Reading a supernatural story while writing a ghost story… I am only a few chapters in, but already enjoying the mood and setting… #spooky #supernatural #horrorwriter

First few chapters and young, insecure protagonist are not holding my attention. The prologue is so well-written that I know something good will come eventually, but my time is limited, so moving on from this Hawaii-set mystery. #audiobooks #mediocre

Super fun parody for the horror fan & kids aged 9 and up! My Halloween-obsessed 7 year old son enjoyed most of the wonderfully creepy illustrations, but one really scared him. So go with 9 plus. Great gift for a horror writer like me or any horror reader! #horror #parody #monsters #recommended

Thank you, so much @witchyreader13 for my awesome Creepy Christmas swap gifts and the cool face mask (not pictured). As soon as my kiddo is back in in-person school I will dig into the Jones book! #grateful #generous #CreepyChristmas

Best book I have read in a long time. Very dark. Suspense, rivalries, dark family secrets & a suspicious death playing out in the pressure cooker of a ballet school. Ended the year with a bang. No one writes about competition between young women like Abbott. Trigger warning: intense childhood trauma (no spoilers). #suspense #secrets #crime #dancers

The only good thing about having a stomach bug (or some bad food?) yesterday was that I had down time to listen to this good audiobook! Tense plotting! #audiobooks

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! Santa knew what I wanted! #merrychristmas #bookworm #noir

Candy covered blueberries, a snuggly blanket & Abbott‘s vivid, fierce fiction. What more can you want? #amreading #suspense

Need a last minute gift for a fan of strong female characters? I am bias, as I was Spitzmiller‘s editor, but this vivid, intense retelling of Andromache‘s story has won hearts and 5-star reviews. Trigger warning historically depicted sexual assault. Available via Amazon. Sorry to talk shop, but it‘s a good read! #historicalfiction #strongwomen

Forgot to post this, sorry, but I shipped my swap package off by UPS last Friday! Hopefully that‘s in plenty of time! #CreepyChristmas #bookswap #horror

“Getting Ready for Christmas: A Daily Advent Prayer & Activity Book for the Family” from Concordia Publishing is a cute little prayer book one can use before opening the advent calendar gifts. Wee Boy‘s Godmother gifted it to us 2 years ago. I don‘t usually use it with a LEGO calendar, lol, but it was on sale & mama is tired this year. #advent #prayers #4stars #kidlit

Happy Thanksgiving from New England! I am thankful for fellow bookworms everywhere. #happythanksgiving #thankful

What if a crime on foreign shores revealed your BFF was not who she seemed? Travelers can relate to the wanderlust, and things get very intense, very quickly! Great thriller so far. #loveit #audiobook #tension

Finished the buddy read during read-a-thons, so I did ok the final week. There is still the audiobook I needed a break from, but I tried and had a good time! Thanks for organizing our team, @Clwojick ! Cheers to y‘all, fellow readers! #TeamSlaughter! #Scarathlon2021 #thriller #novels #audiobooks #shortstoties #kidlit #Netflixthrillers #Halloweenfun

Photo finish! I turned the last page of this vivid page-turner last night. Andy feels stuck at home & in her job as a 911 dispatcher when a mall shooting reveals her mother Laura isn‘t the affable speech pathologist she seems. Don‘t want to spoil any of the twists, but I rooted for Andy, who pulls herself together to help her tough mother & herself, as they move on from the extremes of Laura‘s past. #Scarathlon2021 #TeamSlaughter #buddyread

This flapper had a fun time reading my flash fiction with students & colleagues at the Writespace Houston Spooky Tales reading last night. Except for that writer dressed as Mike Myers lurking in the trees. Too realistic, dude! #ghoststories #flashfiction #shortstory #writingworkshops

Damn, this smart, intense psychological thriller is thought provoking. Caught the excellent film version of “We Need To Talk About Kevin.” last night. The flawed mother of a troubled boy gets gaslighted by her husband and the pediatrician. She can‘t bond with her son, or keep him safe. A mother‘s worst fears come to violence and then…. She lives with the cost. Trigger warning: school killings. #thriller #recommend #TeamSlaughter #Scarathlon2021

Monsters for Halloween! Getting the gig as real, official monster under the bed is tougher than you think…. Fun, silly look at the convergence of scares and sleep. #monsters #kidlit #Scarathlon2021 #TeamSlaughter

Mr. Wolf, a bad guy hoping to reinvent himself in this fun series of graphic novels, is ready for Story Book Character Day! Will the ears last until the costume parade? Tune in tomorrow… #mrwolf #storybookcharactersday #thebadguys

Classic “mystery” for the first grade set. Adorable, confident investigator, Nate. Will he find the picture of the dog in time? Recommend for 6-8. #5stars #kidlit #mystery #childinvestigator #TeamSlaughter #Scarathalon2021

“The Summoned,” a novella prequel to Mazer‘s latest novel, is vivid & truly frightening. A controlling predator meets lethal karma. Well-crafted and not for the faint of heart. (Free from the publisher). #horror #prequel #novella #Scarathlon2021 #TeamSlaughter

Took a break from one of my audiobooks mid-week & switched it up for a lighter cozy, but with read-a-thon, listening hours, game, & rabidly binge-watching Squid Game & Beast Must Die, I did oK. #TeamSlaughter #Scarathlon2021 #lOutstandingOctober #audiobooks

Binge watched this 6 episode UK-set thriller on Acorn TV via Amazon Fri-Sun. Cush Jumbo is always good. #thriller #Scarathalon2021 #TeamSlaughter #tvshows

Halloween movie night at my son‘s school. Helped out with the PTO concessions. Kids voted to watch CoCo. Cute pic about music & family on the Day of the Dead. Not exactly scarathalon? But there were a few devilish skeletons amongst the nice ones…. Counts for TeamSlaughter??

Good cozy that is cute without being too cutesy. Likable fish-out-of-water protagonist, pretty setting, secrets & murder. Fun listen. Good counterpoint to watching the very dark Squid Game! Met the author once & she seemed very nice. #mystery #audiobooks #TeamSlaughter #Scarathalon2021

Enjoying this funny, light cozy with a great beach setting. Secrets & a murder in the first few chapters keep it just tense enough. A nice palate cleanser from the horror I have been watching. #audiobooks #mystery #TeamSlaughter

Damn. Netflix is billing Squid Game as a “thriller.” And as a former resident of Korea, I wanted to check it out. It‘s dark fantasy or horror-a bloody, twisted Hunger Games. The stark difference between the haves and haves-nots is played out with brutal precision. Not for the faint of heart. #thriller #horror #KoreanTV #TeamSlaughter #Scarathalon2021

Halloween party for 16 kiddos fried my brain this weekend, but did OK during the week. More pages next time. #TeamSlaughter #Scarathalon2021 #murder #audiobooks #books #scarymovies

A perfect step down from IT? Midsomer Murders. They‘re running out of plots after 20 years on TV, but this particular episode, The Scarecrow Murders, was pretty good. #mystery #murder #Scarathalon2021 #TeamSlaughter

IT Chapter2- scary AF! One of the few sequel movies that lives up to the original. #horror #scarymovies #TeamSlaughter #Scarathalon2021

Protagonist & her kittens are fun but this cozy started a little too slowly for me. Bad guy in chief also seemed a little generic. But there‘s a lot of warmth & a quaint setting. And my wild kittens Shirley Jackson & Diamond like well-narrated kitten stories. #cozymystery #audiobooks #Scarathalon2021 #TeamSlaughter

When Mama throws a Halloween Scavenger Hunt for 16 kids and sings this cute bedtime story to the tune of 12 Days of Christmas? Mama should definitely get points for #TeamSlaugjter! #kidlit #halloweenbooks #Scarathon2021

I will not buy this at the grocery store… I will not buy this at the grocery store… #tempted #outlander

A twisted , terrifying look at what a serial killer would do with the Butterfly Effect. Don‘t answer cordless phones! You have to accept a time travel gimmick, but it‘s actually an interesting look at relationships between parents & young adults. Korean horror films in general often have interesting themes about family and loyalty. #horror #serialkiller #TeamSlaughter #Scarathalon2021

It‘s creepy & intense, and I am hooked, so I suppose I see why this book is considered a thriller. But it‘s also a complicated reimagining of the classic Lolita. Fascinating & uncomfortable. Listening in the car & while doing housework. #audiobook #thriller #metoo #TeamSlaughter

I still haven‘t recovered from the circus season, but AHS is once again creepy AF. In creative ways. Now they are ruining The Cape for me. #horror #CapeCod #Scarathalon2021 #TeamSlaughter

Had hoped to get more reading done, but it‘s a start! #TeamSlaughter #Scarathalon2021 #weekonepoints

Audiobook of “The House on the Water,” also by Hunt, did not impress. (It‘s not in the database.) It‘s starts out interesting, and tension starts to build, but author tells more than she shows. Plot twists borrow from Agatha Christie. Narrator was good. #mystery #audiobook #murder #TeamSlaughter

YA horror-slasher enhanced by good performances by the teens, especially star Sydney Park. #horrormovie #YAhorror #scarathalon2021 #TeamSlaughter

My son loves jokes so he gives this Halloween joke book a thumbs up. The quality of the publishing is mediocre, the pages are thin and the illustrations are black and white, but the content, jokes themselves, are good. Three and a half stars. #Halloweenbooks #kidlit #humor #Scarathalon2021 #TeamSlaughter

“Freaks,” on Netflix is a fascinating movie. I don‘t want to spoil it by saying more. #horror #strange #Scarathalon2021 #TeamSlaughter #scarymovies

Shirley Jackson and Diamond are all ready for this weekend‘s reading! #TeamSlaughter #Scarathalon2021 #thrillers #amreading

A campy, suspenseful, fun book about being followed by spooky underwear? It‘s every kid‘s Halloween dream! My son heard this at this library & loved it, so we read the ebook. Cute! #kidlit #fun #Halloween #Scarathalon2021 #TeamSlaughter

I will not watch another serial killer show late at night…I will not watch another serial killer show late at night. At least it‘s points for #TeamSlaughter! #murders #chestnutman #tv #thriller #serialkiller #Scarathalon2021

Halloween picture book for the Pre-K and Kindergarten set about catching a ghost and teaching them to trick or treat. Cute with clever illustrations. A little young for my son, but 5 year old friend loved it. #Halloweenbooks #kidlit #Scarathalon2021 #TeamSlaughter

Another twisty mystery with feisty female characters (and some of the best descriptions of Boston I‘ve read recently) from Hank. Good narration. However, as not everyone is whom they claim to be, listening to this while driving or doing laundry got confusing. I would recommend a focused read for this good story. #mystery #Scarathalon2021 #TeamSlaughter #audiobook

Who were those terrible 1960s-era adults who gave Charlie Brown rocks? Really! #classics #peanuts #trickortreating #Halloween #TeamSlaughter #Scarathalon

Strange but true Halloween facts for the elementary school set. Cute layout. Good for a rainy day. Not sure he will reread it. Kid nonfiction for #scarathalon2021. #TeamSlaughter #Halloweenbooks #25points

What‘s really scary? Texas robbing women, trans & non-binary folks of reproductive health choices! Would rather be reading, but need to stand up for choice today. #womenshealth #prochoice #texansforchoice