2. The Women of Wild Hill by Kirsten Miller

listened on Libby

368 pgs.  (10:38)

2025
Adult fantasy/horror
Finished 1/12/26
Goodread*s rating:  4.16
My rating: 4
Setting: Current day Long Island, NY with many glimpses into the past

My comments: Modern-day witches, with interesting back and forths with four generations of mother/daughters, aunt/nieces.  I listened so I didn't have the family tree right in front of me, but it was pretty easy to remember each generation.  So much related to current political tensions, particularly patriarchal billionaires.  I was disappointed with the ending, though.

Goodreads synopsis:  A witty, spectacular, and timely tale of modern-day witches waging war on the patriarchy, from fan favorite Kirsten Miller, the author of The Change and Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books.

There are places on earth where nature’s powers gather. Girls raised there are bequeathed strange gifts. A few have powers so dark that they fear to use them. Such a place is Wild Hill, on the tip of Long Is land. For centuries, the ghost of a witch murdered by colonists claimed the beautiful and fertile Wild Hill…until a young Scottish woman with strange gifts arrived. Sadie Duncan was allowed to stay.

Five generations of Sadie’s descendants called Wild Hill home, each generation more powerful than the last. Then, in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy, the last of the Duncans, once prophesized to be the most powerful of their kind, abandoned their ancestral home.

One of them, Brigid Laguerre moved to California and turned her dark gift into fame and fortune. Her sister, Phoebe, settled on a ranch in Texas, where women visit in secret for her tonics and cures. Phoebe’s daughter, Sybil, has become a famous chef. Seemingly powerless, Sibyl has never been told of the Duncan bloodline.

Now Brigid, Phoebe, and Sibyl have been brought to Wild Hill to discover their family legacy. The Old One, furious at the path mankind has taken, has chosen three powerful witches to turn the tide. The Duncans will fulfill their destinies—but only if they can set aside their grievances and come together as a family.

46. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

listened on Libby
320 pgs. (10:40)

2020
Adult Fantasy Horror
Finished 5/22/2024
Goodreads rating: 3.67
My rating: 3
Setting: 1950 Mexico, rural small community a train ride away from Mexico City

My comments: I had no idea when I began this book that it was a fantasy horror story, so when weird things started happening, I was put off a bit.  Arriving in an isolated mansion, High Point, on a mountainside in Mexico in 1950, Noemi has been sent by her father after receiving a really strange, discombobulated letter from her newly married cousin.  Not only is the mansion falling apart to the point that it is moldy, but the family that her cousin has married into is terribly strange and forbidding.   Over-the-top weird and secretive.  Once very rich as silver mine magnates, they now use candles and oil lamps instead of electricity and have all sorts of bizarre rules like not speaking a word to each other while eating a meal.  As more and more rumor and gossip about past deaths and illnesses assail Noemi, you realize that she is getting herself into something dangerous and really bizarre.

Goodreads synopsis:  After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.

Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

57. House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

listened on Libby, borrowed from Library

narrated by Eleanor Bennett

Unabridged audio (9:10)
2021
304 pgs.
YA Mystery/Fantasy/Horror
Finished 5/30/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.18 - 6517 ratings
My rating: 2 and 4 = 3

Setting:  Contemporary Edinburgh, London....

First line/s: "I was ten years old the first time I realized I was strange."

My comments: What a very odd story - creepy and disturbing.  Lots of horrible odors and ghastly sites described so that you almost gag yourself as you listen.  It was fascinating as well as unenjoyable.  I'd love to find out what happens in book two, but I don't think I can take it!  Very, very difficult to rate this book, as I liked it and I hated it....

Goodreads synopsis:  Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats.

          Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind.
          As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children.
          The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years.

25. Bird Box by Josh Malerman

read the book - received from @Kaye - Listsy  #Passport
2014, Ecco
262 pgs.
Adult Dystopia/Horror
Finished 3/17/18
Goodreads rating:3.98 - 49,950 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Anywhere, USA contemporary (dystopian) times

First line/s: " Malorie stands in the kitchen, thinking.
     Her hands are damp.  She is trembling.  She taps her toe nervously on the cracked tile floor.  It is early; the sun is probably only peeking above the horizon.  She watches its meaager light turn the heavy window drapes of softer shade of black and thinks,
     That was a fog.
     The children sleep under chicken wire draped in black cloth down the hall.  Maybe they heard her moments ago on her knees in the yard.  Whatever noise she made must have traveled through the microphones, then the amplifiers that sat beside their beds."

My comments: This is not a book I would have ordered, or bought, or borrowed.  Its blurbs, reviews, and summaries sound too scary and disconcerting.  But the book was put in my hands and I opened it and read the first short chapter.  I was immediately hooked.  It's sad. It's depressing.  But it's fascinating.  Apparently it's being made into a movie and I can't imagine how that could be done successfully because so much of it takes place in the total absoluteness of darkness, blindfolded or eyes-shut darkness. Yes, it's going to be a scary movie, and yes, I'm going to go see it!

Goodreads synopsis: Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.
          Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat--blindfolded--with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?
          Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.

MOVIE - Get Out

R (1:44)

Wide/ 2/24/ (though it took FOREVER to get anywhere near here)

Viewed 3/8/2018 
IMBd: 7.7/10

RT Critic:  99 Audience: 87
Critic's Consensus:  

Cag:  5/Loved it

Directed by Jordan Peele

Universal Pictures

Daviel Kaluuya, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford

My comments:    Bizarre.  Creepy.  Wonderful, fun and even funny.  I love it when you have no clue what is going on buy you totally know that that's okay and you are able to follow along with no problem at all.  I immediately got inside the protagonist's head and knew that he would figure everything out and be okay in the end, which made the scary bits extra fun and not quite so scary.  Catherine Keener was so incredibly creepy!  And Daniel Kaluuya, the guy who played Chris Washington, was marvelous.

RT/ IMDb Summary:   Now that Chris and his girlfriend, Rose, have reached the meet-the-parents milestone of dating, she invites him for a weekend getaway upstate with Missy and Dean. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he could have never imagined.