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Book Reviews
She didn't See it comingShari Lapena’s crime fiction moves at a brisk pace, her descriptions of settings and characters economical. Lapena primarily uses the simple present tense to convey her characters’ thoughts and actions. This adds immediacy, allowing the reader...
Zombies in Myth and Folklore: From Mesopotamia to Modern Horror
Descent of Ishtar"Gatekeeper, ho, open thy gate! Open thy gate that I may enter! If thou openest not the gate to let me enter, I will break the door, I will wrench the lock, I will smash the door-posts, I will force the doors. I will bring up the dead to eat the...
The Secrets We Keep: Character Sketch two
The Secrets We KeepIn the seemingly idyllic neighborhood of the Pacific Palisades, some residents harbor secrets that could unravel their lives. Samantha Jackson, a mother of three, is trying to settle into her new home, unaware that her past might collide with her...
Twin Stranger
A doppelganger is a biologically unrelated look-a-like of another person. Many books and movies have been created from the theme of the doppelganger, a German-derived word. In fiction, the doppelganger is often portrayed as an evil twin or a ghostly apparition....
Haunted People Syndrome
Evidence suggests that subjective and objective anomalies associated with ghostly episodes form a unidimensional Rasch scale and that these interconnected “signs or symptoms” arguably describe a syndrome model. Read the article: Conceptual and Clinical Implications of...
Horror That Feeds The Soul
Vampires We Love The vampire is a horror trope that allows the reader to explore otherness and the shadow side of humanity through the psychological aspects of religion and sexuality. Vampires challenge morality and pair well with gothic literature where characters...
Cults I Have Lived In & Cults I Have Visited
In October 1981, I left the Synanon cult with my family, which consisted of my mother, stepfather, and stepsister. We left Synanon with few resources. My mother's father gave us a car he had bought at auction and a thousand dollars to start our new life. We were not...
Cults In History & Literary Fiction
Transcendentalism and Theosophy were popular spiritual and philosophical movements that emerged in fringe circles during the nineteenth century and continued into the early twentieth century. Transcendentalism, inspired by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson,...
Six Great Fiction & Nonfiction Books About Cults
"I told you mothers do not matter here. We are all your mothers. Isn't that better than just having one?" An ordinary weekend becomes surreal when Celena's mother, whom she has not seen for years, returns to claim her. Told that she is going to visit a place called...
The Kidsnatchers
When I was twelve years old, I discovered my mother’s old Kidsnatcher notebook in a pile of papers and books on her bedroom floor. The cheerful-looking binder with a swirly pattern contained a steady stream of correspondence mostly between moms and upper management in...