Dorothy Cannell: I’m looking forward to attending this year’s Malice Domestic in a few weeks and browsing around the book room will as always be a big treat.  Knowing I’ll come home with a loaded bag (or more likely bags) of purchases, I have in this last month gone around my bookcases scanning for books I’ve had for thirty plus years that I could bring myself to part with.  The result as so often happens is that I’ve been on a rereading binge and still have two piles on my dining room table.  Whether any will leave home and make their way in the world avoiding dumpsters as they go forth is debatable, especially as they all look the worse for age with yellowed complexions.  Also, a majority are gothics whose time would seem to have come and gone.  Here’s a sampling:

Jill Tattersall – The Shadows of Castle Fosse, Chanters Chase

Dorothy Daniels – Portrait of a Witch

Victoria Holt – Mistress of Mellyn, Kirkland Revels

Dorothy Eden – Winterwood, Cat’s Prey, The Pretty Ones

Dorothy Macardle – The Uninvited

Brian Cleeve – Hester

Rae Foley – Dark Intent

Anne Maybury – The Pavilion at Monkshood

Velda Johnston – The House on Bostwick Square

Madeleine Brent – Merlin’s Keep, Moonraker’s Bride, Tregaron’s Daughter

Joan Aiken – The Weeping Ash, Castle Barebane

Charlotte Armstrong – Lay On, Mac Duff

Dorothy Gilman – The Tightrope Walker

Mary Elgin – A Man from the Mist

Paul Gallico – Too Many Ghosts

Phyllis Whitney – The Red Carnelian

The above catch me at a sentimental moment.  I recently visited my younger son in Arizona and on leaving and returning to Maine I didn’t see one person within sight at the airport holding, let alone reading, a hardcover or paperback book.  They were all on their phones or tablets.  I love eBooks and am hugely grateful to everyone who reads me that way, but there is something wondrous about turning the page, however, yellowed wrinkled or stained – preferably with coffee – not blood.

Happy reading,

                                       Dorothy