Tag: #RIPXV

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Top 5… Books with Witches

Top 5 Tuesday is a monthly-weekly meme hosted by MeeghanReads. This Tuesday’s topic is “Top 5 Books with Witches“. It’s October, after all!

Baba Yaga the Witch in the Stone Hut.

Baba Yaga lived in a hut standing on chicken legs, in the middle of a dark forest. If you’ve read Russian folklore before, you know that Baba Yaga was often the stepmother’s wicked and wise relative, who would put the heroine to the test. If the heroine failed, she would be dinner. Baba Yaga remains the quintessential Witch for me.

Kim Harrison Dead Witch Walking

Rachel Morgan in Kim Harrison’s The Hollows Series. Rachel Morgan is a witch who works as a runner (police officer) for Inderland Security (IS). The IS is the police for the paranormal species of society, like weres, vampires, banshees, pixies, witches, demons, etc. The IS was established some 40 years ago, when a virus outbreak caused mayhem (when doesn’t it?) and forced the paranormal community into light. If you’re interested in the darker UF genre, The Hollows is your next series.

Laura Chant, in Margaret Mahy’s The Changeover. I wonder why Changeover is not better known. It won the Carnegie Medal in 1984 and since then, has also been made into a fairly decent movie (trailer below). Laura Chant’s toddler brother is possessed by an unnervingly wicked goblin-esque creature. Laura has only one way out: to change over and claim her “witchy” powers.

Crucible and the Salem Witch Trials

Elizabeth Proctor, in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. There are few tales as horrifying and enduring as that of the Salem Witch trials in The Crucible – and that, a 1953 play, no less. Witch-hunting is a theme that has been portrayed in countless books and shows, including Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. But Crucible stands out, for exposing the hypocrisy and devastating power of socially-sanctioned violence. Here’s Miller on why he wrote The Crucible.

Done with the Witches! There's no place like home.

Good Witch of the North and Wicked Witch of the East, in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. These were probably the first witches I ever read about (outside of Disney, I mean). Without the Good Witch, there would be no Yellow Brick Road, and without the Bad Witch, there would be no Silver Shoes. I think I’m not making any sense… But really, there’s no tale like The Wizard of Oz.

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Six Degrees: Turn of the Screw & Other Spooky Things

It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up. Inspired by the Six Degrees of Separation Meme hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.

October 2020’s book is The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

A very young woman’s first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate…An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls… But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.

What better book than Turn of the Screw for this Halloween month? Incidentally, since I am also participating in the 2020 Readers Imbibing Peril (R.I.P.) XV challenge this month, here are six spooky reads, all following up from Turn of the Screw.

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Books Memes Recommendations

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe: Book Review

Mysteries of Udolpho Cover

The first time I heard of The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe was in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. (I think that’s the case for most people.) In Northanger, Catherine Morland’s fondness for Gothic novels and active imagination results in a disastrous misinterpretation, and Mysteries of Udolpho is one of those novels. Clearly, not very high praise when it comes to practical real life.

There is much villainy afoot …

… This led to the question, whether the spirit, after it has quitted the body, is ever permitted to revisit the earth; and if it is, whether it was possible for spirits to become visible to the sense … 

In Mysteries of Udolpho, Emily St. Aubere’s father similarly admonishes her to not give in to impractical sentimentality. But then he dies and leaves her orphaned in the hands of his rather shallow sister, Madame Cheron. Madame Cheron and Emily do not get along, to put it mildly. 

Emily and Madame Cheron threatened by Montoni. Copyright: Trustees of British Museum

That situation worsens when Madame Cheron ends up marrying Signor Montoni, a stylish Italian whom everyone seems to admire but no one seems to like. Montoni is the quintessential Gothic villain who, gambles, drinks, cheats, broods and schemes. (I expect he had a mustache too, which he twirled a lot as he brooded.)

Poor Emily has a terrible time of it all. She learns her father was hiding a terrible secret from his salad days. Her engagement with young Valancourt is broken off and her hand promised to another without her consent. Her home and father’s impoverished estates in France are rented away, and Montoni packs them off (eventually) to the desolate castle of Udolpho. 

Nestled in the Apennine mountains of Italy, Udolpho’s grandeur has faded with time and neglect. It once belonged to Montoni’s relative, Signora Laurentini, who died in mysterious circumstances. There are rumors that Montoni killed her off out of jealousy and to grab her estates. Certainly, nothing can be put past Montoni, who it turns out is now leading a band of mercenaries, the Condottieri.

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