Friday, October 26, 2018

Five spooky books set in real places

Alyssa Palombo is a writer living and working in Buffalo, NY. She attended Canisius College in Buffalo, where she majored in English and creative writing with a minor in music. She is a classically trained mezzo-soprano who also dabbles in playing piano. When not writing, Palombo can usually be found reading, hanging out and laughing way too hard at nonsensical inside jokes with friends, traveling (or dreaming of her next travel destination), at a concert, or planning for next Halloween. She is a metalhead and a self-proclaimed French fry connoisseur. She also owns way too many hoodies, pairs of sunglasses, and pajamas, but never enough books.

Palombo is the author of three historical novels, The Violinist of Venice, The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence, and The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel.

At Tor.com she tagged five favorite spooky books set in real places, including:
See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

Perhaps a better word than “spooky” for this book is “unnerving”, deeply so. It’s one of those novels that is laced with tension and a general unsettling feeling right from page one. Set in Fall River, Massachusetts, this gorgeously written novel tells the story of the infamous Lizzie Borden through three different points of view: Lizzie herself, her sister Emma, and a male stranger. Schmidt’s prose is both complex and disquieting, and you’ll want to read her sentences over and over again even as you try to turn the pages as quickly as you can. America seems to have a fascination with this case—it remains officially unsolved, even though there seems to be an obvious culprit—and this book is one of the best I’ve read about it. The New England setting—and particularly the stifling atmosphere of the Borden house, which you can still visit today—comes to vivid life, illuminating both the larger community and the ways in which the Bordens seem to have cut themselves off from it.
Read about the other entries on the list.

See What I Have Done is among Mallory O'Meara's ten top horror books for wimps.

My Book, The Movie: Alyssa Palombo's The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel.

--Marshal Zeringue