RIP Challenge

The excitement of fall always starts to get to me around this time.  The cooling weather, the comfortable sweatshirts, the changing leaves . . . and with that comes Halloween.  I’m not generally one to read holiday books, with the exception of Halloween.  Every fall, I’ll begin reading some scary, creepy books or stories in preparation.  So when I saw the R.I.P. IV challenge here http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/?p=1132#more-1132, I had to take the bait.  The challenge runs from September 1-October 31 and the neat thing about the challenge is that it’s very relaxed.  Instead of being restrictive, it lets the reader choose his or her own pace.  I plan on participating in the Peril the Second, where I’ll read two scary books between today and Halloween.  I am also planning on dabbling in Short Story Peril, because I have two anthologies of scary stories that I meant to read last year and didn’t get around to.  They’re both pretty large, so I won’t get very far, but I figured it would be fun to read a short story or two every week and then feature them in my Sunday Salon.

The criteria for the genre of the books featured in this challenge are as follows:

Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

Jennifer from www.theliteratehousewife.com gave me the idea to add The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, to my list.  I’ve had it on my TBR pile for ages and haven’t read it yet, so it’s time.  I think The Physick Book of Deliverence Dane, by Katherine Howe would also be a good choice.  I’ll have to mull this over for a few days and come up with a good list of books to choose from.