for him by his father, and the forgiveness and loving spirit there won by Guy, had been waiting for him there till he came to take them up, for thenceforth the bitterest of his despair was over, and he could receive each token of Amabel’s forgiveness, not as heaped coals of fire, but as an earnest of forgiveness sealed in heaven.”

The wonderful Kate Howe highly recommended this book, and it did not disappoint! It was a spectacular Victober read. The characters were fantastic - even when they were pitted against each other, both sides were sympathetically portrayed - and the plot was so rich and varied. It’s a beautiful portrait of a close Victorian family with all their inside jokes as well as their getting on each other’s nerves (lol), but there were some very dramatic scenarios as well. Most novels close with major life events like marriage or death, but this book continued on after the climax and explored how the characters grew and faced both joy and grief, which added a lot of depth. I loved how faith was at the center of the story as well.

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

“The bells ceased and died away, yet the echo seemed to sound still in my ears, solemn, sonorous, tolling not for my mission, insignificant and small, nor for the lives of the people in the streets, but for the souls of men and women long since dead, and for eternity.”

I could tell you that I liked the twist at the end, but in fact My Cousin Rachel was nothing but one suspenseful twist and turn after the next! Daphne du Maurier certainly does an excellent job of keeping you guessing right up until the very last page. I’m really excited to hear what you guys think during our book club discussion this afternoon (Sunday, October 30) at 3 p.m. I posted the link in discord and sent it via email! Our book club read for the month of November will be The Blue Sapphire by D.E. Stevenson…if you’d like to join and are not already in discord/on the email list, drop me a line: emma@bookishprincess.com.

Grimms’ Fairytales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

“When the moon arose, she cried unto it, and said, ‘Thou shinest through the night, over field and grove—hast thou nowhere seen my white dove?’ ‘No,’ said the moon, ‘I cannot help thee but I will give thee an egg—break it when need comes.’

Then she thanked the moon, and went on till the night-wind blew; and she raised up her voice to it, and said, ‘Thou blowest through every tree and under every leaf—hast thou not seen my white dove?’ ‘No,’ said the night-wind, ‘but I will ask three other winds; perhaps they have seen it.’”

It’s easy to trace the origins of Disney movies in Grimms’ Fairytales, but it’s surprising to see what different directions they take! Echoes of “The Blue Light,” which I read out loud in the video, can be found in Aladdin, while Beauty and the Beast is reminiscent of “The Lady and the Lion,” quoted above. We were joking there needs to be a Disney sequel where Belle has to seek out and save the Beast-turned-dove from an evil dragon princess!

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

“I thought that the good things He sent drew me into them as the waves lift the islands; but now I see that it is I who plunge into them with my own legs and arms, as when we go swimming. I feel as if I were living in that roofless world of [Earth] where men walk undefended beneath naked heaven. It is a delight with terror in it! One's own self to be walking from one good to another, walking beside Him as Himself may walk, not even holding hands. How has He made me so separate from Himself? How did it enter His mind to conceive such a thing? The world is so much larger than I thought. I thought we went along paths--but it seems there are no paths. The going itself is the path.”

The strength of C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy lies in its beautiful spiritual reflections! The imagery and significance of the waves was beautiful in Perelandra…although, as in Out of the Silent Planet, sometimes the tale gets bogged down with landscape descriptions. It was so interesting to read this having recently finished Milton’s Paradise Lost, because the story follows a new Adam and Eve on a new world, and it was not without a ghostly element with the presence of the Un-man tempter. The plot and characters take rather a back seat; it’s the ways that Lewis explores and expresses the truths of faith and invites the reader to try to see with a greater vision that really impress in this series.

Hope everyone had a great spooky season of reading! 🎃