The Books that Haunt Us

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I’ve been an avid reader all my life. I love libraries and bookstores. I’m guilty of folding down the corner of the page to save my place. I’m guilty of losing track of bookmarks. I leave stacks of books in closets and beside my bookshelves and underneath my desk at work that I keep meaning to give away or donate but can’t quite bring myself to do it. I love genre fiction, literary fiction, poetry and the occasional non fiction book. I nosy into books people are reading and will shameless lean my head to catch a glimpse of the book title. I just love books.

Here’s the thing though – I’m not good at all about remembering book titles. When I think of it, I try save the book onto Goodreads so I can keep track of things. The problem is though that I haven’t done that for a good majority of my avid reading life. And lately I’ve gotten into finding the books I can’t remember.

The first major one that haunts me is one I recall reading in my younger years. I remember the day we went to the library and I decided to check it out. It is a book with a lighthouse on the cover I believe and it’s set in a stormy, beachy, islandy type of place. It’s a series and I thought that the atmosphere was a little on the dark side. A family was the focus of the story I think and potentially this haunted island or haunted house they rented for the summer, the winter, or maybe the fall. I’m not sure. I’ve posted this book to forums and even wrote to the very library that I checked it out at to see if they could remember it. Not a single recommendation quite hit it. Nothing where I could say, “Ah! That’s it!”

But you see? There’s more. There’s another book by this female writer who wrote novels with these incredible twists in the end. One was where you find out the daughter of this family was the killer and you had no idea. Or this other one where the neighbor was a killer and she was just a kindly woman most of the book.

Another book for you. The cover showed a unicorn with a blue horn in a white room. The book was about this guy with no memory and he wakes up trying to figure out who he is and what he’s doing there.

Oh wait, there’s more! I also recall a book I read where this main character worked as a tour guide for authors who came by his city for their book tour. He was a blocked writer himself and he detested the idea this college friend of his actually published a successful book. It’s all about him getting unblocked and writing again.

These books haunt me and swirl around my head just waiting for me to figure out their titles. Does anyone else go through this? I’d love to say that it will make me more disciplined about writing down books I’ve read, but I don’t always remember. I’m an enormous fan of purchasing books for this reason and if I ever find any of the above titles I plan on buying them.