Read Around the Rainbow • Top 3 Non-Romantic Reads #RAtR

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It’s hard to believe it’s nearly September, but here we are! And, as I’m always impatient for Halloween—and chilly weather—I’m not going to complain. Though, admittedly, I was sad for my kids summer break to end this week.

Normally, I’m thrilled when the kids are back in school, so I’m not sure what is going on there. LOL.

This month Read Around the Rainbow has decided to talk about our top three non-romance reads. I’m always up for talking books, but narrowing a list of beloved books down to three seemed an impossible task. To make it easier, I thought I’d give myself a few ground rules.

1) No Charles Dickens. Everyone loves Charles Dickens.

2) No Comics. It already goes without saying that if Neil Gaiman’s the Sandman didn’t already shape your teenage years, you need to find the issues—or pickup up the collections—and read it now.

3) No using the same author twice.

With those rules in place, and eventually breaking down and telling myself it doesn’t have to be the end all and be all book list, just a list, and stop putting so much pressure on myself, I began.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

I can’t praise Shirley Jackson enough. The woman has a way with atmosphere and subtle storytelling, and The Haunting of Hill House is a masterpiece. I have read it many times, and still, I can read it and notice something I have missed in previous reads.

As far as haunted house stories go, I think it is probably the best I’ve read, and you can see the book’s influence on so many other works.

Oh, and if you are all about film adaptations, this story has been done more than once. And the 1963’s The Haunting is the closest to the book.

Check it out on Goodreads.

Check it out on Amazon.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Yeah, yeah. I know. But this is one of my favorite books of all time. So much so that I own several copies, including one signed by the author.

Like Sandman, I read it the first time in my twenties shortly after it came out in 2001, and it is so much of what I love and perfectly done. (I love Anansi Boys too, but it is very, very different.)

Gaiman has a way of writing with just enough reality mixed in with myths that you almost feel like the story he is telling is somehow real. Like he’s letting you in on this secret reality. While there are authors that I read and love and that make me long to write, reading Gaiman has always had the opposite effect. He makes me feel like I don’t need to bother. LOL

And yes, I know there is a TV mini-series. I haven’t seen it, but maybe eventually I will. I always fear an adaptation will ruin it for me, but now that I’ve watched the Sandman adaptations and loved it, I’m less hesitant. LOL

Check it out on Goodreads.

Check it out on Amazon.


Dracula by Bram Stoker

Of course! Dracula is a favorite for a lot of people, and it’s one of mine. But I actually finally settled on this last pick because it took years, and countless rereads for me to appreciate this book.

I’m not sure what it was. Maybe it was like my dislike for Hammer Horror in my twenties, and then suddenly being utterly enamored by their movies in my thirties. Perhaps it was because I refused to believe all these people had never heard of vampires—not considering that it was Stoker who brought vampires into the mainstream—or maybe it was that Van Helsing doesn’t use his words! Dude! Just tell them what you think is going on! Lucy was just munching on a baby FFS!

Whatever it was, now I really enjoy this book. And it’s become one of those things I read every year—like a Christmas Carol but I’m not supposed to talk about Dickens—and I enjoy it all over again, each time.

Check it out on Goodreads.

Check it out on Amazon.

There you go! Three of my top non-romance reads. Check them out or share some of yours. And don’t forget to check in with the other Read Around the Rainbow authors. I plan to. And I’ll be taking notes!

You can check out the other Read Around the Rainbow authors by clicking their names below!

See you next month!

New Release • The Twelve Coffins of Dr. Coffin

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The Twelve Coffins of Dr. Coffin in now available from JMS Books!

The Twelve Coffins of Dr. Coffin

Blurb

When Leo Wayland accepts a job as head of the new horror unit at Maiden Studios, he knows what is expected. Make cheap movies that earn their money back fast. It doesn't matter that he dislikes horror. He just needs to escape his assistant director's position at a rival studio.

But he didn't expect to be assigned a terrible title and a leading man, all before he even had a script, or that his leading man would be Everett Reid, the actor who rejected a very young Leo’s advances, only to disappear from movies altogether a few years later in a cloud of scandal.

Everett Reid will do anything for a chance to get back the career he lost and away from teaching at a theater camp for children. And if it means working with Leo Wayland again, he can do that too. Especially now that Leo is all grown up and not so untouchable.

With only three weeks, a flamboyant stage actor, twelve scantily clad women, and a sound stage full of coffins may not seem like the makings of something great. But really, that all depends on what you are hoping for.

M/M 1950s Hollywood/ 13143 words

 Buy Links: JMS Book • Amazon • Universal Buy Link

Excerpt

Everett let himself into the house and tossed the mail on the entry table already cluttered with bills. They’d been piling up the last few weeks since the money had finally run out.

Besides his ‘55 Corvette, the small bungalow nestled at the base of the hills was all that was left of nearly twenty years of work. It was enough to crush him if he let it.

He stared at the decanter left on the table from the night before when he and Taylor had toasted his contract with Maiden. But his brother had always been more of a drinker than he had. He didn’t want a drink. He wanted to fall into bed for a night of dreamless sleep.

He flipped the switch to the back patio light and pressed his head against the glass, watching the first drops of rain disturb the mirror-like surface of the pool.

It didn’t rain much in LA, but whenever it did, it reminded him of the years growing up down south with his mother and Taylor.

He unlatched the door, slid it open, and kicked out of his loafers as he pulled his shirt over his head. By the time he stood at the edge of the pool, he’d stripped completely, and dove in without hesitation.

It had yet to cool down much from the exceedingly hot day, but as Everett swam laps, the rain pelted him, hard and cold.

He swam back and forth, gliding almost soundlessly through the water, letting go of the day and clearing his mind. He ignored the tug at his thoughts of Leo Wayland and the memories they tried to conjure up. Ignored the chirp of crickets, and the distant hint of laughter from the houses on either side of his. He ignored everything until streaks of lightning across the sky forced him to drag himself out of the water again and go searching for a towel.

He left a trail of wet footprints back into the house, like the ghost of a murdered fisherman, through the living room and finally into his bedroom and the attached bath, where he grabbed one the of the white fluffy towels Steven had picked out when they had first moved in together. Before Steven had broken up with him the first time, the second time, and the third. Before Steven had come back that last time, needing a friend and someone to care for him as he worked through whatever he had to work through.

Everett had never understood what that was. Not at the time, and no better now, all these years later. It was enough to know that Steven had been unhappy, that Everett couldn’t make him happy, no matter how hard he had tried, continued to try, even when all he wanted was to move on and find his own happiness.

Once he was dry, he pulled on a pair of briefs and studied his reflection in the mirror. There’d be no more wrangling children at theater camp, or being flirted with by their mothers. Not this summer anyway. This summer he’d be back in front of the camera, doing what he loved.

Everett Reid had done his penance and now he was going to grab some happiness for himself.