Books, Cats, Witches, Writing

Starts Sunday, June 14 with the live kick off call on the 14th at 3PM Eastern via YouTube.

Enrollment will close at Noon Eastern June 14th.

Complete details and enrollment here: https://tinyurl.com/michellehb90

Sit Down and Write is now Storyteller! I decided our writing challenge needed a new name and a new vibe. Full details and how to join our Discord here: https://msmwriter.blogspot.com/2025/06/sit-down-and-write-is-now-storyteller.html

This was a very good historical novel. A story of Irish immigrants to America in the decades before the Civil War. A tale of family, of the inhumane enterprise of slavery, abolition, and of human nature. Olivia was a very likable character for me. I enjoyed her telling of the story and I appreciated her unwillingness to believe what everyone else believed when it came to religion. In a conversation with her future husband, he said this to her: "It is one thing to stand in opposition to Christianity as you have done. Another altogether to truly understand people too compromised to worry about the condition of their souls. If there is a God--and like you, I wonder--would He not want us to turn our efforts toward saving each other rather than madly fretting if we ourselves are saved?" Later on, her brother says this to her in a letter: "But it is in human flesh they mostly deal...the trading of which would curdle your blood. I tell you, Livvie. It's as if these people had no heart or mind or sense of pain. I would deny that this was the very country to which we came so long ago, and with the highest of expectations."

These are the stories we need to read and continue reading, lest we forget the horrors in history and the people who suffered so greatly.

Malfi does it again! I always look forward to his books, as one of my go-to horror authors, his books have a level of creepiness that makes the skin crawl. Along with that there is always a great story. The characters in this story made some bad decisions and they ended up paying for it. What I really liked about the story was the amalgam of supernatural elements. This is a ghost story but it's also so much more. Just when I thought I had it figured out...nope. It kept me guessing until the gripping end.

Wow! I had heard this one was really good...and terrifying. They were not wrong. Frankly, as a parent, I could not possibly think of anything more terrifying than what happens in this story. When our kids are little, they look to us to vanquish the monster under the bed. But what if that monster turned out to be real? I won't say anything else because this is a spoiler free zone. I will say if you haven't read this, what are you waiting for? Also, I just found out they are making a movie. I hope they can capture what makes this book special.

I love a good Gothic horror novel and this one is one of the best I've read. Kind of a cross between The Haunting of Hill House and Rebecca, and yet so much more. A genuinely creepy and, at times, horrifying haunting. This is a book you want to keep reading without stopping, straight through to the end.