How to Sell a Haunted House

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix (2023) 417 pages

Louise learns that her parents have died in a car crash, and comes back to Charleston, SC for the funeral, fully expecting to fight with her brother, Mark, whom she deems spoiled, selfish, and unreliable. Mark has hired someone to empty the house so that they could put it on the market. Louise is aghast at his decision to do that without consulting her, and she calls off the crew. But when she goes into the house, the creepiness hits her hard: Hundreds of dolls are in the house, as well as puppets that their mother had made. Very weird things happen which she tries to rationalize away. Later, Louise and Mark can no longer rationalize what happens after they are attacked by the toys, as well as by an imaginary animal Mark had created in his youth.

Their mother, Nancy, was the creator of the puppets, and had even had a Christian puppet ministry for some years. The trigger for the eeriness seems to lie in her childhood and with her family. The house had been in her family when she was a child.

The creepy factor is high in this book! It's not my usual style novel, having grabbed it quickly, thinking in error that the haunting had to do with old memories. By the time I had properly read the blurb on the dust jacket, I decided to plunge in anyway. Quite a trip.

A House with Good Bones

A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher, 247 pages

Sam is a furloughed archaeoentomologist (she studies the bugs at archaeological digs) who decides to spend the time she would have been at a dig visiting her mom, who lives at the home she inherited from Sam's late grandmother. Gran Mae was a piece of work — very judgmental and obsessive, with Southern racist sentiments just bubbling under the surface of her "nice and normal" lifestyle — and when she arrives, Sam is dismayed to find that her mom has returned the previously funky and colorful house to the boring off-whites and doilies of Gran Mae's time there. But what really weirds her out is the garden, which is full of perfect roses but completely devoid of insects. Things are obviously not right.

I've been on a bit of a Kingfisher kick recently, so this short horror novel is right up my alley as we head into spooky season. It's relatively gore-free (if you don't count all of the thorns from the rosebushes), but with plenty of "something's off here" atmospheric vibes and Kingfisher's trademark no-nonsense, realistic protagonist. No surprise that I loved it.

Other Birds

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen (2022) 287 pages

Zoey is ready to start college, and is feeling pressured by her father and stepmother to permanently move out of their house in Tulsa. They had reluctantly taken her in when her mother died when Zoey was seven. She has never really been treated as part of the family and she seeks to find some essence of her mother at an efficiency apartment that she had inherited on Mallow Island, off the coast of South Carolina. The condo is not far from the university she'll be attending in the fall. When she arrives on the island, she meets Fraiser, the caretaker of the small condo community called The Dellawisp, named after the small turquoise birds who live on the property, birds which are not shy about landing on people, pulling on their shoelaces, or even following them inside. Additionally, there are four other units besides the one now owned by Zoey, but the inhabitants aren't open about meeting her ‒ or each other, for that matter. The only person who makes an extended appearance on Zoey's first day there is Lizbeth, a hoarder who shushes any activity. Zoey tries to change the dynamics; her enthusiasm is refreshing for a young woman whose best friend at the moment is an invisible pigeon.

I'm not sure what I love the most about this book. It could be the birds, the ghosts (yes, even the ghosts have chapters, telling us about themselves!), or the atmosphere of The Dellawisp in general. But the characters are compelling, and as we learn their backstories, the story grows in scope. I highly recommend this book!

A Lowcountry Bride

 

A Lowcountry Bride by Preslaysa Williams (2021) 343 pages

Maya Jackson is a wedding dress designer for a renowned New York bridal gown brand. She's overstressed trying to please her boss, the one and only Laura Whitcomb, but she now has a chance to become a senior designer, which would fulfill her mother's wishes for her. When her widowed father breaks his hip, she is forced to take unpaid time off to stay with him in South Carolina. In order to pay her her bills while she's with her father, she takes a temporary job at a small dress shop in Charleston, which is run by Derek Sullivan. Derek has his own problems. His beloved wife was killed in a church shooting a couple years prior and his mother, the owner of a bridal shop, has passed away too. He's in danger of losing the business. Can the dresses that Maya designed with a blend of design elements from her Filipino and West African ancestries—but which weren't acceptable to Laura Whitcomb—attract business to Derek's shop, or will he be forced to sell it? Meanwhile, can Derek make peace with his twelve-year-old daughter who's living with her own pain since the losses of her mother and grandmother? 

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, 404 pages

Patricia Campbell seems like your average suburban housewife: she lives on a cul-de-sac with her husband, two kids, and a dog. She enjoys a glass of white wine at her monthly book club. But the book club doesn't get their reading selections from Oprah — instead, they're reading true crime books, from Helter Skelter to In Cold Blood to Ann Rule. So when a new neighbor strikes Patricia as a bit odd, her husband blames the gruesome books for planting ideas in her head. But Patricia can't shake the idea that something about the neighbor's avoidance of daylight and the disappearance of kids from a poor neighborhood are more than just an ominous coincidence and she enlists her book club to help her solve the mystery.

I have loved every one of Grady Hendrix's novels, and this is definitely no exception. It's clever, creepy, funny, and such a wonderful love letter to the unsung heroes that are stay at home moms. I can see why this appeared on so many Best of 2020 lists. Recommended for fans of horror and humor.

The Secret Lives of Bees

The Secret Lives of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (2002) 302 pages

Fourteen year old Lily Owens lives in South Carolina with her often-angry father who owns a peach farm. She is cared for by Rosaleen, one of her father's employees. It's 1964 and when Lily accompanies Rosaleen to register to vote (now that the Civil Rights Act has passed), Rosaleen ends up beaten and arrested when she returns insults of racists by pouring the contents of her snuff jug on their shoes. Lily and Rosaleen hitchhike to Tiburon, SC, a city that Lily found written on the back of a picture that used to belong to Lily's mother, who died when Lily was four. The two are taken in by three sisters who live in a bright pink house and who raise bees. In order to earn their keep, Lily learns the art of beekeeping while Rosaleen helps with the cooking. August, the oldest of the sisters, encourages Lily to tell her story, knowing that Lily lied about who she and Rosaleen were, where they were from and where they were going. Lily resists, even as she feels drawn to August. Lily's biggest secret is her guilt over her mother's death. This is a moving coming-of-age story, with relevant quotes about bees at the start of each chapter.

Kill'em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul

Kill'em and Leave:Searching for James Brown and the American Soul by James McBride,  256 pages.
McBride, winner of the National Book award for his novel The Good Lord Bird, presents an engaging, yet almost necessarily incomplete exploration of one of the most elusive celebrities of our time, James Brown.
McBride searches far and wide and finds a wealth of contradictory information about Brown, and illuminates much that was formerly obscure about a lonely, secretive man. Some that knew and loved James Brown, like the Reverend Al Sharpton give flattering accounts, others, former band members and distant relatives give less generous accounts. Much of the book dwells on the fate of Brown's estate, an estimated $100 million that was to go towards helping poor children in South Carolina and Georgia, but has instead gone to legal fees as the will has been contested in the years since Brown's death. An interesting account.