The Red Tree

Do you like Neil Gaiman? Clive Barker? Poppy Z. Brite? H.P. Lovecraft? Good, then you'll like Caitlin Kiernan too. Caitlin's been around for a while, churning out works of primal horror such as Threshold, Silk and Low Red Moon.  She also wrote one of my most favorite Lovecraft inspired short stories: "A Redress For Andromeda" which you really should dig up if you can manage it.

Now she's back with The Red Tree, the story of Sarah, a grieving author who abandons Atlanta for rural Rhode Island, renting a broken down house out in the boonies. When she finds a half finished manuscript in the basement, left behind by the previous owner (who later killed himself) she becomes obsessed - just as he had - with a humungous red oak tree growing on the property. Is the tree Evil Incarnate, or is Sarah just losing her mind? Or both?

I'm not finished with it yet, but I gotta tellya - I have a hard time putting it down at night. It's so melancholy and autumnal (despite its summer setting) and yet crazy intense and downright freaky. Perfect reading for the upcoming Halloween season.