Halloween originated from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. The Celts believed that on October 31, the boundary between the living and the dead became blurred. The arrival of Irish immigrants to America transformed this pagan holiday into a cultural and visual extravaganza that we know as Halloween today. The event is celebrated with great fanfare in many countries, especially in the Western world. Since the dawn of human civilisation, adults and children have told scary stories to one another. Speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten or scare does brisk business in bookshops, whether that of a psychological thriller variety or dark fantasies.
For those who want to get their thrills and spills from a book, here are 5 haunting books you should read for Halloween 2024, set amidst the spooky environs of now famous hotels and eerie castles.
The success of this 1977 horror novel by American author Stephen King firmly established him as a major writer of the genre. The Stanley Hotel was opened by inventor Freelan Oscar Stanley, just 112 kilometres from Colorado, as a resort for upper-class Easterners. The setting and characters of "The Shining" are influenced by King's personal experiences, including both his visit to the hotel in 1974 and his struggle with alcohol addiction. Inspired by the book's success, the Stanley Hotel has become America's most haunted accommodation and its most documented one, with people reporting everything from full-body apparitions to strange sounds during their visit.
An oldie but a goldie, "Dracula" is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by the Irish author Bram Stoker. Spanning 418 pages, the narrative focuses on the eternal theme of good versus evil and is related through letters, diary entries and newspaper articles. The novel opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking a business trip to stay at the castle of a Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula. Harker escapes the castle after discovering that his host is a vampire, and the subsequent turn of events has led many observers to call it the best vampire story ever written. The novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film and television interpretations. Set primarily in Transylvania in Romania, the book spawned a tourism boom with people visiting the region's medieval towns, hilly ranges and monuments like Bran Castle, now popularly known as Dracula's Castle.
"The Amityville Horror" is a modern folktale based on the true crimes of mass murderer Ronald DeFeo Jr. It is also the basis for a series of films that have been released since 1979. On November 13, 1974, DeFeo shot and killed six members of his family in Amityville, Long Island. He was convicted of second-degree murder in November 1975 and sentenced to six terms of 25 years to life in prison. George Lutz, Kathy Lutz, their three children and dog moved into the house in December 1975 but fled after just 28 days claiming to have been terrorised by paranormal phenomena while living there. The house on Ocean Avenue still exists but has been renovated and the address changed to discourage tourists from visiting it.
Published by Bantam Press in 2020, "The Deep" tells the story of a supernatural mystery aboard the RMS Titanic. Capturing a cast of characters and effortlessly combining the supernatural with the height of historical disaster, the book explores love and destiny, desire and innocence, and above all, a quest to understand how our choices can lead us inexorably toward our doom. The RMS Titanic continues to hold people all over the world in its sway, and this book is no different. Enjoy it with a cup of pumpkin spice latte in hand to beat the chills away.
This intriguing and haunting debut novel follows a group of friends who reunite after one of them returns from a mysterious two-year disappearance. The book is set in the beautiful Catskill Mountains of New York state, which has previously served as the setting for many works of fiction, including the short story "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving and the children's book "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean George. "The Return" bagged Rachel Harrison a nomination for the 2020 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel.