merricat, said connie, would you like a cup of tea?

'My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.'

- Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

(Page 1)

I hugged this book quite tightly once i was through with it.

I miss it already.

Isn't that strange?

I've been racking my brains for the right words to explain to you what an alluring story Miss Jackson laid out for anyone willing to play. 

But my prosaic tongue cannot do her creeping tale the justice it deserves.

So i'm going to leave you in the sublimely capable hands of Dorothy Parker:

"Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders."

And a pretty good, if quite spoiler heavy, review on Bookslut.com.

I need to now buy everything Shirley Jackson's ever written.

...

I'm going to expire under a pile of paperbacks.

I just know it.