Shutter

Shutter 
by Courtney Alameda
New York: Feiwel and Friends
2015
372 pages

I picked up this book a few months ago and finally got to it. The premise of the story was really appealing to me. We have ghost hunters, vampires, allusions to old stories, all in a rather dystopian plot.

For those of you have not read Dracula by Bram Stoker, you may not remember the main characters of that story and will not understand the references in this book. The characters are:

• Dracula, a vampire
• Jonathan Harker, a young London solicitor
• Miss Mina Murray, Jonathan Harker's fiancée
• Miss Lucy Westenra, Mina's BFF
• Dr. John Seward, the head of a lunatic asylum
• Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, expert in medicine, folklore, and the occult
• R. M. Renfield, a mad patient of Dr. Seward

Van Helsing confronting Dracula in the 1957 Film, The Horror of Dracula

The families of Helsing, Harker, Stoker, and others are important to our present story. Descending from Abraham Van Helsing, the present heroine of our story, Micheline Helsing, is a member of a proud and active ghost hunting family. They have become the leaders in capturing ghosts, necros (paranecrotic creatures who emerged from the plague graves of the fifteenth century, with a mutated strain of the Black Death), and other monstrous creatures.

Most ghost hunters catch their prey's energy with charged silver panes or mirrors, later dipped in insulating glass to keep the ghost from escaping back into the living world. Micheline, however, has more unusual methods. She uses cameras mainly, not digital cameras but old-fashioned analog cameras and film. She shoots the ghost several times on one frame of film which captures the light and the modified quartz lenses conduct a ghost's electricity. Then the ghost's energy is whittled away by each shot until they are finally sealed into the film's silver halide trap.

Micheline has a reputation for never having failed in a hunt.

Our story begins with a cry for help at Saint Mary's Hospital. People are dying in terrible ways. A ghostly presence has taken over one of the floors and has mutilated some of the patients, nurses, and doctors. There is chaos and commotion everywhere. Micheline arrives first, before her helpers, and makes a split second decision to go in alone and do what she can. She rushes inside without looking back.

Any of us can tell that this was a very bad idea. And sure enough, disaster befalls Micheline and her helpers--Ryder, Luke, and Oliver--who finally show up to help with the capture. But this is no ordinary spirit. This ghost seems intent on revenge against the Helsings, "Hand for hand, and tooth for tooth..."

In the end, the ghost vanishes and Micheline, Ryder, Luke, and Oliver are rushed to the hospital. The ghost has infected them all with something diabolical . Paranecrotic innoculations are begun but to no avail. They are not suffering from necrosis but something even worse--soulchains that tie them to the creature who infected them. Unless they find this creature and destroy it before the end of the week, they themselves will be destroyed.

Micheline and the boys end up on the run, having to deal with their problem. They escape to the Helsing's former compound, abandoned after the disastrous death of Micheline's mother. There, they troupe of ghost hunters makes their center of operations. The evil ghost leads them on a destructive rampage through the city, bringing mutilations and death in order to set a trap Micheline.

Who is this diabolical ghost with a grudge against Micheline and the Helsings? That revelation almost stops Micheline in her tracks. But this is not the end of the story; there is an even bigger surprise in store for the Helsings that could lead to the end of that family completely.

This book is by a fellow graduate from my alma mater, Brigham Young University. Courtney Alameda graduated with a degree in English Literature with an emphasis in Creative Writing. The back cover blurb also tells me that she is also a librarian!

I  think, because of the technical language and the descriptions of gore and violence, this would be a more suitable story for older teens, 15 years and up.

The Babadook

The Babadook

Starring Essie  Davis and Noah Wiseman

Directed by Jennifer Kent

Produced by Causeway Films

2014

Unrated

Most of you might not know this about me, but I taught a Children's Literature class at Saint Mary's College this past Spring Semester. I love children's books, especially fantasy. It is no wonder then that when I read the blurb on this movie that I had to see it. It centers around a children's picture book! How great is that?!

Also, not many horror movies get 5 star ratings from viewers or 98% ratings from Rotten Tomatoes. That alone told me that this directorial debut movie from Jennifer Kent, who also wrote the story, was going to be something worth watching.

Amelia is a widow, having lost her husband in a horribly tragic accident on the way to giving birth to their son, Sam. She has had to take care of Sam alone for about six years now, and she has never really recovered from her husband's death. Add to this the fact that Sam is a handful! He is a child who has tantrums, mainly caused by fear, I think. Every night, he wakes in terror of monsters under the bed or in the closet, and his mother has to check and examine every nook and cranny. In the end, he usually ends up in bed with her, and Amelia is never able to get enough rest.

As part of his fear, Sam constructs various weapons to fight the monsters and protect his mother from them. Early in the film, he gets into trouble because he brings one of his rather scary and potentially dangerous weapons to school. Amelia, in desperation and exhaustion, decides to remove her unusual son from the school rather than figure out how to help him fit in better. It is all too overwhelming to her.

As part of their routine in the evening, Sam is allowed to select books for his bedtime story. One evening, he selects a picture pop-up book called Mr. Babadook. 

Amelia doesn't recognize this one. Where did it come from? She begins to read.

This is creepy and sounds much to familiar. Could this be why Sam is having nightmares?

The pictures get worse and worse, showing strangely familiar figures committing horrifying acts. Amelia cannot finish and hides the book so that Sam won't choose it again.

But this is a horror movie, so you can guess what happens! The book returns to the book shelf and more pictures appear. Amelia goes so far as to tear up the book and throw it away in the trash.

Now the story gets much too realistic and scary for some people. Amelia starts to see shadows that move and hears noises that shouldn't be there. The call of "Baba Dook-Dook-Dook"  can be heard in the house. Sam has a seizure, from seeing the Babadook, and Amelia is feeling helpless to understand or help.

Is the Babadook real or only in Sam's imagination? We think it might be all in Sam's imagination until we then see the book, reassembled, on the front porch. 

I don't want to give away too much of this story because it is one any fan of horror will want to see. It is a great story of mother-child relationships and love, possession, childhood fear, and madness. The Babadook, so like the Boogeyman most of us have imagined at one time or other, is depicted as a large black man/monster with a top hat and large teeth. He can walk, climb, fly, and pass through walls, so nowhere is really safe from him. Every child's nightmare, right?

The Babadook depicts every mother's nightmare, too: the slow descent into madness caused by isolation, lack of sufficient rest, constant problem-solving, and inability to help your child when there is a problem. Kids can drive you crazy, usually not literally, but having to deal with them all the time by yourself is very daunting to even a strong mother. Amelia is already fragile from the loss of her husband, so she is an easy victim of the monster that wants in.

Jennifer Kent, the director, made her debut with this movie and it premiered at the January 2014 Sundance Festival in Park City, Utah--a festival I have attended myself and where many great new films by independent filmmakers are shown. It was released in November 2014 in the States, and came out on DVD in April 2015. It was described as a fresh new style of horror with no gore and jump scares, but real psychological horror. Kent relied more in her writing and filming on the horror classics, analyzing what made them scary to audiences. It is possible to see elements of  Nosferatu, The Shining, Halloween, Let the Right One In, and others in this story. 

Really there are only two main actors in this film, Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman. They are both excellent and realistic in their parts. I am excited to find out what other roles Essie Davis has done. Her portrayal of a tired, desperate mother is perfectly executed here. The young boy, Noah, is also convincing in his role. He is a cute little boy who makes you want to either give him big hugs because he is so scared all the time or lock him in a room and run away because he is so strange.

I heartily recommend this movie to anyone who likes horror movies. It is not rated, but I probably would not allow somebody under 13 to watch it without reservations. It probably should get an R for the horror factor. It is pretty intense at times. I did not watch this one alone!

Here is the official trailer for you to watch.

I am really excited now to see what Jennifer Kent does next. I hope it is another horror film!

Fevre Dream

Fevre Dream
by George R. R. Martin
New York: Bantam Books
1982
336 pages



Now that Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin's magna opera, has become a best-selling series and television phenomenon, some people are going back to read his earlier works. This book is one of those.

I must tell you that I first read this historical fiction novel in about 1990, so well before Game of Thrones was even any sort of thing in popular culture. I read it because I love vampire stories, and the more classic the better. This book fits my requirements very nicely.

This is the story of Captain Abner Marsh, an almost has-been steamship captain who has lost most of his fleet of ships that move up and down the Fevre River and Upper Mississippi. He meets a very strange man one evening for dinner, by the name of  Joshua York, who has a proposition to make to him. Joshua wants to buy Captain Marsh's business and increase it by building the biggest, finest ship on the Mississippi. In exchange, Marsh will work for him and take him to the lower Mississippi, all the way to New Orleans, and not ask questions. He will have some associates also on board and there may be some mysterious comings and goings, but as long as Captain Marsh asks no questions or gets curious about it, he will be able to run the new fine sternwheeler as he sees fit.

Needless to say, this sounds like a dream come true to Captain Marsh, who thought his business was going under water fast, literally and figuratively. But he wonders about this strange new partner? What is he really after?

The Fevre Dream is born--the most elegant, most deluxe, the fastest sternwheeler on the mighty Mississippi. Wouldn't it be grand if the Fevre Dream could out outrace the famous sternwheeler, the Eclipse? That would be something, all right.

A Steamboat Race on the Mississippi by George F. Fuller, 1858

Abner Marsh is well pleased with himself.

That is, until Joshua York starts acting oddly. Why does he always come out of his cabin at night? Why is he always reading newspaper stories about mysterious deaths along the river? Where does he go on shore, sometimes for days, only meeting up with the ship later downriver. What is going on with Joshua? But Captain Marsh made a promise not to meddle.

Now, all of you readers of this blog post know that Captain Marsh is going to meddle. And he does. He learns something rather chilling about his partner, and yet it is okay. Joshua is not the bad character of this story, but there is someone else who is. That "man" is the reason for Joshua York's nightly excursions.

This book is very well-written. It has a tight story and the characters and setting are fully described. I like the descriptions of the river and river life. I won't go into detail about vampires, although you probably have guessed that Joshua York is one, but he obeys all of the typical rules: no sunlight, burning skin, drinks blood (or does he?), mesmerizes humans, etc. Joshua does some other more unusual things, such as eats food occasionally, is more social than other vampires that we have met in traditional stories; doesn't see humans only as dinner; and is not afraid of mirrors, holy water, or crucifixes. Other vampires in the story enlarge and change the meaning of what it is to be a vampire in Martin's world.

For those of you who are interested, this book has been turned into a graphic novel. It is not in print any longer, but used copies can be found. I have not read it yet, but I have seen some of the pictures online. I guess I prefer to form my own pictures of the story in my own imagination.

Joshua York in the graphic novel version

So, for a good historical vampire story, I heartily recommend Fevre Dream for readers who like George R. R. Martin books, good vampire stories, or quirky historical fiction.

Recommended for ages 16 and older, for violence and gory descriptions.

Far Far Away

Far Far Away
by Tom McNeal
New York: Alfred A. Knopf
2013
371 pages



Recently I read this book by Tom McNeal. It was voted one of YALSA's (Young Adult Library Services Association) Teen Top Ten books for 2014. On the back cover, I was promised this:

this is the strange and fateful tale of a boy, a girl, and an ancient ghost.

Ok, this book has my full attention! Strange and fateful tale? Ancient ghost?!

Jeremy Johnson Johnson is the anti-hero of our story. Why do I say anti-hero? Jeremy is a very shy teen who lives in an apartment above The Two Book Bookstore, the bookstore left by his grandfather that sold only two books, both volumes of his grandfather's biography. Jeremy's mother is gone, run away with a man she met at the local baker. His father is heartbroken and never comes out of his apartment, instead choosing to waste away in mourning, barely paying attention to what is going on with his son.

And Jeremy has problems. He is considered to be a strange young man, always talking to himself but no one talking to him. Except for a ghost.

The ghost, our narrator, is one of the parts of the story that I appreciated most. This is not a hair-raising ghost, but a protective ghost who has pledged to help Jeremy if he can. I hate to divulge the identity of the ghost, but he fits in nicely with fairy tale theme of the book.

The only human who regularly talks to Jeremy is Ginger Boultinghouse, a wild girl with wild hair and wild ideas.

Early in the story Ginger invites Jeremy to go with her to the bakery in town, the Green Oven Bakery, to have Prince Cake with her and her friends. Prince Cake is a specialty of the Swedish Baker, Mr. Blix, who only makes it occasionally and then signals the town with green smoke from his chimney. The Prince Cake has a local reputation and people half believed that whatever living thing you saw upon eating the first bite would steal your heart away. The only way to break the enchantment was by the touch of a salted tear upon the parted lips of the spellbound.

Prinsesstårta, or Prince Cake in our story, is a traditional Swedish cake
of light sponge, whipped cream, jam, and covered in a light green marzipan.

Jeremy has worries about Prince Cake, since rumours say that his mother ran away because of it.

Surviving his first trip to the bakery, Jeremy falls in with an impetuous plan of Ginger's. She, her two girl friends, and Jeremy break into the baker's home and play a big joke on him. This one simple, thoughtless act leads to the horror that is to follow, putting Jeremy and Ginger into severe danger that even his ghost friend has trouble getting him out of.

I mentioned earlier that this book has a fairy tale feel to it. The setting, a small town called Never Better, seems to be right out of a fairy tale, superficially a nice place to live until you dig around and find something nasty under a rock, including a lot of inexplicably missing children. Several of the characters seem straight out of stories, and our ghost, who I think is the true hero besides being narrator of the story, is definitely connected to fairy tales. It can be amusing to discover how many tales are alluded to in the book. Mr. Blix tells stories, the deputy tells and listens to stories, and even Jeremy's absent mother's only gifts to her son are actual stories in books.

The main plot of this book, however, revolves around a very well known tale, and one that turns strange and scary for our two main characters, Jeremy and Ginger.

I confess I had a very hard time putting this book down. I got so caught up with Jeremy and Ginger and the action of the story that I stayed up most of one night to keep reading. Tom McNeal is a truly a master storyteller about the mastery of stories.

Highly recommended for ages 13 and up.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
by Holly Black
New York: Hachette Audio
2013
Read by Christine Lakin
10 sound discs (12 hours)


For the last few weeks, I have been listening to this book in the car. By popular author, Holly Black, this is one of the best vampire stories I have heard in a long time. No wonder it was voted one of the best fiction books for young adults by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), and an amazing audiobook for young adults (also by YALSA) in 2014. It is on several lists of best horror fiction for teens, too.

This story starts out with a horrific bang. Tana, a 17-year-old, wakes up following a party only to discover that all of the other teens have been brutally murdered. As she wanders through the house, she looks for other survivors but only finds blood and guts everywhere. Yes, it is rather graphic. Then she opens a door to a bedroom. There she sees Aidan, a young man (and former boyfriend, it turns out) chained to a bed. In the other bed is another boy, but this guy is different. Tana can tell immediately that he is a vampire.

This is how we find out what sort of story this is. The victims of the house party were mutilated by thirsty, very savage vampires, who purposely left Aiden and Gavriel, the "boy" vampire in the bedroom.

Tana has moments to figure out what she should do. How can she get away? She doesn't know where the vampires are in the house, but she knows they are there, probably sleeping off their glutonous feast since it is still the remains of the day. That doesn't leave her much time. And what she she do about the vampire who is tied up?

Springfield is the Coldtown of our story.

Through the masterful telling of this story, we learn that events such as the party massacre are not unusual. Vampires are real and out there, but society has mostly dealt with them by locking them into various "coldtowns", called such because of the sickness and feeling that takes over one's body as it changes. Coldtowns are all over the United States, and people on the outside can see in through the active use of social media.

There seems to be the impression that Coldtowns are fun, party towns where vampires live forever, dancing and feasting. This lifestyle is appealing to some young people who escape into the Coldtowns hoping to be changed and party forever, only to die tragic deaths as food for the vampires who eat too quickly. Not all victims will be turned, however, but only those who are bled slowly and then have a chance to feed themselves.

I was particularly pleased with Holly Black's more traditional portrayal yet updated of vampires. They are seen as mesmerizing and erotic to their victims, once bitten. They also sleep in the day, can't survive in the daylight, and also have an uncontrollable need to feed. Her descriptions of their ability to sense the blood around them, in living victims, is very vivid and helps us to understand the immediate change in the brain, once the person becomes infected. These are very much ancient vampires who have adapted well to the clubbing activities of many teens, using this as the means to entice new meals into Coldtowns.

The story as to who Gavriel is, and the conflicts between him and the ancient and powerful Coldtown vampire, Lucien, is well described and exciting. Tana and Gavriel are attracted to each other, something no other vampire in the story expected since Gavriel has been known during his long life as being maniacally cruel, a history Tana did not know before she rescued him from the farmhouse party. This leads to some interesting plot twists.

I hate to think of Tana, who was infected during her time in Coldtown and must wait to see if she changes, as being a vampire forever. She has a humanity that most of the characters, human and vampire alike, lack. But we know that she will "survive" any way that she can, and maybe make Coldtown a better place.

Here is a book trailer for you about the story:

I recommend this book for older teens, maybe high school and up, who love traditional vampire stories. Some of the gore in the story, as well as the intensity of the violence, might be too much for younger readers.

Ghost House

Ghost House
by Alexandra Adornetto
Grand Haven, MI: Brilliance Audio
2014
Performed by Emily Foster
8 audio discs/9 hours


Everyone who knows me, knows that I enjoy haunted house stories. So it was no wonder that I picked up Ghost House by Alexandra Adornetto, author of the Halo Trilogy, to listen to in my car.

Briefly, Chloe Kennedy has been seeing ghosts from a young age. Her mother had helped her with this rather scary problem by telling her to tell the ghosts to go away and, miraculously, they did, for a long time. But now Chloe's mother has died unexpectedly and Chloe is devastated. 

Now, I am not sure that it was a good idea to take a young girl who sees ghosts to an old English manor house, but Chloe's British grandmother owns one and that's where Chloe ends up to have a break and recover from her mother's death. I guess she is distracted from her own personal tragedy, at least. Grange Hall, Chloe's granny's home, is full of rather frightening apparations--hanging men on trees, a ghoul in her closet, and a handsome young man who can actually converse with Chloe, something that hasn't happened before.

Kildwick Hall, Grange Road, Kildwick in North Yorkshire
Grange Hall in this book might look something like this.

Alexander Reade, Chloe discovers, has been dead for 157 years. But because he is more real than any other ghost she has met or seen, she forgets that he is a ghost. Being really good-looking and engaging doesn't hurt anything either.

Through Alexander, Chloe learns the secret behind the hauntings of Grange Hall. The matter becomes quite urgent as ancient jealousies remain in play and become focused onto Chloe, threatening the house, Chloe's grandmother, and Chloe herself.

This story has good moments: I really enjoyed most of the interactions between Chloe and Alexander, although some of them seemed rather contrived. Would Chloe really forget that Alex was a ghost? I rather think not.

What I don't get about this story was that it took so very long (nearly to the end of the book) to actually ask Alexander what happened to him, how he really died, and who else is haunting the Grange. If I were a high-school aged girl who could see ghosts, I would be asking the first one who could talk back to me about how he died. Isn't that the way to help them pass on? I mean, wouldn't she be curious about that? I certainly would be. Instead we get a lot of flirting and angry ghosts inexplicably throwing things around. 

If I were to make this story stronger, I would probably have allowed Chloe to be more of a detective, asking more questions of the ghosts she can talk to, and doing more research to find out the background of Grange Hall and the Reade family who lived there. The writing, too, was rather all over and uneven. The back and forth with the past and present didn't always flow well, and I wanted to yell at Chloe a lot of the time that Alexander wasn't nearly as interesting as the young live man in front of her who is also trying to get her attention.

So, anyway, this book is okay but not great. I think if you are keen on ghost stories and not particularly picky, you will want to try this one, but don't expect the best ghost story you ever read.