Welcome to our last Ask the Author – Spooky Edition!

To celebrate Halloween, we’ve been asking a whole host of spooky authors some fun questions surrounding the season and how they’d spend it with their characters! As we all know the powerful magic of things that come in threes, this will be your third and final instalment… We hope you’ve enjoyed the feature and found a horrifying new read to keep you up at night!

Week One | Week Two

Which of your characters would you stay in a haunted house with?

Tamara Alzin, that witch queen would protect me and be fabulous whilst doing it.

– George Morris De’Ath | The Haunting at Morsley Manor

Mei from Under the Whispering Door. Since she’s a reaper, she could help all the ghosts find their rightful rest, and if there were ghosts that tried to give us any shit, she’d put them in her place. Also, she would make fun of me when I screamed, so there’s that.

– TJ Klune | In the Lives of Puppets

Ha! John Varley would make any haunted house ghoul shrink back in terror. As long as he was on my side, I’d open any door, yell down any stairwell I wanted.

– Keith Rosson | Coffin Moon

Valentina  because she would throw a party and invite all the ghosts.

– V. Castro | The Pink Agave Motel

Hal seems like someone who could pull off a successful demon summoning, séance, and/or opening of a portal to a hell dimension. Maybe too successful. It will all be fun and games to begin with, but the evening – and Hal – will get progressively creepier. I will hit my threshold for existential dread long before she does, flee the house screaming, and spend the rest of my days tormented by nightmares of my glimpse into the lightless abyss. The ultimate haunted house experience.

– Danielle Knight | A Rather Vengeful Accord

Old Jacob from ITCH! He’s full of stories and knows how to make a decent fire to keep warm by, plus he isn’t phased by the supernatural, he loves it, so he’d be a comforting presence.

– Gemma Amor | ITCH!

Pelham Salazar is Evie’s brother, a medical doctor who takes a rationalist perspective. He starts out arguing with Evie who is more open to the reality of the occult. But as danger escalates, he’s forced to question whether the dark powers that threaten his family can be explained by rational means. He would be the ideal person to take to a haunted house, sceptical but open-minded. The early twentieth century was a time of new scientific methods and experiments to investigate the existence of psychic phenomena and the supernatural. Pelham would use the latest investigative techniques to test for the presence of ghosts. It wouldn’t be easy to fool him, and if he establishes that the ghostly presences are real, he would be level-headed and resourceful in meeting any danger

– Marisa Linton | Circle of Shadows

I’d stay in a haunted house with Dr. Richard Mason, he of the underbelly of the dark CIA in a time of war. Why? He’s not just a trained Agency special operator who’ll know how to handle himself in a haunted house. He’s also a scientist. An evil scientist, but still a damn good one. He’s most likely to puzzle out how we escape the house in the first place… and afterwards, maybe, how to bottle that haunted spirit up and unleash it in weaponized form… 

– Michael Nayak, author of Sentient, Book two of the Ice Plague Wars series

My main character, Dolores. As a forensic pathologist, she’s seen too much of death to be impressed by haunted places. When you spend your days elbow-deep in viscera, you’re probably vaccinated against the fear of ghosts and other postmortem manifestations. In a haunted house, Dolores and I would spend the evening playing boardgames by the fireside, and if a ‘CRACK’ sounded from the attic, she’d have a scientific explanation. ‘Probably a stray cat that got in through the window.’ And if a real ghost did swing by to say hello, all the better. She would question him about the biological underpinnings of life-after-death in such detail, he’d crawl back six feet under before I had time to say hocus-pocus. Dolores Diaz definitely isn’t the kind to lose her head over haunted houses. Except—naturally—if the house is her own mind, and her traumatic past is doing the haunting.

– Rachel Louise Adams | No Rest for the Wicked

Beautiful Nora Berisha, the youngest member of the Berisha family, is one you’d want to bring with you to a haunted house, no question. She has the cool-head-under-pressure that you want in a companion when strange things start going off all around you.

– Alma Katsu | Fiend

When you’re writing short stories, you can put a ghost in just about anything and everything… so in my story collection ACQUIRED TASTE, we’ve got haunted hammers, haunted phone booths, haunted… baby carrots. So the idea of staying with any of my characters inside or around any of these spaces is a tough call… That said, the mother-narrator from my story “stay on the line” might be my pick, because she seems to handle her supernatural situation in the most appropriate fashion.

– Clay McLeod Chapman | Acquired Taste

Since Dez from Guillotine survived her weekend on the Island based solely on wits, tenacity, and fury at the excesses and cruelties of abusive billionaires, I reckon she would bring that same rebellious spunk to a haunted house. Whether you give her a hoe crusted in drying concrete, a pizza shovel, or a single high-heeled shoe, she would not listen to any whining from wealthy spectres but would hack and slash her way out the door.

– Delilah S. Dawson | Guillotine

Definitely Lenore Evans. Sure, some of the other Evans women might be flashier monster-fighters and ghost-whisperers, but Lenore would show up laced with knives, a thermos of hot coffee “for the nerves,” and an itemized survival plan annotated in red ink. She’s the type who already knows where every exit is and has a contingency for every “what if.” If I’m going to bed down in a haunted house, I want my odds stacked—and Lenore’s the one who’d stack them high, then guards the pile until morning.

– Lindy Ryan | Another Fine Mess

Llewyn. 100%. He spent decades as a hunter of the weird and dangerous and knows his way around a haunting. The second best choice would be Fola, but she would try too hard to empathize with the ghosts and focus more on solving their unfinished business rather than surviving, which might wind up getting me killed.

– J.T. Greathouse | The Tower of the Tyrant

Pel, definitely. He would be an absolute nightmare and complain a lot but his family history is, literally, built on ghosts. He’d know what to do (and wouldn’t shut up about it)

– Sam K Horton | Gorse

Rachel – she’s voluntarily possessed by a poltergeist, so she’d be able to make nice with all the other ghosties.

– Lucy Lehane | Thirsty

Ruying would be great fun in a haunted house because she would pretend she’s not scared but cling to me the whole time.

– Molly X. Chang | To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods and The Nightblood Prince

Beau. She wouldn’t gaslight me into believing the weird sounds/voices aren’t just because the house is old. She’d definitely be able to detect any entities with her ability to see auras.

-Rachel Schneider | Metal Slinger

I’d like to say Tim because as a still handsome zombie handcuffed to a radiator he really does deserve a day out. Plus I’d like to think I’d get extra brownie points for bringing a real-life undead companion with me to make the haunted house’s chills that bit more authentic. I could sell tickets.

– Leigh Radford | One Yellow Eye

Millicent Derby. She has a very sharp tongue and would find wailing ghosts terribly gauche. After the first haunting, I think they’d slink off and leave us alone.

– Stuart Turton | The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Dawn, for sure. Having once fought in a violent occupation commonly miscalled a war, he knows a thing or two about hauntings. The man can smell a poltergeist from half a mile away, and if he comes equipped with his pest controlaccoutrements, I can really see the night turning into a delightful kind of Ghostbusters situation. If not, I’m fairly sure he’s the type of dude who could McGuyver a weapon effective against any sort of spirit or wight. No bothering with exorcisms or appeasement or putting things to rest, he will shoot, and he will shoot to kill (again).

– Hiron Ennes | The Works of Vermin

Oh, Asher Todd from The Path of Thorns. She’s pragmatic, intelligent and can set things on fire. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t get scared, but she’s generally going to be able to manage the panic by splitting her brain into ‘Okay, ghosts, run!’ and ‘Okay, ghosts, find solution.’ So, solutions-oriented with a healthy dose of self-preservation. Also, she’s done a lot of reading about weird stuff, so she’s got an encyclopaedic knowledge of creepy things you might face.

– Angela “A.G.” Slatter | The Path of Thorns

Miles (Starling House) has so much experience with haunted houses, he’s the obvious right answer. He’d make us some tea, wrap me in a cozy blanket while he sets up protective herbs and crystals, and he wouldn’t hesitate to throw himself in front of me if a rabid ghost decided to charge. I’d honestly probably have a great time, despite the ghostly wailing, icy drafts, and rattling windows. 

Prince Harold, from A Spindle Splintered–not as company, but as bait. One thing about a haunted house narrative is that the most obnoxious person always gets got first, allowing me to escape in the morning unscathed.

– Alix E. Harrow | author of The Everlasting and Starling House

Julia Torgrimsen from my latest book, Extremity, is 100% the person you want on your side in a haunted house. Either the ‘haunting’ is a scam, in which case she’d work it out in three seconds flat, or it’s not, in which case I think the ghosts should be very scared indeed. She’s got an almost superhuman eye for seeing what’s going on under the curtain, and while I’m not sure I’d feel completely safe by her side (she’s a little manipulative and a lot terrifying), I think I’d feel less scared than whatever was trying to come at us.

– Nicholas Binge | Extremity

I’m going with Agata, the best friend of Ambrose, my protagonist. She’s a tarot reader and a clairvoyant, skulls are veils for her and the unseen yields to her. Plus, she’s tough and if some of the horrors trapped in the haunted house are of the fleshy variety, she’s proven she’s skilled with a scythe. Very skilled.

– Andrea Morstabilini | A Blood as Bright as the Moon

 Ruby, for sure. On a typical day, she might get a little melancholy, but she’d perk right up if she had to spend a night in a haunted house. Plus, if she brought her guitar, we’d be able to fight off our nerves with a few tunes, and I think she’d have a lot of stories to tell. Trouble kind of follows her, so that might be a problem, but we’d have one hell of a good time.

Christopher Golden | The Night Birds

Cornelia Broadwick, MC of The Unfathomable Curse, because they already live in a haunted house. Granted, that ‘haunting’ is by friendliest ghost in town, Theodore Wyatt, but they’d understand what to do if a ghost turned bad. They’re also so impulsive and unpredictable, I’d probably forget to be scared if I was too busy shouting at them to come back and stop asking the ghosts to fight them…

– Courtney Smyth | The Unfathomable Curse – The Undetectables series

Not Dirk, for all the reasons.

– Dan Hanks | Swashbucklers and The Way Up is Death

Probably Lulu from my Teenage Girls Can Be Demons story “We Who Hold the Median.” She should have a place to stay, and also if anyone is going to catch wind of a ghost, it’s her. The trick would be convincing me that the ghost is actually there before it’s too late.

– Hailey Piper | Teenage Girls Can Be Demons 

I don’t believe in haunted houses, but I also don’t want to be proven wrong (I see you there, Pipes.) So how about Merry Barrett, the adult version, from A Head Full of Ghosts. She is well versed in horror narratives and has experience with the bullshit of paranormal investigation. Plus she would be the first to detect plummeting temperature in a room. However, I don’t think she would tell me what that means.

–Paul Tremblay | A Head Full of Ghosts and Horror Movie 

Definitely Fern, the sassy teenager in The Ghosts of Merry Hall. She has her head screwed on and has plenty of experience when it comes to facing ghosts. Weird things may happen around her, but I’d trust her to get us out of the haunted house alive!

– Heather Davey | The Ghosts of Merry Hall

BB, because he’s a music lover and would probably take his guitar, and he’s always upbeat and positive, so he’d bring good vibes. He’s a bit of a joker, too, so even if the ghosts didn’t present themselves, he’d find a way to keep me spooked.

– Tim Lebbon | Secret Lives of the Dead

Jodi from Bound Feet. She’s already survived a haunted garden and ghost museum, so she could handle a haunted house. She also doesn’t scare easily! It might be a bit of a risk choosing her, though…anyone who’s read the book knows why! –Kelsea Yu | Bound Feet