This week’s Top 10 Tuesday prompt (ten books in special settings or time period) was so cool and could have gone a thousand different ways. Yet, what I ended up thinking of were books set in ominous places.
I was thinking of places that are remarkable and likely very dangerous, not somewhere you may want to venture — at least, not outside of a book.
1 / The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
Trapped in a castle with a wicked uncle and no way out? Crossed out.
2 / Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
Stuck at an afternoon picnic where reality and dreaming are blurred? Crossed out.
3 / The Tower at Stony Wood by Patricia McKillip
Desperate to enter a tower which won’t let you in? Crossed out.
4 / In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss
Lots of known fairy tale characters forgetting what’s important? Crossed out.
5 / Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
Living in an amusement park in a swamp while wrestling alligators and fighting off rabid competitors? Crossed out.
6 / The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Raised in a library that is not really a library? Crossed out.
7 / The City in the Lake by Rachel Neumeier
Trying to figure out a mirror city that is trying to become the real city? Crossed out.
8 / Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
Packed off to a remote and dreary island for reformation? Crossed out.
9 / The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino
Feasting with weird and melodramatic people straight out of tarot decks? (Hopefully) crossed out.
10 / The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Living in fear for your life in a house surrounded by a moat, when you know Sherlock Holmes will be too late to the rescue? Crossed out.
What about you? Which ominous fictional places have stood out in your recent bookish memory?