Readers Imbibing Peril IX wrap-up post.

Apologies for the lateness of this post!

This year I took part in RIP IX (Readers Imbibing Peril, organised by Carl Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings.) My chosen challenge was Peril the First: to read four dark, spooky and intriguing novels in the space of two months, and you can see my sign-up post with its goals and suggested reading list here. I'm pleased to announce that for perhaps the first time since I started this blog, I've managed to reach my goal!

The books:

The Silkworm by "Robert Galbraith." The second of J. K. Rowling's crime novels featuring Cormoran Strike lives up to and goes beyond the standard set by The Cuckoo's Calling, and shows that her magical storytelling is not limited by genre. I could not put this down.

The Coldest Girl In Coldtown by Holly Black. A vampire novel for the reality TV and social media generation, combining the danger of the monsters of old with the glamour of the more recent species - but no, they do not sparkle.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King. A collection of novellas that pose the question: what might drive a person to commit a crime? As I found with his own son's book, Horns, there is no horror quite as unsettling as the perfectly mundane awfulness that can be found in seemingly ordinary people.

My last book did not come from the original to-read pile but was a birthday present from Hanna. I'm not entirely sure that 11.22.63 counts, as it's not exactly horror, but it is written by Stephen King. An immersive, fascinating, world-changing novel. I did not want to finish this book. Definitely one of the best books I've read this year. (I intend to write a full review very soon.)

The Coldest Girl In Coldtown - Holly Black (RIP IX book 2)

People liked pretty things. People even liked pretty things that wanted to kill and eat them.

Vampires have always existed, but until recently they took great measures to keep their existence a secret. That all changed a few years ago, when a vampire named Caspar Morales got carried away, creating many more. The epidemic spread out of control, and now the vampires of the USA, and anyone infected by them, are imprisoned in Coldtowns, where they party and feast all night long. These parties form the basis of the most popular reality TV shows, are there is a significant proportion of the population who longs to join them, attracted by the glamour and the danger and the romance of being forever young.

Seventeen-year-old Tana is not one of them. She's seen the other side: when she was very young her mother was attacked by a vampire, and infected. In this world, one does not automatically become a vampire until one drinks human blood, but before you can return to your human life, you have to endure the Cold - up to eighty-eight days of desperate cravings as the infection sets in. Not many people make it through.

When Tana wakes up to find herself one of only three survivors of a vampire attack on the party she'd been at - the other two being Gavriel, an ancient vampire and her infected ex-boyfriend Aidan - she heads down with them to the nearest Coldtown, where she finds herself caught up in a strange world of death-seeking misfits, vampire politics and her own nature. Gavriel is an enigma, an oddly charming but deadly vampire with a Past. Can she trust him? Can she even trust herself?

I was impressed with Holly Black's world-building for The Coldest Girl In Coldtown, bringing a renewed sense of danger and glamour to vampire fiction. There was a classic, pre-Twilight feel to this book, of beauty and horror, and I was not at all surprised to see Anne Rice cited as one of Black's influences in the acknowledgements. The crowds of uninfected humans who made their way to Coldtown, particularly the twins known as Winter and Midnight, repulsed me in their sick fascination for the vampire lifestyle, giving up what it was to be human to be part of the undead fame game - for the gate into Coldtown is, with few exceptions, one way only. Yet they were entirely believable too, liveblogging and videoing every experience, and everyone convinced that they were safe, they were immune, that danger and death were things that happened only to other people. This is vampire fiction for the social media generation.

I read The Coldest Girl In Coldtown as part of Readers Imbibing Peril IX.

Sunday Summaries: Whoops, some books fell on my pile!

Well, here we are at the end of the month and the end (or is it the beginning?) of another week. And what a week it's been: all the jobs squeezed into one day, planned out and then disrupted when The Powers That Be launched a whole load of extra promotions on the very same day. On the last week of the school holidays. Great.

Perhaps because I'm so tired, but I've been not feeling so great about the world this week. Perhaps reading Joe Hill's Horns didn't help my mood. It was an interesting read, and perhaps one that could be used for in-depth philosophical and theological debate if you read it really closely, but I can't in all honesty say that I enjoyed it. When every character we met confesses to terrible, terrible secrets it left a very grim view of the human race, compounded by all the ugliness in the news and on the internet of late.

But enough of the grumbles: I have books! Many books. This week started with a traditionally rainy bank holiday (which seems like such a long time ago now) during which Judith and I made an excursion to the Ryde Bookshop. I'm sure I've talked about that shop before: a small section at the front full of new books, and then a door that leads to a three-story treasure trove of second-hand stock. I came away with three books: Cross Stitch (otherwise known as Outlander, a time-travel romance that has apparently just been turned into a TV series) Foundation,by Isaac Asimov, as I ought to read some more classic science fiction, and Poison Study, which I've been not-buying ever since possibly my first visit to Forbidden Planet in London a decade ago. (Ugh - was it really ten years since I started university? Apparently so.)

Bought new: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, the new novel by Haruki Murakami, whose short story collection The Elephant Vanishes I have just finished reading. And the long-awaited Sarah Waters: The Paying Guests. I cannot wait to get stuck into that one, but may leave it until next week, when I should have three days off together.

And from the library: the eighth volume of Sandman: Worlds' End, which was my favourite volume on my first read-through, This Is What Happy Looks Like (because a title like that's bound to cheer me up, no?) The Coldest Girl In Coldtown which Ellie reviewed quite recently and which I sent as a ninja book swap gift but haven't read myself yet, and a book I'd never heard of but which caught my eye: Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots. 9 books acquired in a week! Oh, well. In part thanks to last week's readathon, I've read a massive 14 books this month, even if three of them were comic books/graphic novels. I have a lot of reviews to write...

Readers Imbibing Peril IX

For the last few years I've been aware of Carl V. Anderson's RIP challenge, and have watched my fellow bloggers spook themselves with books through autumn, and this year I've decided to join in the fun. I'll be going straight in there with Peril the First: the challenge to read four books in the genres of mystery, suspense, thriller, dark fantasy, gothic, horror or other such spine-chilling stories in September and October. I've got several suitable books on my to-read pile, and have selected a shortlist of potential RIP reads (although these are subject to change.)

• Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King
• The Ghost Hunters - Neil Spring
• Weirdo - Cathy Unsworth
• Dream London - Tony Ballantyne
• The Passage - Justin Cronin
• The Coldest Girl In Coldtown - Holly Black
• The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters (a reread)
• The Silkworm - "Robert Galbraith"