(Image by Abigail Larson)

2015 has been the year of the reading challenge – first Kerry’s BlumeAlong, then Adam’s Austen in August, and now I’m back to it, recapping my first time participating in the deliciously chilling R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril event.  This is the tenth year of R.I.P., but the first time I’m partaking, and there’s a simple reason for that – I’m a gigantic wimp and I really don’t go for scary books, as a rule.  But I’m trying to expand my readerly horizons, and I figured this Halloween would be a good chance to try a spooky read or two.  I started out more on the sweet end of spooky, with Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula, an adorable graphic novel of romance among the undead.  Then I upped the ante significantly and scared myself senseless with David Mitchell’s haunted house tale, Slade House.

 Decomposia – Dee, to her friends, if she had friends – is the Princess of the Underworld, and being Princess of the Underworld is a tough job, y’all.  Dee’s father, King Wulfrun, is beyond useless, and Dee finds herself running the kingdom all by her lonesome.  She spends her days juggling piles of paperwork, solving everyone else’s problems, and never finding time to eat.  But all that changes when the palace chef quits – driven out, finally, by the king’s obnoxiously faddy dietary demands – and Dee has to hire a new chef, on the double.  Enter Count Spatula, a vampire with a sweet tooth and a heart of gold.  Count Spatula discovers that poor overworked Dee hasn’t had time for even a cup of tea in who knows how long, and he makes it his mission to make sure the princess is well fed.  Soon the Count’s whimsical desserts are winning over crotchety foreign dignitaries, and Dee herself is a new woman. Of course, King Wulfrun is horrified when he discovers that his daughter has been fraternizing with a vampire chef – but is the king really motivated by his daughter’s welfare, or is he just worried that with everything changing in the palace, he’s going to have to get off his lazy duff and actually govern his kingdom?

This middle grade graphic novel was sweet, funny and cute.  Dee is a darling and Count Spatula is a kindhearted, charming vampire.  (Matthew de Clermont, take notice!)  I loved the art, and the desserts that Count Spatula dreams into reality look and sound magnificent.  Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula was a great way to begin the spooky season and would make a perfect Halloween reading choice for someone – like me – who can’t stomach much in the way of fright or gore.  There’s no screams here – just sugar.

In a nondescript back alley, down the street from a pub called “The Fox and Hounds,” there is a small iron door.  It’s not there for everyone, nor does it appear anytime you might look for it.  You can only find the door once every nine years, on the Saturday before Halloween.  That’s when someone special – someone with a gift – will be invited into Slade House, to wander the gardens and view the wonders inside and out.  But what really happens in the house?  As the publisher’s blurb perfectly put it: “For those who find out, it’s already too late.”

Scared yet?  So I had a feeling this book was going to terrify me… but I really, really wanted to read it.  I think that David Mitchell is fantastically talented.  I loved his modern classic, Cloud Atlas.  (And I’ve still not gotten to his recent novel The Bone Clocks.  Soon.  Really soon.)  Slade House is his take on the classic haunted house novel.  It’s a short book, but packed full of Mitchell’s prodigious imagination.  (Apparently it’s also set in the same “fictional universe” as The Bone Clocks.  You can read Slade House as a standalone work – it holds up – but I hear that reading The Bone Clocks first would have been helpful.  I did not, but now I want to read The Bone Clocks and then revisit Slade House to see what I missed the first time around.)  I pre-ordered Slade House because it was released on October 27th, and I knew that if I got on the library’s wait list there was no way I’d have it in time for Halloween.  (Yes, I decided to read a haunted house novel in time for Halloween.  I’m either a complete cliche, or an idiot.  Or both.)  So… Slade House lived up to its promise of being absolutely terrifying.  (For me.  Like I said, I am a gigantic wimp, so what scares the bejeezes out of me is probably, like, Tuesday for you.)  I read it in twenty-four hours, over the course of just a couple of sittings, and it kept me awake half the night.  It’s weird and creepy and… I just got a chill down my spine even writing this review.  If you’re into the paranormal, or just good writing and a rich imagination, Slade House doesn’t disappoint.  (And even though it’s not Halloween anymore, pick it up.  It would make great reading for a dark November night – and you will probably worry less than I did, knowing that I was reading it on the day before the door was scheduled to appear…)

Happy belated Halloween, you guys.  Did you read anything scary this year?  After Slade House I’m still sleeping with the lights on…