This Newsletter is Gonna Haunt You

The most wonderful time of the year…

Is Halloween! And as we all know, Halloween starts on October 1, and September is just Halloween Eve. This is because Halloween is more than a holiday, it’s a whole ass vibe. A way of living more fully in this often indifferent world. I’m so into Halloween, I even have the themed tattoo to prove it.¹ My house is filled with pumpkins, cauldrons, bats, and skeletons year round. October 31 is, of course, our most blessed day of the year, but really, the whole month is a celebration. Listen, I don’t make the rules, I just follow them (especially when they are spooky). 

And because I love a list (as you know)² , here’s my plans for the Halloween season:

Spooky Reads for Scary Times

Some of the books I’ve got on my TBR

• Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas: Vampires, vaqueros, the Mexican-American War! This is a buddy read with a friend of mine that we both promised to finish by Oct 31.

• Play Nice by Rachel Harrison: a haunted house tale-- or is the house possessed by a demon??

• The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Witches, academia, missing girls, Mexican folklore. It’s got it all!

• Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle: A screenwriter in LA is pursued by the very monsters he created in his scripts. 

And some heartfelt recommendations from me to you

• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins: A nightmare-ish novel about a missing god and the daughter who wants vengeance. Also, there’s a scary library.

• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: This is a classic for a reason. It’s atmospheric, spooky, and even downright scary at times, plus part of the queer horror canon. 

• The Dream-Quest of Vellit Boe by Kij Johnson: Weird, complex, layered, nuanced and filled with Lovecraftian horrors.

Other Eldritch Entertainments

I’ve picked up my crochet needle again (it’s been nearly a year) and started working on crocheted pumpkins. The stems are cinnamon sticks!

My Halloween plans also include some scary movies: Barbarian, Talk to Me, Heretic, The Wicker Man (1973), Near Dark and Longlegs. Truthfully, I’ve been meaning to watch some of these movies for years now. But: 

1. I don’t watch a lot of TV on the regular, and

2. Scary movies are scarier than scary books, so I talk myself out of watching them.  

So, here are the movies and shows I love to watch every Halloween season:

• The Addams Family and Addams Family Values

• Bob’s Burgers Halloween episodes (you can also do this for Thanksgiving and Xmas. God bless Bob’s Burgers).

• Halloweentown and Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge. We don’t talk about the third or fourth movies. 

• Hocus Pocus and Hocus Pocus 2. Although I have real issues with the rebooted Sanderson sisters and their new sympathetic backstory.

• Over the Garden Wall

• Suspiria (1977): I’m going to see this Halloween night at the AFI Silver Theater with some of my OG homies.

To the Books!

Books Added to my Wishlist

Galloway’s Gospel by Sam Rebelein: I loved Rebelein’s Edenville. I’m not as excited to return to the same location for this book, because I crave the new and exciting. This will be a library loan, for sure. 

The Witch of Willow Sound by Vanessa F. Penney: The book blurb throws around terms like “modern gothic” and “feminist gothic tale” while also claiming to be based on true East Coast traditions and lore. Color me intrigued!

Books I Read

Mate by Ali Hazelwood: A human-were hybrid and the alpha werewolf fight against their fated love while falling head over heels for each other.

Paranormal romance used to be my jam, but I kinda fell out of love with the genre some years ago. I haven’t read any of Hazelwood’s other contemporary romances, but I found this second book in the Bride series just as fun to read as the first. It’s a slow burn, which is not my favorite, and I definitely got frustrated by the slow burningness of it all, but I also liked the twists and turns the plot took keeping our two lovers apart. 4 stars.

The Night of Baba Yaga by Akira Otani: A young woman is forced into being the bodyguard of a Yakuza princess in 1970s Tokyo. 

This was a violent thrill ride! It read like an action movie. A very bloody, bruised one. The imagery was vivid and the fight scenes were so well described, I felt every punch. The characters were a little flat--mostly evil villains, henchmen, and fodder for punching for our protagonist, Yoriko Shindo. But what a great protagonist she was! And Shoko’s journey, from enemy princess to love interest, really gave meaning to Shindo’s motivations. 4 stars.

Books I Gave Up On

Zombie Bake-Off by Stephen Graham Jones: lots of gory zombie mayhem, which I love, but no one to root for, which I hate! Why read the whole thing when I didn’t care who died along the way?

Cat Pic of the Month

Wallace started getting shots for his arthritis and he is doing wonderfully! He’s walking around more, jumping up on furniture, asking for more pets, and even eating more. He’s a man on the town! I have to bring him into the vet once a month for the shot, which is stressful for everyone involved, but it’s worth it to see Wallace doing so well.

My heart squeezes painfully when I think of how old Wallace is getting. He’s 11. That’s geriatric for a cat. But the shots really have given him so much pep in his step. Lately, we’ve been sitting curled up on the couch together, him sleeping, me crocheting pumpkins and watching Buffy. It’s a good life.

Show me the Noods!

Eagle-eyed readers will note this is not the first bowl of bucatini to grace my newsletter. In fact, bucatini is my favorite pasta shape! Never heard of it until COVID lockdown, when everyone went crazy for playing the ukulele, making sourdough, and eating so much bucatini, it was sold out in stores. I love how thick and chewy it is and how you make weird slurping sounds trying to eat it because of the hole in the middle. Maybe some people find it embarassing to eat but not me. Bucatini for life!

In Conclusion

There are 12 crocheted pumpkins sitting on my dining room table, waiting for their forever homes. Like Anne of Green Gables, I truly love a world with Octobers in it. Here in the Southeast US, the weather is turning colder (cold-ish), the nights are longer, and I’ve even worn long sleeves and a cardigan. I mean, I wore them with flip flops, but I still wore them! I hope your October is filled with spooky tricks and treats, good shows or movies, and even better books.

Love, Marcella

1  The day after this newsletter is published, I will be getting a second Halloween-themed tattoo.

2  And a paranthentical, if you haven’t noticed already (I’m sure you have).