#CurrentlyReading #TheSupernaturalReader #Octoberween
Piffingcap by #AECoppard

Another tale with a quirky title, "Piffingcap" is about a barber and a magical shaving cup, or is it cursed. It depends upon your need. The barber finds himself wanting to lose the cup, find the cup, and then what is the price paid in this quest.
Coppard puts sly humour and observations on rural & small town life, as he builds from what could be a whimsical folktale, to one in which dire consequences arise from poorly thought out choices. Anyone up for a close shave with the supernatural?

Piffingcap can be found online at #ProjectGutenberg.

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#Paperbacks #Halloween
#ShortStories #31DaysofHalloween
#Fantasy #31DaysOfSpooktober #FantasyLiterature #Fantasy
#Supernatural #CursedObjects
#WeirdFiction #WeirdLiterature

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60792

#CurrentlyReading #TheSupernaturalReader #Octoberween
Shottle Bop by #TheodoreSturgeon

Besides its memorable title, this quirky fantasy is considered one of the templates for "þe Olde Odd Shoppe" that seems to appear briefly in some back-corner or lane to offer a protagonist something that can change their lives. As in #Folklore, everything has a price and be careful what you wish for.

Things begin bright and beautiful ~

The walls were green! The drab wallpaper had turned to something breathtakingly beautiful. They were covered with what seemed to be moss; but never moss like that grew for human eyes to see before. It was long and thick, and it had a slight perpetual movement—not that of a breeze, but of growth. Fascinated, I moved over and looked closely. Growing indeed, with all the quick magic of spore and cyst and root and growth again to spore; and the swift magic of it was only a part of the magical whole, for never was there such a green. I put my hand to touch and stroke it, but I felt only the wallpaper. But when I closed my fingers on it, I could feel that light touch of it in the palm of my hand, the weight of twenty sunbeams, the soft resilience of jet-darkness in a closed place. The sensation was a delicate ecstasy, and never have I been haooier than I was at that moment.

A whole other world opens up to him, but eventually hubris leads to a fatal choice, and what starts out as almost warm-hearted tale of a man who can communicate with the afterlife, ends in a dark fantasy of a horrific haunting.

#Books #Book #Anthologies
#Paperbacks #Halloween
#ShortStories #31DaysofHalloween
#Fantasy #Ghosts #Horror #31DaysOfSpooktober #FantasytLiterature
#Supernatural #HorrorStories
#WeirdFiction #WeirdLiterature
#GhostStories

#CurrentlyReading #TheSupernaturalReader #Octoberween
For Blood is The Life by #FMarionCrawford

Then the moon rose suddenly above the crest of the promontory, flooding the platform and lighting up every little spur of rock and knoll of grass below us, down to the edge of the motionless water. My friend lighted his pipe, and sat looking at a spot on the hillside. I knew that he was looking at it, and for a long time past I had wondered whether he would ever see anything there that would fix his attention. I knew that spot well. It was clear that he was interested at last, though it was a long time before he spoke. Like most painters, he trusts to his own eyesight, as a lion trusts his strength and a stag his speed, and he is always disturbed when he cannot reconcile what he sees with what he believes that he ought to see.

"It's strange," he said. "Do you see that little mound just on this side of the boulder?"

"Yes," I said, and I guessed what was coming.

"It looks like a grave," observed Holger.

"Very true. It does look like a grave."

"Yes," continued my friend, his eyes still fixed on the spot. "But the strange thing is that I see the body lying on the top of it. Of course," continued Holger, turning his head on one side as artists do, "it must be an effect of light. In the first place, it is not a grave at all. Secondly, if it were, the body would be inside and not outside. Therefore, it's an effect of the moonlight. Don't you see it?"

"Perfectly; I always see it on moonlight nights."

A tale most strange, a ghost, a restless spirit, or undead - and blood is the life. A classic story of the weird & uncanny. Available online.

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#Paperbacks #Halloween
#ShortStories #31DaysofHalloween
#Revenants #Ghosts
#Horror #31DaysOfSpooktober
#Supernatural #HorrorStories
#WeirdFiction #WeirdLiterature
#GhostStories #Vampires

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40386

#CurrentlyReading #TheSupernaturalReader #Octoberween

"Mrs. Manifold" by Stephen Grendon
( #AugustDerleth )

~She could not abide the smell of wine.~

"She sat looking at me, humming a queer little tune, which I came to recognize later when she sang it: a sea-shanty. In that tremendous bulk, only her eyes seemed to move: small black, with short-lashed eyelids; there was no evidence that she breathed, no tremor disturbed her flesh, clad in a dress of black satin, which, despite her great mass, was frilled and ruffled like a child's frock and looked almost obscene."

A classic tale of ghostly revenge unfolds as the narrator describes his job as a desk clerk at The Sailor's Rest, a shabby, run down, hole in the corner inn. A place where the fog can walk in with a guest, or is it a ghost?

#Books #Book #Anthologies #Paperbacks #Halloween #ShortStories #31DaysofHalloween #Revenants #Ghosts #Horror #31DaysOfSpooktober #Supernatural #Horror #HorrorStories #WeirdFiction #WeirdLiterature #GhostStories #Hauntings

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
- H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

#BookologyThursday #FolkloreThursday #BookChatWeekly #31DaysofHaunting #literature #weirdliterature #horror #cosmichorror #Lovecraft #HPLovecraft #Cthulhu #CthulhuMythos

Hold my sanity, I'm going in.

#weirdliterature #houseofleaves

I finished #reading #AChristmasCarol on #Christmas Eve.

#CharlesDickens is now one of my favorite #authors.

His love for his fellow human being leaps from the text.

In 2023, I'm absolutely going to spend more time reading #ghoststories, #gothicliterature, #folklore, and #WeirdLiterature.

We can find so much of ourselves in great #stories and #books.

My book cover is almost done! Thrilled to bring you the weirdest love story you've ever read! #the-two-headed-lady-at-the-end-of-the-world

#weirdfiction #weirdromance #weirdliterature #mastobooks #mastowriters #amwritingromance #writingcommunity