Five novels about heroes who shouldn’t babysit your kitten

Weston Ochse is the author of more than twenty books, most recently the SEAL Team 666 series which has been optioned by MGM Films. He's also the author of the Grunt Life series, a military science fiction series concentrating on the lives of PTSD survivors. His first novel, Scarecrow Gods, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in First Novel and his short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His new military horror novel is Burning Sky.

At Tor.com Ochse tagged five books about heroes who shouldn’t babysit your kitten, including:

First Law Trilogy — Joe Abercrombie

So, I went the other direction. Instead of a nice guy [like Paul Atreides of Dune], I thought of a bad guy, because Danny Trejo proved that bad guys can really be soft and cuddly at times. I tried to picture Logan Ninefingers from Joe Abercrombie’s First Law Trilogy and Red Country, sitting in the corner of a smoky tavern, drinking a flagon of ale, and petting a kitten that’s sitting on his chest. I picture it as a nice peaceful scene, right up to the point where a group of lads with shiny new swords spot him and are eager to try their fresh off-the-shelf-weapons on the King of Killers. Somewhere between Logan’s berserker rage and him chewing the face off of one of the eager lads, the kitten gets under the feet of too many hobnailed boots and well… I’ll just stop right there.

Read about another entry on the list.

Coffee with a Canine: Weston Ochse & Goblin, Ghost, and Ghoulie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: George Mastroianni's "Of Mind and Murder"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Of Mind and Murder: Toward a More Comprehensive Psychology of the Holocaust by George R. Mastroianni.

About the book, from the publisher:

How could the Holocaust have happened? How can people do such things to other people? Questions such as these have animated discussion of the Holocaust from our earliest awareness of what had happened. These questions have engaged the lay public as well as academics from many different fields. Psychologists have taken an active role in trying to understand and explain the motivation, thinking, and behavior of all those involved in and affected by the Holocaust.

The present volume is, in part, an attempt to provide a kind of historical roadmap to the diverse psychological explanations and interpretations that have been developed by psychologists over the last several decades. While many psychological discussions of the Holocaust dismiss or diminish the significance of work that antedates the Milgram obedience experiments in the early 1960s, this book engages some of these earlier formulations in detail. It strives to be, in this sense, a more complete history of psychological thought on the Holocaust. As many psychologists now accept the idea that a comprehensive psychology of the Holocaust must include more than social influence, the book addresses the question, "What, then?"

The answer can be found by looking both backward and forward in time. Gordon Allport's 1954 book The Nature of Prejudice remains one of the best psychological attempts to grapple with the Holocaust written, though that was not its primary purpose. In this volume, the reader will find both echoes of Allport and new ideas for ways psychologists can engage this profoundly important subject.

Learn more about Of Mind and Murder at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Of Mind and Murder.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thirteen great horror books written by women

Mallory O'Meara is an author, screenwriter and producer. Her first book, The Lady From The Black Lagoon, the chronicle of Mallory's search for and a biography of Milicent Patrick, is being published by Hanover Square Press on March 5th, 2019. One of thirteen spine-chilling books written by female authors she shared at Vulture.com:

The Hunger, Alma Katsu

Katsu’s supernatural reimagining of the disastrous Donner Party adventure follows several families crossing the American plains on their way to California, examining evil of both the human and supernatural variety, from many different points of view — all as the characters fend off the horrors plaguing their wagon train. The novel is as rich in history as it is disturbing.

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Ann Pearlman reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Ann Pearlman, author of Infidelity: A Memoir.

Her entry begins:

I read three novels back-to-back examining romantic relationships in which one partner was significantly younger than the other. Although I have been involved with much older lovers and much younger lovers, I had not planned to embark on mini research into novels about May- September romances. Rather, I choose each book for reasons unrelated to romance and ended perplexed they had such a similar plot focus.

The first was Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday, which was hailed as an unforgettable novel about luck, love and the entwining of life and art. I have been perennially fascinated by these topics, which have been themes in several of my novels. Philip Roth inspired one of the characters and I chose to read Asymmetry partly because of my appreciation of his writing. The first third of the novel focuses on the love affair of a young woman and her lover who is forty plus years older and a famous writer. The final third is...[read on]

About Infidelity: A Memoir, from the publisher:

She thought they were the perfect couple. She authored Keep the Home Fires Burning: How to Have an Affair with Your Spouse and appeared on Oprah, Donahue, and Sally Jessy Raphael as an expert on the joys of sexual monogamy. She was a marriage and family therapist who counseled patients coping with cheating spouses. She believed she had escaped her family legacy of marital infidelity. She was wrong. After thirty years of marriage and three children, Ann Pearlman discovered her husband’s affair with another woman.

In Infidelity, Pearlman tells the true story of the devastating effect of adultery across three generations of American women. An award-winning author, columnist, psychotherapist, marriage and family therapist, Pearlman draws on sociological and anthropological works as well as her own experience to write out her rage, pain, depression, doubts, and, eventually, her journey back to confidence and strength. Originally published by MacAdam/Cage in 2000, Infidelity was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and also served as the inspiration for a Lionsgate film.

Learn more about the book and author at Ann Pearlman's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Gift for My Sister.

My Book, The Movie: A Gift for My Sister.

The Page 99 Test: Infidelity.

Writers Read: Ann Pearlman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sarah McCoy's "Marilla of Green Gables"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Marilla of Green Gables: A Novel by Sarah McCoy.

About the book, from the publisher:

A bold, heartfelt tale of life at Green Gables ... before Anne: A marvelously entertaining and moving historical novel, set in rural Prince Edward Island in the nineteenth century, that imagines the young life of spinster Marilla Cuthbert, and the choices that will open her life to the possibility of heartbreak—and unimaginable greatness.

Plucky and ambitious, Marilla Cuthbert is thirteen years old when her world is turned upside down. Her beloved mother dies in childbirth, and Marilla suddenly must bear the responsibilities of a farm wife: cooking, sewing, keeping house, and overseeing the day-to-day life of Green Gables with her brother, Matthew and father, Hugh.

In Avonlea—a small, tight-knit farming town on a remote island—life holds few options for farm girls. Her one connection to the wider world is Aunt Elizabeth "Izzy" Johnson, her mother’s sister, who managed to escape from Avonlea to the bustling city of St. Catharines. An opinionated spinster, Aunt Izzy’s talent as a seamstress has allowed her to build a thriving business and make her own way in the world.

Emboldened by her aunt, Marilla dares to venture beyond the safety of Green Gables and discovers new friends and new opportunities. Joining the Ladies Aid Society, she raises funds for an orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity in nearby Nova Scotia that secretly serves as a way station for runaway slaves from America. Her budding romance with John Blythe, the charming son of a neighbor, offers her a possibility of future happiness—Marilla is in no rush to trade one farm life for another. She soon finds herself caught up in the dangerous work of politics, and abolition—jeopardizing all she cherishes, including her bond with her dearest John Blythe. Now Marilla must face a reckoning between her dreams of making a difference in the wider world and the small-town reality of life at Green Gables.

Learn more about the book and author at Sarah McCoy’s website, Facebook page, Instagram page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico.

The Page 69 Test: The Baker's Daughter.

Coffee with a Canine: Sarah McCoy and Gilbert.

The Page 69 Test: The Mapmaker's Children.

My Book, The Movie: The Mapmaker’s Children.

The Page 69 Test: Marilla of Green Gables.

--Marshal Zeringue

D. S. Butler's "Bring Them Home," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Bring Them Home (Detective Karen Hart series) by D. S. Butler.

The entry begins:

I don’t usually imagine the characters as actors when I write, so I hadn’t considered this before. It’s a fun question. For the main character, Detective Sergeant Karen Hart, I’d pick Surrane Jones. Surrane is a fantastic British actress who has taken on some really strong roles. I think she’d do a brilliant job portraying the main character. She’d be able to capture Karen’s…[read on]

Visit D.S. Butler's website.

My Book, The Movie: Bring Them Home.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top epic novels

Kathryn Harrison has written the novels Thicker Than Water, Exposure, Poison, The Binding Chair, The Seal Wife, Envy, and Enchantments. Her autobiographical work includes The Kiss, Seeking Rapture, The Road to Santiago, The Mother Knot, and True Crimes. She has written two biographies, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and Joan of Arc, and a book of true crime, While They Slept: An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison.

Harrison's new book is On Sunset: A Memoir.

One of the author's six favorite epic novels, as shared at The Week magazine:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1878).

This book is as remarkable for its portrait of 19th-century Russia as it is for its heroine — one of the few to step out of her story and into literary history. The novel takes in all of Russia, from the bejeweled occupants of the boxes of St. Petersburg's opera house to the destitute in their tubercular hovels.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Anna Karenina also appears on Jane Corry's list of five of literature's more fearsome families, Neel Mukherjee's six favorite books list, Viv Groskop's top ten list of life lessons from Russian literature, Elizabeth Day's top ten list of parties in fiction, Grant Ginder's top ten list of the more loathsome people in literature, Louis De Berniéres's six best books list, Martin Seay's ten best long books list, Jeffrey Lent's top ten list of books about justice and redemption, Bethan Roberts's top ten list of novels about childbirth, Hannah Jane Parkinson's list of the ten worst couples in literature, Hanna McGrath's top fifteen list of epigraphs, Amelia Schonbek's list of three classic novels that pass the Bechdel test, Rachel Thompson's top ten list of the greatest deaths in fiction, Melissa Albert's recommended reading list for eight villains, Alison MacLeod's top ten list of stories about infidelity, David Denby's six favorite books list, Howard Jacobson's list of his five favorite literary heroines, Eleanor Birne's top ten list of books on motherhood, Esther Freud's top ten list of love stories, Chika Unigwe's six favorite books list, Elizabeth Kostova's list of favorite books, James Gray's list of best books, Marie Arana's list of the best books about love, Ha Jin's most important books list, Tom Perrotta's ten favorite books list, Claire Messud's list of her five most important books, Alexander McCall Smith's list of his five most important books, Mohsin Hamid's list of his ten favorite books, Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers, and among the top ten works of literature according to Peter Carey and Norman Mailer. John Mullan put it on his lists of ten of the best erotic dreams in literature, ten of the best coups de foudre in literature, ten of the best births in literature, ten of the best ice-skating episodes in literature, and ten of the best balls in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michelle Pannor Silver's "Retirement and Its Discontents"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Retirement and Its Discontents: Why We Won't Stop Working, Even if We Can by Michelle Pannor Silver.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the popular imagination, retirement promises a well-deserved rest—idle days spent traveling, volunteering, pursuing hobbies, or just puttering around the house. But as the nature of work has changed, becoming not just a means of income but a major source of personal identity, many accomplished professionals struggle with discontentment in their retirement. What are we to do—individually and as a culture—when work and life experience make conventional retirement a burden rather than a reprieve?

In Retirement and Its Discontents, Michelle Pannor Silver considers how we confront the mismatch between idealized and actual retirement. She follows doctors, CEOs, elite athletes, professors, and homemakers during their transition to retirement as they struggle to recalibrate their sense of purpose and self-worth. The work ethic and passion that helped these retirees succeed can make giving in to retirement more difficult, as they confront newfound leisure time with uncertainty and guilt. Drawing on in-depth interviews that capture a range of perceptions and common concerns about what it means to be retired, Silver emphasizes the significance of creating new retirement strategies that support social connectedness and personal fulfillment while countering ageist stereotypes about productivity and employment. A richly detailed and deeply personal exploration of the challenges faced by accomplished retirees, Retirement and Its Discontents demonstrates the importance of personal identity in forging sustainable social norms around retirement and helps us to rethink some of the new challenges for aging societies.

Visit Michelle Pannor Silver's website.

The Page 99 Test: Retirement and Its Discontents.

--Marshal Zeringue

Chris Difford's six best books

Chris Difford is a founder member and lyricist with the band Squeeze, perhaps best known in the US for the hit songs "Tempted" and "Black Coffee In Bed."

His new memoir is Some Fantastic Place: My Life In and Out of Squeeze.

One of Difford's six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

FAREWELL MY LOVELY by Raymond Chandler

I read all Chandler's books when I was about 17. I used to wear a hat like Humphrey Bogart and see all those wonderful films.

I loved the language and it made me write a certain way.

Read about another entry on the list.

Farewell, My Lovely is among Andrew Martin’s ten best examples of dialogue in crime fiction, Lynda La Plante's six best books, and Dennis McDougal's five top books on Southern California; it features one of the fifty greatest villains in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Lisa Gabriele's "The Winters"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Winters: A Novel by Lisa Gabriele.

About the book, from the publisher:

A spellbindingly suspenseful new novel set in the moneyed world of the Hamptons, about secrets that refuse to remain buried and consequences that can’t be escaped

After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded Long Island mansion of her new fiancé Max Winter—a wealthy politician and recent widower—and a life of luxury she’s never known. But all is not as it appears at the Asherley estate. The house is steeped in the memory of Max’s beautiful first wife Rebekah, who haunts the young woman’s imagination and feeds her uncertainties, while his very alive teenage daughter Dani makes her life a living hell. She soon realizes there is no clear place for her in this twisted little family: Max and Dani circle each other like cats, a dynamic that both repels and fascinates her, and he harbors political ambitions with which he will allow no woman—alive or dead—to interfere.

As the soon-to-be second Mrs. Winter grows more in love with Max, and more afraid of Dani, she is drawn deeper into the family’s dark secrets—the kind of secrets that could kill her, too. The Winters is a riveting story about what happens when a family’s ghosts resurface and threaten to upend everything.

Visit Lisa Gabriele's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Winters.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five YA books that reinvent the love triangle trope

Rachel Strolle is a librarian and a reader. At the BN Teen Blog she tagged "five books with well done, unique love triangles that reinvent the trope." One title to make the list:

Rule, by Ellen Goodlett

After the death of the heir, three illegitimate daughters of a dying king are brought to the palace to see if one of them might be fit to rule. One has spent her life as a lady’s maid, one grew up surrounded by rebels, and one has lived most of her life as a part of a group of travelers. Matters become complicated when the king’s young wife (unwillingly wed to him through an arranged marriage) and one of the girls begin falling for each other.

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: Rule.

The Page 69 Test: Rule.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is D.B. Jackson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: D.B. Jackson, author of Time’s Children.

His entry begins:

My list of recent reads is a little bit odd, and at the same time rather typical for someone in my profession. Writers read for so many different reasons that we often wind up jumping among a fairly eclectic selection of books, articles, and stories.

This summer, I taught at a writing workshop, and spent much of the week talking with fellow instructors about books, craft, etc. During that time I realized that there were (and still are) some holes in my reading history that needed filling. Upon returning from the conference, I immediately dove into Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which was incredibly powerful. Such gorgeous prose and complex, nuanced storytelling. It should be...[read on]

About Time’s Children, from the publisher:

Fifteen year-old Tobias Doljan, a Walker trained to travel through time, is called to serve at the court of Daerjen. The sovereign, Mearlan IV, wants him to Walk back fourteen years, to prevent a devastating war which will destroy all of Islevale. Even though the journey will double Tobias’ age, he agrees. But he arrives to discover Mearlan has already been assassinated, and his court destroyed. The only survivor is the infant princess, Sofya. Still a boy inside his newly adult body, Tobias must find a way to protect the princess from assassins, and build himself a future… in the past.

Learn more about the book and author at D. B. Jackson's website and blog.

D.B. Jackson is also David B. Coe, the award-winning author of a dozen fantasy novels.

The Page 69 Test: Thieftaker.

Writers Read: D.B. Jackson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books to understand Saudi Arabia

Ian Black was the Guardian's Middle East editor, European editor, diplomatic editor and foreign leader writer in 36 years on the paper. He is now a visiting senior fellow at the Middle East Centre, LSE. His latest book is Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017.

At the Guardian, Black tagged five books to understand Saudi Arabia, including:

Understanding Saudi Arabia has never been easy: leaks, rumours and official denials surrounding the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi are a grim reminder of a notoriously opaque system. Historian Madawi al-Rasheed (herself the scion of a powerful dynasty that lost out to the Al-Saud in the formative years of the 1920s) provides a focused and up-to-date political and social guide as the editor of Salman’s Legacy: The Dilemmas of a New Era in Saudi Arabia. The promotion of the king’s ambitious son, Mohammed (MBS), to crown prince in June 2017 proves that “the survival and mystique of the monarchy are closely linked to its unpredictability,” she writes, noting the taboo on public discussion of royal struggles and intrigues.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Laird Hunt's "In the House in the Dark of the Woods"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: In the House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt.

About the book, from the publisher:

“Once upon a time there was and there wasn’t a woman who went to the woods.”

In this horror story set in colonial New England, a law-abiding Puritan woman goes missing. Or perhaps she has fled or abandoned her family. Or perhaps she’s been kidnapped, and set loose to wander in the dense woods of the north. Alone and possibly lost, she meets another woman in the forest. Then everything changes.

On a journey that will take her through dark woods full of almost-human wolves, through a deep well wet with the screams of men, and on a living ship made of human bones, our heroine may find that the evil she flees has been inside her all along. In the House in the Dark of the Woods is a novel of psychological horror and suspense told in Laird Hunt’s characteristically lyrical prose style. It is the story of a bewitching, a betrayal, a master huntress and her quarry. It is a story of anger, of evil, of hatred and of redemption. It is the story of a haunting, a story that makes up the bedrock of American mythology, but told in a vivid way you will never forget.

Visit Laird Hunt's Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Neverhome.

My Book, The Movie: Neverhome.

My Book, The Movie: In the House in the Dark of the Woods.

Writers Read: Laird Hunt.

The Page 69 Test: In the House in the Dark of the Woods.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Elizabeth Segal's "Social Empathy"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Social Empathy: The Art of Understanding Others by Elizabeth Segal.

About the book, from the publisher:

Our ability to understand others and help others understand us is essential to our individual and collective well-being. Yet there are many barriers that keep us from walking in the shoes of others: fear, skepticism, and power structures that separate us from those outside our narrow groups. To progress in a multicultural world and ensure our common good, we need to overcome these obstacles. Our best hope can be found in the skill of empathy.

In Social Empathy, Elizabeth A. Segal explains how we can develop our ability to understand one another and have compassion toward different social groups. When we are socially empathic, we not only imagine what it is like to be another person, but we consider their social, economic, and political circumstances and what shaped them. Segal explains the evolutionary and learned components of interpersonal and social empathy, including neurobiological factors and the role of social structures. Ultimately, empathy is not only a part of interpersonal relations: it is fundamental to interactions between different social groups and can be a way to bridge diverse people and communities. A clear and useful explanation of an often misunderstood concept, Social Empathy brings together sociology, psychology, social work, and cognitive neuroscience to illustrate how to become better advocates for justice.

Learn more about Social Empathy at the Columbia University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Social Empathy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top horror books for wimps

Mallory O'Meara is an author, screenwriter and producer. Her first book, The Lady From The Black Lagoon, the chronicle of Mallory's search for and a biography of Milicent Patrick, is being published by Hanover Square Press on March 5th, 2019. One of "ten spooky books that won’t keep you up at night" she shared at Vulture.com:

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

The Lizzie Borden case is one of America’s most famous grisly true-crime stories. Looming large in the country’s imagination, Lizzie herself evolved into a character, a part of the horror landscape along with the likes of Jack the Ripper and Countess Elizabeth Báthory. This is a compelling literary reimagining of Borden’s story that focuses not on the macabre details of the crime, but on the characters themselves and their interior lives.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alyssa Palombo's "The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel: A Story of Sleepy Hollow by Alyssa Palombo.

The entry begins:

I usually have a hard time picturing specific actors playing my characters – I’ll usually have a good pick for one or two of the main ones, but not all of them. However, with my most recent release, The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel, it just so happened that I “cast” the main players very early on. Below are who I would want to play my quartet of main characters should the book become a movie (or a TV series – looking at you, Netflix!).

Katrina Van Tassel – Holliday Grainger

I first saw Holliday Grainger as Lucrezia Borgia on Showtime’s The Borgias, and have seen her in a few things since – I think she’s a great actress. She is exactly how I pictured Katrina Van Tassel in my retelling in terms of physical features, and based on the roles she’s done in the past I know she would be perfect for the character!

Ichabod Crane – Tom Mison

This one miiiiight be cheating a little bit, because of course Tom Mison has...[read on]

Visit Alyssa Palombo's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Violinist of Venice.

The Page 69 Test: The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence.

My Book, The Movie: The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the all-time scariest haunted house books

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and the Ustari Cycle from Pocket/Gallery, including We Are Not Good People. At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog he tagged ten of the scariest haunted house books ever, including:

The Shining, by Stephen King

Sure, it’s not a house but an entire hotel. Still, King’s classic remains one of the scariest books to follow the basic template of an innocent family consumed by intelligent, possessed edifice. The Overlook Hotel is so alive, and finds a willing recruit in alcoholic, repressed domestic abuser John Torrance, who becomes its sharpened blade. But it’s the isolation the Torrance family experiences while acting as caretakers for the hotel over the long, dark winter that truly gives this story an air inevitable violence. Ultimately a story about a man who loses his fight with his own demons, the core of its horror is in how something familiar and reliable—like your spouse, or the roof over your head—can be turn unrecognizable so gradually, you don’t notice until you’re being chased by a killer wielding a roque mallet.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Shining is among Laura Purcell's five top gothic novels, Jeff Somers's five books totally unlike their adaptations, Sam Riedel's six eeriest SFF stories inspired by true events, Joel Cunningham's top seven books featuring long winters, Ashley Brooke Roberts's seven best haunted house books, Jake Kerridge's top ten Stephen King books, Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders's top ten horror novels that are scarier than most movies, Charlie Higson's top ten horror books, and Monica Ali's best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Laird Hunt reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Laird Hunt, author of In the House in the Dark of the Woods.

His entry begins:

While I always have multiple books on my nightstand (I mostly read in bed) the book that is preoccupying me with the most insistence is the new Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories edited by Jay Rubin and with an introduction, and a couple of fine stories, by Haruki Murakami. For some years now I have been closely following the work of Japan’s new wave of extraordinary fictioneers – like Mieko Kawakami, Tomoyuki Hoshino, Tomoka Shibasaki and Hideo Furukawa – largely through the yearly appearance of...[read on]

About In the House in the Dark of the Woods, from the publisher:

“Once upon a time there was and there wasn’t a woman who went to the woods.”

In this horror story set in colonial New England, a law-abiding Puritan woman goes missing. Or perhaps she has fled or abandoned her family. Or perhaps she’s been kidnapped, and set loose to wander in the dense woods of the north. Alone and possibly lost, she meets another woman in the forest. Then everything changes.

On a journey that will take her through dark woods full of almost-human wolves, through a deep well wet with the screams of men, and on a living ship made of human bones, our heroine may find that the evil she flees has been inside her all along. In the House in the Dark of the Woods is a novel of psychological horror and suspense told in Laird Hunt’s characteristically lyrical prose style. It is the story of a bewitching, a betrayal, a master huntress and her quarry. It is a story of anger, of evil, of hatred and of redemption. It is the story of a haunting, a story that makes up the bedrock of American mythology, but told in a vivid way you will never forget.

Visit Laird Hunt's Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Neverhome.

My Book, The Movie: Neverhome.

My Book, The Movie: In the House in the Dark of the Woods.

Writers Read: Laird Hunt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about the human condition

Robin Ince is a standup comedian, actor and writer. One of his ten favorite books that offer illuminating insights into the human condition, as shared at the Guardian:

Bee Season by Myla Goldberg

The story of our need for pattern and shape in the world, told through the increasingly intense atmosphere around a spelling bee competition and Jewish mystical texts. Will the yearning for ultimate meaning and its failure to arrive always destroy us? A book of thrilling spelling endeavour.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue