Deas Leaves: 9 Tales from the Witching Season

For today's countdown to Halloween's post, another reading suggestion: Dead Leaves by Kealan Patrick Burke. Subtitled: "9 Tales from the Witching Season". My favourite horror discovery so far this year. I loved it. Burke is a Stoker Award-winning author and boy I can see why. While the stories are modern, there is something very classic about them. There is fairly little display of gore (although there is most definitely some) and evil here is an unsettling presence that rarely comes in full display. Halloween sometimes takes the center stage, but is often merely in the background, a setting more than anything else, which enhances the feeling of unease. In all of them, the narrative ends before the big reveal and the climax is never completed with the last line. Nothing is fully explained, nothing is fully resolved. You finish the book and it should haunt you for the rest of the month and beyond.

Spooky state of mind

I blogged about a month ago about a book I was tempted to buy: Dead Leaves: 9 Tales from the Witching Season from Kealan Patrick Burke. Well, I fell into temptation and I bought it in the end. I know, autumn is still far away, and Halloween even more, but as I know from experience, things come soon enough, especially in eventful years like the one we are having. It is never too early to prepare a reading program of horror literature.  And I'm not the only one who has started thinking about Halloween: Wolfie told me he wants to prepare for it, and the nine year old daughter of a friend we saw told me the same thing last week. Must be something in the air, these last few weeks have been cool and borderline autumnal. But in any case, I now have this book to read when the Witching Season comes.

Spooky reads in preparation

I was discussing with my brother PJ recently and the subject came on to what we wanted to read, what books we had bought last and what we wanted to get our hands on. And he said, astonished: "We already have Halloween in mind and we're not at the summer solstice yet." Which I must admit is kind true. But I am always preparing Halloween, pretty much when the year starts. And I long for autumn too, of course. And if I ever think of something else, Amazon sends me a gentle reminder: today it suggested that I purchase Dead Leaves: 9 Tales from the Witching Season from Kealan Patrick Burke (don't know if I ever read him, but I'd need to check my anthologies). I'm very tempted to do it, although being redundant I want to be extremely careful about spending money. And I already have a scary stories reading program planned for autumn, program which will start as early as August. That said, I could squeeze in these nine tales easily.