This Is Halloween

 For today's (and this year's first) countdown to Halloween reading suggestion: This Is Halloween, by James A. Moore. "Ten Tales of Terror" as the cover says. Not all of them are explicitly set round Halloween, but many of them are. And many of them feature the sinister Bedlam Woods, where a ghostly witch and her monstrous offsprings dwell. Relatable characters are mercilessly sent to and through hell, and neither critters nor ordinary humans are devoid of moral ambiguity. Moore is great at turning familiar places and traditions into unsettling backdrops. I also loved how original his monsters often are: you have undead made of bones, shadowy female spirit that haunts and attacks its preys like lightning, a blobby shape-shifting fiend who puts on a human skin and walks among them as a... but I don't want to give too much away. This is the perfect seasonal read. Preparing this post, I learned that Moore sadly passed away in March this year. I am sad to discover a new horror writer as of late, but this will not be the last book of him that I will read. This post is a posthumous homage.