mystery

If there is anything certain about screenwriter Eric Heisserer’s The Dionaea House: Correspondence from Mark Condry, initially written as a web pitch to a yet-unmade movie, it is that piercing horror best takes hold through evocative  fragments, through investigating the silent dead ends and meticulously stirring a sense of authenticity.

The tale begins with emails from Eric’s adolescent friend Mark, who writes of receiving an unsolicited newspaper clipping naming one of their former friends as the culprit in a gruesome public murder of a married couple in Boise, Iowa.

The circumstances of the shooting are peculiar, and after Mark’s investigation into his friend’s murders leads to his ultimate disappearance, Eric posts all the emails on the web, “in hopes that you’ll better understand why he did what he did.”

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If you are Irish-American, then you probably grew up hearing tales about the legendary St. Brigid, but did you know that the Catholic saint shared her name with an ancient Celtic goddess? High priestess and author Courtney Webber’s new book Brigid: History, Mystery, and Magick of the Celtic Goddess explores the myths surrounding this ancient goddess and shares her wisdom with readers.

Weber starts off by exploring the origins of the ancient goddess and explains how she is honored by modern-day Pagan. Instead of focusing just on Paganism, the author makes sure to offer readers an in-depth explanation to Brigid’s ties to the saint of the same name and the Voudon Loa Maman Brigitte. Continue Reading →

Heidi Pitlor’s The Daylight Marriage follows an unlikely couple as they fall in love, get married, and settle down in the suburbs only to discover that their romance is dying, which leads to an unspeakable tragedy.

Pretty Hannah had it all, but her one major flaw is that she’s impulsive. She winds up falling in love with her exact opposite: an introverted climate scientist named Lovell. At first their relationship is happy as can be but their marriage winds up taking a downward spiral and Hannah makes a choice that will wind up changing her life forever.

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Everybody loves people watching, right? But what happens when an innocent little game, often played to pass the time, turns dark? That’s exactly the question Rachel has to answer when she notices the young couple who live near her ex-husband and his new wife don’t exactly have the perfect relationship that she fantasized she had. To make matters worse, one day Rachel catches the young wife, who she dubs “Jess,” in the arms of another man only a few days before the woman’s disappearance. Rachel takes it upon herself to inform the police of what she saw, but only winds up falling deeper into the rabbit hole.

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Elly Griffiths’ compelling novel The Zig Zag Girl takes readers on a wild ride full of mayhem, magic, and murder in the 1950s.

Edgar Stephens is a detective who is reminded of an old magic trick called “The Zig Zag Girl” when he finds the body of a young woman who has been killed. He teams up with the inventor of the trick, who just happens to be his old army buddy Max Mephisto. Together, the two men must try to stop a killer who might just have ties to the shadowy group that they served in called “The Magic Men” before the murderer strikes again.

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Lydia Millet’s hilarious, almost satirical novel Mermaids in Paradise takes an irreverent eye to the topic of love, marriage, and of course, everyone’s favorite mythological creature–mermaids!

Newlyweds Deb and Chip are enjoying their honeymoon at a pretty Caribbean resort when a marine biologist who is exploring the area makes a world-shaking announcement: she’s found mermaids! Now, the husband and wife duo must team up with a few other ordinary folk in order to prevent the owners of the resort from capturing the mermaids and turning the reef where they live into a cheesy theme park.

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