HOLIDAY SPIRIT

DeGuire presents a spooky tale of an aging witch embarking on a mission of vengeance in a town in rural Vermont that’s rife with horrors.

At the opening of this debut novel, elderly Bridgett Bishop is living a quiet existence in the town of Killington, Vermont. It’s Halloween, and her community has no idea that she’s a real-deal witch, descended from witches from Salem, Massachusetts. She feels lonely and isolated, so she decides to finally get into the holiday spirit by putting out high-quality candy and hanging decorations to attract visitors. However, when trick-or-treaters do arrive, they don’t take the candy, but instead egg Bridgett and her house, fleeing and laughing as she tries to gather herself up from the floor. Hurt and enraged, Bridgett treats the next trick-or-treater very differently, snatching the solitary young boy out of the darkness. Meanwhile, Count Dracula and his companion, Aoife, live secretly in the morgue at the local St. Mary’s hospital, and are assisted in their day-to-day lives by Noah and Connor, a couple who own a local rare bookstore. The pair even save Dracula and Aoife from the pitchforks of an angry mob through a clever bit of espionage. The town offers an array of sinister knowledge and objects which Bridgett can use to carry out her mission of revenge, as she soon turns to none other than Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for “prescriptions” before breaking into the local museum to reanimate the mummy of Anubis, among other Egyptian gods. As the town devolves into fear and panic, it seems clear that the local flock of monsters will soon rule the roost.

DeGuire has selected the perfect locale for an autumnal holiday tale, and he knows how to capture its famous pastoral appeal with a hint of spookiness: “The swooping mass of swarming birds morphed into graceful shapes at first, but then the images became more sinister and familiar. A hideous skeletal face, a jack-o-lantern, and a ghoul that would give Edvard Munch pause.” There’s quite a bit going on in these pages, as disparate legends and mythologies overlap and collide in rapid succession; not only witches and vampires, but also werewolves and even Frankenstein’s monster make appearances, all coming together in a sort of royal rumble of malevolent fictional figures. Although this arrangement requires significant suspension of disbelief from readers, it is likely, given it squarely falls within the horror genre, that most of the intended audience will enjoy seeing the likes of Count Dracula and a New England witch on the same page. There are some times when DeGuire moves a bit too quickly from character to character without giving readers time to properly settle in; this is especially true in the case of Bridgett, whose character might have benefited from a bit more pathos and introspection. Still, the author’s approach results in a pace that keeps the pages turning at a satisfying clip, and readers are apt to wing their way through to the end.

A creepy and often exciting novel featuring timeless legends and lore in small-town America.