What is Carly Anne West reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Carly Anne West, author of The Bargaining.

Her entry begins:

I’m doing a bit of reading and a bit of listening these days. In the reading column, I’m enjoying a book of short stories from the brilliant Shirley Jackson. No one creates atmosphere like her. She taps into the grotesqueness of human nature and emotion and generates this overwhelming sense of unease. We see a world of depravity in the seemingly mundane, day-to-day existence of ordinary people, and she does it with such grace, I can’t often believe she’s managed it in so few words. Read "The Renegade" or "Charles" to see what I mean. And of course "The Lottery." Chills! I also love reading short stories. They’re like...[read on]

About The Bargaining, from the publisher:

The Shining meets The Conjuring in this chilling and suspenseful new novel from the author of The Murmurings.

The fact that neither of her parents wants to deal with her is nothing new to Penny. She’s used to being discussed like a problem, a problem her mother has finally passed on to her father. What she hasn’t gotten used to is her stepmother…especially when she finds out what she’ll have to spend the summer with April in the remote woods of Washington to restore a broken-down old house.

Set deep in a dense forest, the old Carver House is filled with abandoned antique furniture, rich architectural details, and its own chilling past. The only respite Penny can find away from April’s renovations is in Miller, the young guy who runs the local general store. He’s her only chance at a normal, and enjoyable, summer.

But Miller has his own connection to the Carver house, and it’s one that goes beyond the mysterious tapping Penny hears at her window, the handprints she finds smudging the glass panes, and the visions of children who beckon Penny to follow them into the dark woods. Miller’s past just might threaten to become the terror of Penny’s future…

Learn more about the book and author at Carly Anne West's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Murmurings.

The Page 69 Test: The Bargaining.

Writers Read: Carly Anne West.

--Marshal Zeringue