I’m so excited to see that Carl V. is hosting yet another R.I.P. Challenge. Isn’t the artwork gorgeous? This year I’m going to go for Peril The First which means I will read four books from any of the categories of Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Gothic, Horror or Dark Fantasy. I typically read a lot of mysteries but for my R.I.P. reads I try to go for more of thrillers and horror books so that I feel a bit more of a challenge. Not sure if that will happen this year but I’ll try.

I’m also going to try and complete Peril of the Short Story. I tend not to read a lot of short stories so this is a good reminder to incorporate more short stories in my reading. I have found some great short stories in The Big Book of Ghost Stories and The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries so I recommend those if you are looking for some short mysterious reads.

The challenge runs to the end of October so let’s see how I do. Now on to my potential reads. It’s always fun to see what’s on the stacks right?

This House is Haunted by John Boyne. A ghost story of a governess and her two charges set in Norfolk in 1867.
The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon. A story of a town of strange disappearances and legends. I know this book has been a favorite with a lot of book bloggers.
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson. From the publisher: Today this is considered a classic work of short fiction, a story remarkable for its combination of subtle suspense and pitch-perfect descriptions of both the chilling and the mundane.
The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood. On a fateful summer morning in 1986, two eleven-year-old girls meet for the first time. By the end of the day, they will both be charged with murder.
The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma. A ghostly story of suspense told in two voices–one still living and one dead.

With these descriptions I sort of feel like I need to read these books in the daytime! Ha. Anyway, I’m very excited about the challenge and can’t wait to start a spooky read. Hope you all have fun!

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” John Muir

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I sort of feel like I “wasted” a lot of my weekend because I felt a bit out of sorts for part of it. Saturday we spent time with friends at a child’s birthday party. After that my husband and I decided we needed a nap to recover. Haha… It was fun to see the kids enjoying themselves but I guess I was just a bit down because our friends are moving away to Sweden. Hopefully we’ll get to visit them next year but still it’s not fun to lose friends is it?

Anyway, then my mom wasn’t feeling all that great and of course that’s hard for me to see. Needless to say, I felt like my weekend was not going in the direction I had planned but this morning despite the dark skies, we went out to the Violet Crown Trail.

We were only there for about an hour but it was great. I could hear lots of birds chirping, saw wildflowers and I realize how much I feel refreshed after being out in nature. The trail had some flat parts but there were also rocky parts, steep parts, curves, a bit of everything. One of the things I liked the most is that it was mainly shaded so even though it was overcast it was nice to have the shade. It was so humid though that we were totally sweating when we got back in the car.

The Violet Crown Trail is very long and we barely got started but it’s not very far from our house so I’m sure we’ll go back again.

In book news, I am happy to report that I did finish two books this weekend. Yay. I think that means I can start a new book tonight. I’ll tell you more about those another time. And, I’m very excited to see Carl V.’s post on the R.I.P. Reading Challenge. I planning my list and will share that in my next post.

Hope you have a great week ahead. Thank goodness for a short work week!