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Stories for Halloween
Stories for Halloween
Jul 7, 2025 4:06 PM

Author:Edgar Allan Poe

Stories for Halloween

The midnight hour approaches. You lie in bed and try to sleep, but there is the howling of the wind outside, the creak of a floorboard, the scream of a cat, the ticking clock...

Your heart beats, your skin crawls, and despite yourself you reach for this book and enter a world like a nightmare, haunted by dark fears, guilty secrets and the bloody consequences of rage, revenge and obsession.

You cannot tear yourself away, these tales will appall and yet enthrall you, for no mere mortal can resist the master of Gothic horror, Edgar Allan Poe.

Reviews

For their supernatural grotesquerie and graveyard doom,[Poe's stories] foreshadow Stephen King and the "southern gothic" of Truman Capote... his work continues to enthral. His greatest tales radiate a dark humour and mockery that strike an oddly modern note.

—— Sunday Times

The modern horror novel owes an enormous debt to Poe, and the novel of psychological horror owes him almost everything

—— Spectator

If you love thrillers, you have to read these stories

—— Observer

Poe's work as a whole is a series of haunting improvisations on themes from the macabre that are hard to categorise, dazzlingly original and posthumously influential on an extraordinary range of writers from Baudelaire and RL Stevenson to Yeats, Wilde and Borges

—— Observer

Jane Austen shocks me. Beside her, Joyce seems innocent as grass

—— W.H. Auden

Who needs eReaders when book publishers are repackaging classic tales in beautiful covers like these? … Perfect for fans of the author

—— Bella

Beautifully designed… Perfect collectable gift for Austen fans and design devotees

—— So Darling

These might be the loveliest editions of Jane Austen’s novels we’ve seen in a long time

—— A Little Bird (blog)

An absolute riot: a dry pastiche of gothic and romance novels that both celebrates, and rolls its eyes at, youthful credulity

—— Kat Brown , Independent

Carroll has choreographed his story too well to be obvious. Resist the urge to flip to the end. It's the journey that rewards in this book, not the destination

—— The Age

Invigorating. To recreate convincingly a single historical period is an achievement. To recreate six is to approach virtuosity ... Deft, smart, various and warm: a very good book indeed.

—— Sunday Business Post, Ireland

Multi-layered and masterful. Suspend your disbelief, flow along with this wonderful book.

—— Guardian

Stunning. Moving between Wang's many pasts, all of them thrilling, gruesome, and tragic, and Wang's increasingly desperate present, Barker's historical tour de force is simultaneously sweeping and precise. Barker's psychologically nuanced characters and sharp wit turn the bleakness and the gore into something seriously moving. Effortlessly blends the past with the present, dark humour with profound sadness. A deeply human masterpiece.

—— Kirkus

Not since Jung Chang's WILD SWANS has there been such a visceral re-telling of the old days.

—— Open Magazine, India

Barker resembles David Mitchell in the ability to weave together past and present in a convincing, and ultimately intriguing, manner

—— Sydney Morning Herald

China reels with tension

—— LA Review

This is a beautifully structured novel, and the interspersed letters describing previous lives are engrossing and sharp. These past lives are too real to feel like mere metaphor. Cruelty, betrayal and slavery reoccur over the centuries, and are echoed in Wang’s modern life.

The prose is light and often witty, and the characterization is one of the book’s most impressive aspects… This is an extremely satisfying and intelligent book

—— That’s Shanghai

A wonderful piece of historical/fantasy/suspense fiction unlike anything else I've read... Constantly unpredictable and surprising

—— Goodreads

Barker is a phenomenal storyteller. She time-travels seamlessly from the Tang Dynasty in AD 632 to contemporary Beijing and each snippet of each incarnation, rich in convincing detail, is utterly mesmerising

—— Goodreads

Barker has created a set of characters who jump off the page and Wang's heartrending story is sensitively told

—— madabouthebooks.co.uk

Seamlessly weaving Chinese folklore, history, and literary classics, The Incarnations is a taut and gripping novel that sheds light on the cyclical nature of history and it hints that the past is never truly settled.

—— Fantastic Fiction

Remarkable... a time-bending fantasy with an unknown (and possibly unreliable) narrator sweeping us down the rabbit hole of history

—— http://granitestudio.org/

Vivid and engaging

—— Asia Review of Books

The Incarnations is so many stories wrapped into one astounding tale, and the end result is nothing short of a masterpiece. Susan Barker takes us on a breathtaking tour of China's chequered history, and her literary prowess is a thing of beauty.

—— aworldchild.co.uk

The best English-language novel about China I have ever read.

—— Shenzhen Stuff

Engaging, poetic and lyrical... Individually, the historical chapters are compelling, interesting short stories; together you have a novel I want to read with a book club and discuss, discuss, discuss

—— The Star Online

Balances past and present, the grand sweep of history and the intensely personal, all wrapped up in brisk and densely evocative prose. You can never quite be sure where Wang's story is going to turn next - not even after a thousand years.

—— welovethisbook.com

A towering, sweeping ode

—— thatsmag.com

So alive, so visceral. Every incarnation is raw and vicious. Just amazing. For fans of David Mitchell and Murakami

—— Time Out Bookstore NZ

Barker is a brilliant prose stylist and this book should be read out loud. Even some of the most minor details are charged with social and historical insight... a genuine page turner that brings it all together quite unlike any other book about China published in the past decade.

—— thenanfang.com

Page-turning. A very memorable read.

—— Publishers Weekly

Engrossing. Barker's writing is fluid, and the plotlines and characterizations found in her historical tales, while dark and sinister, are nonetheless intriguing. Misunderstandings abound throughout the novel to unravel the past that collides intensely with the present, ultimately leading to a disquieting finale.

—— Library Journal

Dazzling ... her natural storytelling gifts shine from every paragraph

—— NEW YORK TIMES

Brutal yet seductive, this journey through the darkest parts of the human spirit will leave readers with chills running down their spines.

—— SHELF AWARENESS

Barker skilfully combines history, the supernatural and the everyday in a novel that suggests the apst is never really past, while providing a cracking good read.

—— BOOKPAGE

A deeply human masterpiece.

—— KIRKUS STARRED REVIEW

[A] kaleidoscopically imaginative novel…Barker stitches together an unnervingly perceptive portrait of China and of the enduring influence that its past has on the present.

—— The New Yorker
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