The Legacy, by John Coyne, is a mixture of an Agatha Christie whodunnit, as members of a house party are knocked off one by one, and an occult thriller. It’s not always clear how much of the menace is due to dark magic or just plain old greed, as six people have been elected to inherit a legacy — of vast wealth, property, and possibly, supernatural power. Coyne wrote the novel as a tie-in to the successful film starring Katharine Ross and Sam Elliot (and […]
Bad blood carries. Bad blood comes out.
CBR10Bingo: The Book Was Better? This was another square I struggled to fill, until a flash of inspiration hit me. I remembered that I had bought Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden on a whim several months ago but never actually watched it, giving me the perfect excuse to buy and read Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and then finally watch the film. Done and done. Sue was born in a cramped house of thieves and orphaned when her mother was hanged for murder. Mrs. Sucksby has raised […]
A Familiar Scent Rose Up Into the Air, and I Remembered Something Special From a Long Time Ago
Rebecca is atmospheric, spooky, and sometimes downright scary. In it, our unnamed narrator meets the handsome widower Maxim de Winter while in Monte Carlo. They build a sort of friendship which eventually leads to a marriage (there’s no romance involved, as far as I can see), and he takes her back to his estate, Manderley. There she learns more about his first wife Rebecca, who was drowned in a sailing accident, and struggles to find her place as the head of the household. Her problems […]
Wonderful, Lyrical, Practical Magic
I saw the movie Practical Magic with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman quite a few years ago. It’s one of those movies that I wanted to be better than it was — it seemed to have so much potential, but it just didn’t work, even with the wonderful Aidan Quinn as Bullock’s love interest. I have been in the mood lately, Halloween coming up I guess, to read some witch-related books, so even though I didn’t love the movie I had heard good things about […]