When the Ghost is Unseen: Finding Fantasy in Mainstream Fiction
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When I browse the SF and Fantasy section at my local Barnes & Noble every Saturday, I usually return home with a handful of intriguing finds. There’s certainly no shortage of books to choose from, and more showing up every week.
One thing I miss in my book hunts, however, is the thrill of the unknown. When I settle into my big green chair with a new horror novel, I know there’s a monster hiding somewhere. That’s the one drawback of always shopping in the genre section: you know the ghost will pop out by chapter five.
That’s why I like to spice up my reading by browsing in the gothic mystery section (my wife Alice’s favorite section). Is there a spook, or isn’t there? Often you don’t know until the end of the book (and sometimes not even then), and that adds a delicious element of mystery. Here’s a quick rundown of three delightful gothic mysteries I recently added to my collection.
(I’ve decided to again delay my ongoing series of essays about C.S. Lewis, for a number of reasons. As it happens, though, there’s another piece I’ve been meaning to write for a while. So here it is.)
