October Reads

The Wizard’s Daughter by Barbara Michaels

The Dead Sea Cipher by Elizabeth Peters (AKA Barbara Michaels)

Prince of Darkness by Barbara Michaels

The Sea King’s Daughter by Barbara Michaels

The Dark on the Other Side by Barbara Michaels

Black Rainbow by Barbara Michaels

I’ve been reading Barabara Michaels for years. Several of my paperbacks are held together with rubber bands. She writes romantic ghost stories, lots of them. Haunted houses, old legends, bits and pieces of magic, ghostly mysteries, and Egyptology. She nearly always has a cat as a character. Her author picture is eccentric, to put it kindly. It was a happy coincidence that I came to her on my shelf in October. She’s a perfect read for this fall month. I read her at bedtime, like eating a box of cookies under the covers. Her writing is not the slightest bit intellectual or demanding, just sheer fun. I can reread one of her paperbacks in four hours or so. She also writes under the name Elizabeth Peters; most of those books lean heavily toward archaeology.

Duma Key by Stephen King

From a Buick 8 by Stephen King

Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King

Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King

Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

I’m still mining our public library for all the King I’ve missed, which is most of his work. These were all new to me. Everything’s Eventual is a collection of short stories. I enjoyed them all; Duma Key was so wonderful I ordered my own copy to add to my library. Like The Dark Half (which I also bought for myself), it’s a book about riding the dragon of creativity.

I’m just a few pages from finishing Dolores Clairborne, which is a remarkable story narrated solely by Dolores. This book contains everything anyone needs to know about being a woman. King’s insight into the female experience is extraordinary; he also did this with Lisey’s Story, which I own in hardback and audio and have enjoyed for years.

Image by Ben White on Unsplash

Substack

I found three wonderful new (to me) writers this month:

Toasted Fiction with Chris Patrick

is full of great writing. I was hooked by his science fiction mystery serial, Search, but there’s much more to explore. I’ll be dipping into his work frequently in the future and I’m eagerly reading whatever he posts.

I came across

Jane Dougherty's Bestiary

(maybe through

The Library

?) and was utterly enchanted by the first thing I read:

Lorcan's story

Since then, I’ve subscribed, read everything she’s posted (she’s fairly new on Substack), and loved both her stories and her poetry. I’m so pleased I found her. She provided me with major inspiration for my own work with the story I linked above.

My last and best discovery for the month was

K.M. McKellar

. What caught my eye was a variation she’d written on Briar Rose, who also happens to be a character in my own work. I’ve long been fascinated with fairy tales and how they change over time, the social influences around them, and how they continue to seed new and unexpected twists in our imaginations. Even as a child I was unsatisfied by happily-ever-after endings. Spare me princes on white horses! They’re always late and who wants them, anyway? Kellar also uses extraordinary illustrations for her stories, unique in their unsettling edginess. After reading a couple of her pieces I went through her archives from the beginning and loved everything. I haven’t quite finished, but I’m keeping up with her posts now as a subscriber. Her writing has a crystalline quality, like light shining through ice. She’s remarkable. I hope you’ll check her out. I can’t stop thinking about this one in particular:

South by Southeast