As a child, growing up in New York as a first generation Greek-American, my family believed in the power of storytelling. My family embraced both classic Greek mythology and village folklore as words to live by. I learned how transformative storytelling can be. It transformed me as a child, finding solace in freedom in reading, and formed the foundation for my career as an actress and writer.
My new book, The House in the Middle of the Street, is my winter Gothic tale about a house, its occupants, and a yearly visit made by a boy and a girl on New Year’s Eve. It's a setting where magic and myth rule. The stories below spoke to me about the mystery that surrounds us all.
I absolutely fell in love with this tragic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.
When I was around 8 years old, my Uncle gifted me The Classic Collection of Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales. I devoured the book and its beautiful illustrations. I still have it!
So many of Andersen’s stories are legendary, like "The Little Mermaid” and “The Snow Queen,” and are all revised nowadays through Disney with sweetened, wrapped-in-a-red-bow endings. Yet, the original tales that I read, and could not get enough of, have brutal ends that mark the realities of humanity in their extremes.
The Little Match Girl brings you into the world of a desolate, poor young girl on New Year’s Eve. She struggles to stay warm, walking the cold pavement barefoot in hopes of selling matches to bring money home to her cruel father. She becomes so cold on that night, she takes the chance to strike one of the matches she is to sell for a bit of fleeting warmth from the flame. The night is filled with dreams and nightmares until the end comes.
It is a tale not to be missed. It conjures up in me basic human needs for love, warmth, and a little magic when all is for naught.
Features fantastic and eye-popping modern art--a truly novel approach to such a classic story. - A great book for art collectors and Hans Christian Anderson fans.
Oh, what a delightfully chilling and decadent tale written by one of the most celebrated female gothic writers of the 20th century.
Carter leads us into the manor of a wealthy and powerful businessman who has recently been widowed, yet has chosen to take another young bride quite quickly. As he guides his new wife through each luxurious room at his estate, she is devoured by all its opulence and given the keys to each room. She may roam and play wherever she desires and conduct herself as she wishes, save for the one key to the one room that is forbidden.
A modern and mysterious take on the classic Greek myth, Pandora’s Box, with echoes of “The Robber Bridegroom” by The Brothers Grimm. It is a delicious read.
Discover Angela Carter's classic feminist retelling of favourite fairy tales interwoven by a master of seductive, luminous storytelling.
From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.
'Magnificent set pieces of fastidious sensuality' Ian McEwan
'A quirky, original, and baroque stylist' Margaret Atwood
Featuring an introduction from award-winning short story writer Helen Simpson
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
In this magnificent genre, Diane Setterfield brings a lightness to the spells and spooks of generational trauma. I love how she gives homage to the need to write through her two main characters, both writers hiding personal truths and harboring demons that they express through their storytelling.
Margaret, a young biographer, is beckoned by Vida Winters, a famous and reclusive author, to join her at her mysterious estate and begin to interview her, record, and write her life story. The two writers open doors, real and imagined, that blow out the cobwebs and ignite old, dangerous fires that belong to the past.
It is written with such warmth, unsettling darkness, and generous color. I wanted to take days off to just sit and finish this book in a marathon read….it was so engaging, satisfying, and fluid.
'Simply brilliant' Kate Mosse, international bestselling author of Labyrinth
***
Everybody has a story...
Angelfield House stands abandoned and forgotten.
It was once home to the March family: fascinating, manipulative Isabelle; brutal, dangerous Charlie; and the wild, untamed twins, Emmeline and Adeline. But the house hides a chilling secret which strikes at the very heart of each of them, tearing their lives apart...
Now Margaret Lea is investigating Angelfield's past, and its mysterious connection to the enigmatic writer Vida Winter. Vida's history is mesmering - a tale of ghosts, governesses, and gothic strangeness. But as Margaret succumbs to the power…
This is said to be published in 1740 and holds close to 500 supernatural stories in its collection dating back to the Qing Dynasty.
My son has a love for ancient Chinese history and its legends, both historic and mystical. This is one of the collections I discovered through him.
These Chinese classics let me experience what daily life might have been in this time period while weaving a remarkable landscape of mythical creatures and spirits that communicate with the humans of the day. Like all lasting fairy tales, it offers, in gorgeous poetic style, the themes of justice, corruption, and love.
These stories always address the challenges of their world and leave a moral to consider. Humanity, then and now, is certainly recognizable.
The Strange Tales of Pu Songling (1640-1715) are exquisite and amusing miniatures that are regarded as the pinnacle of classical Chinese fiction. With their elegant prose, witty wordplay and subtle charm, the 104 stories in this selection reveal a world in which nothing is as it seems. Here a Taoist monk conjures up a magical pear tree, a scholar recounts his previous incarnations, a woman out-foxes the fox-spirit that possesses her, a child bride gives birth to a thimble-sized baby, a ghostly city appears out of nowhere and a heartless daughter-in-law is turned into a pig. In his tales of…
Singularity Channel viewers may recognize Hollywood actress Shiloh Rush who plays Ensign Tara Guard in the sci-fi TV series Bulwark, but nobody knows Shiloh is leading a double life.
Haunted by the mysterious disappearance of her beloved older brother, Shiloh hopes to track him down by following in his footsteps…
This is one of my favorite stories from Gaiman who I absolutely revere.
His style is a perfect whimsical blend of mythological fairy tales with the insightful science fiction grit and truth-telling of Rod Sterling’s "Twilight Zone” tales.
This particular story of Gaiman’s ushered me into this world with its poetic rhythm. A man returns to his childhood home and meets a girl named Lettie and her family. It felt like I stepped into a world where all things are possible, a homecoming is at hand, filled with the threat of danger and the loss of self. As the man remembers his past, he travels through time and crosses between our world and a darker one that brings terror as well as an understanding and protection.
It’s a beautiful story that informs my writing and deepens my love for a modern fairy tale.
A brilliantly imaginative and poignant fairy tale from the modern master of wonder and terror, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is Neil Gaiman's first new novel for adults since his #1 New York Times bestseller Anansi Boys.
This bewitching and harrowing tale of mystery and survival, and memory and magic, makes the impossible all too real...
Welcome to The House in the Middle of the Street, my gothic tale of inheritance, secrets, and the creatures we invite into our lives.
When Rebecca and her husband inherit a stately old home, they imagine it as the perfect place to build their family. But as the seasons turn, shadowy visitors begin to arrive—children who aren't what they seem, guests with appetites beyond bread. Bound by ancestral debts and ancient instructions, they're drawn into a haunting cycle that captures their will and offers them a face-to-face look at their personal demons. It is a cautionary tale reminding us of the cost paid when we forget that if and when you hear a sturdy knocking at your front door, it is wise to be selective just whom you invite in.
Wishes are dangerous. They can bring you a night out, a gown, even a pair of slippers. Or something you never should have wished for in the first place.
After the royal wedding, the girl in the glass slippers has everything she ever wanted: an escape from a life of…
Hope, Laughter, Survival on the Refugee Trail
by
Eileen Kay,
Dramatic true story with a wacky sense of humor.
Retired English teacher in Budapest meets foreign medical students fleeing the war in Ukraine, producing a sweet and unlikely friendship, spicy soup, and wicked joking. A sense of humor, however dark, can keep us from despair.
