Page 26 - Masala Lite Issue 190 October 2026

26 MASALA’S BOOK CLUB

Spooky

Season Slay

BY APOORVA MAHAJAN AND
GRACE CLARKE

here’s a Lana Del Rey song which goes by the lyrics of ‘…
must be the season of the witch.’ As September fades and
October rises, the cryptids and creepy-crawlies come
out to play. Ghosts, demons, werewolves, vampires, oh my!
That is, of course, if you believe in that sort of thing. Some
of us prefer our horror on the page where our imagination
is free to quell any nightmare that gets out of bounds and
will prevent a good night’s sleep. All this talk of horror has
us wondering… where are the women? So much of horror
revolves around men and the women are reduced to plot
devices or spectral sightings. This spooky season, Masala
turns the volume up on female voices in horror.
GRACE’S PICKS
APOORVA’S PICKS
The Burnings by Himanjali Sankar
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito If you’re a fan of haunted houses or the terror of a first love that refuses to stay in the

In the vein of Henry James’ classic short story The Turn of the Screw, Virginia Feito past, flip through this gothic mystery. When our main character Shalini is summoned

crafts a world of governesses, bratty Victorian children, and a gloomy English estate. to the crumbling ancestral mansion of her former love, Akshar, she finds him broken,

As Victorian Psycho runs its course, our final girl Winifred Notty battles not just the stiff hermitting away, and surrounded by secrets. As time passes, she begins to notice

upper lip of the house she serves but haunting visions and nightmarish compulsions something darker seems to be stirring within the home. Atmospheric and wonderfully
which all come to a head on Christmas Day. Ho, Ho, Ho, indeed. eerie, this is one for anyone who likes their love stories, chilling not stirred.
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill Grey Dog by Elliott Gish
Occasionally lauded as the queen of the classic English ghost story, perhaps the Real or fa-ke? This protagonist would sure love to know. Head into the woods of
most famous of Susan Hill’s works is The Woman in Black which has been adapted 1901, where nothing is quite as innocent as it first appears. Follow Ada Byrd as she

for both stage and screen (including an adaptation with Daniel Radcliffe in 2012). arrives in a small farming town hoping for a fresh start, only to encounter a series

The story is relatively simple, following a small English town which is haunted by a of disturbing signs like dying crickets, mutilated animals, and a strange creature she
mysterious spectre. We cannot give away any more details. You’ll just have to crack names the “grey dog”. As the woods begin to capture her attention, so too does the
open the pages for yourself and see. question of what is real and what might be a product of her own past.

MASALA LITE ISSUE 190 - OCTOBER 202 6