The Nesting by C. J. Cooke

 You had me at *nanny in a remote, creepy house with a mysterious employer*

3/5 stars

The Nesting has some weaknesses of logic and plot, but it thoroughly makes up for it in atmosphere. There are multiple red herrings and I'm not sure how I feel about them.  They might also just be sidelines that fizzled out a bit.

This book is a solid 3 stars for sheer creepiness and entertainment value.  The Norwegian setting is a huge bonus for me because Scandinavia ups the atmospheric score quite a bit.  If I can know without the book even telling me that it is already dark outside at 3pm, I'm all about it.

We get an unreliable narrator, but for most of the book we can't be quite sure if she's imagining some or all of what is happening.  Other characters certainly seem to be having odd experiences too.  Do we have unreliable secondary characters as well?  Or do we have an ancient Norwegian spirit haunting the premises?  Or the ghost of a dead wife?  Lexi finds herself surrounded by people who teem with secrets, some well hidden and others poorly so.  Is a human being responsible for those bumps in the night?  Better read it and find out.

I got my ebook for free from NetGalley for review purposes.

The Haunting of Hill House

Creeping me out is not that easy. I can watch ghost movies or read scary books right before bedtime and then sleep like a baby. Turns out the supposedly scary books I've read have been too obvious, or perhaps a little too weird, for me to take seriously.

Stephen King is all well and good, but I've never found any of his creations truly frightening. Probably because I just can't see a sentient car trying to kill me.

Visiting a house which is known to be haunted and having the heck haunted out of you, however, seems possible to me.

Shirley Jackson, as the undisputed queen of 20th century Gothic tales, was a master at creating a chilling atmosphere. I love those moments in books where I stop reading and gasp aloud. Usually, they're brought on by the pieces of a mystery falling into place or a sudden revelation. I can't ever remember having that reaction because something was so spooky. Until now. Twice while reading The Haunting of Hill House, I jumped back, wide eyed because the story had lulled me and then shaken me violently.

But the scary bits are just a tiny part of what makes this book so wonderful. The characters are real and intricate, especially the two women. Eleanor and Theodora take Dr. Montague up on his invitation to investigate the titular haunting and find themselves instant friends.

The vast majority of the book comes to us from the perspective of Eleanor, a narrator of dubious reliability. But is it Eleanor herself who is unreliable or is the house affecting her in strange ways? She is a highly imaginative woman whose stifling life has made her hungry for the enchantments of stone lions and picnics by a brook. Her desperation to belong draws her toward any available port and Theodora's easy camaraderie gives her hope that she will find a home with her somehow.

As Laura Miller points out in this edition's introduction, Jackson frequently presents the reader with two paired women as representations of her own dual personality. She could write about the bleakest, most distressing topics, but at home she was the happy mother and hostess. Drawing on this chaotic version of domestic bliss, she wrote articles about her real life for women's magazines. How fortunate she was to find a willing audience for both the darkness and the light inside her.

The Witch of Lime Street

There's an upcoming book for readers interested in things that go bump in the night, or at least things that go bump under seance tables.

The Witch of Lime Street, by David Jaher, is the true story of "Margery" and her attempt to become the first scientifically approved medium. In the course of her hundreds of seances and trials with the panel of judges assigned to test her, she became a household name to Americans and Brits alike. Houdini tested her as well and found her personally charming but undeniably a charlatan. But even after rigorous examination and numerous battles between her admirers and detractors, the answer to why she did what she did (and more importantly how the heck she did it) is as hard to pin down as the ectoplasm she produced.

Jaher's book is enormously entertaining and opens the door to a time in our country's history when a Ouija Board seemed like the answer to many questions. I received a free advance copy of The Witch of Lime Street from LibraryThing. My full review will follow shortly.