Title: Supervision
Author: Alison Stine
Genre: Paranormal, Young Adult
Release Date: April 9, 2015
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Summary:Something is wrong with Esmé.
Kicked out of school in New York, she’s sent to live with her grandmother in a small Appalachian town. But something is wrong with the grandmother Ez hasn’t seen for years; she leaves at midnight, carrying a big black bag. Something is wrong with her grandmother’s house, a decrepit mansion full of stray cats, stairs that lead to nowhere, beds that unmake themselves. Something is wrong in the town where a kid disappears every year, where a whistle sounds at night but no train arrives.
And something is wrong with the cute and friendly neighbor Ez’s age with black curls and ice-blue eyes: He’s dead.
1. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Although there are no specific ghosts in this book (one of my favorites from childhood), characters are haunted by the past. And the setting, the spooky, foggy moors of rural England, is definitely a character: a ghost in itself.
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Anything set on the moors is scary for me, really.
3. Dr. Who. Space ghosts! I love the original and I love the re-boot, though I am really ready for a more diverse Doctor.
4. “The Specialist’s Hat” in the book Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link. This is the one of the scariest short stories I have ever read. It’s so atmospheric. Link tells just enough to be terrifying. This story inspired a scene with a kitchen chimney in SUPERVISION…
5. The Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling.
6. Supernatural. I am very much behind on this show, but whenever it’s on I watch it, even though I currently have no idea what’s going on. I once watched it in German on a hotel TV in London. I don’t speak German. It was still pretty good.
7. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of my all-time favorites.
8. The Others. I have never jumped so hard out of fear as I did while watching this movie. Of course my boyfriend at the time sneaking up on me from behind as I sat alone, riveted by the film, probably didn’t help.
9. The Blossom Culp books by Richard Peck (Ghosts I Have Been, The Ghost Belonged to Me, the Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp etc.) Peck was an early influence on me—I met him when I was in high school—and I love re-reading all his books. His prose is so crisp you can eat it, and his characters are very real. There’s a little bit of the tough Blossom in the lead character of SUPERVISION, Esme Wong.
10. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. I first read this one very hot summer and could not stop shivering...
ALISON STINE’s first novel SUPERVISION will be released by Harper Voyager UK in 2015.
Also the author of three books of poetry: WAIT (University of Wisconsin Press, 2011), OHIO VIOLENCE (University of North Texas Press, 2009), and LOT OF MY SISTER (Kent State University Press, 2001), she has worked as an actor, an artist’s model, a high school teacher, and a professor. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Ohio University, and is an avid urban explorer.
Thanks for being on the tour, Heather! OMG The Others is one of my fav horror movies ever! That was such an awesome twist, too! I'm also a big fan of Supernatural but I loved it way more during the first 5 seasons, after that it kind of went downhill I find.
ReplyDeletelove the list you give
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