Top Ten Tuesday; Books About/Set In Places on My Bucket List

It's Tuesday, which means it's time for another Top Ten Tuesday post courtesy of That Artsy Reader Girl and today's topic is books about/set in places on my bucket list.

Here's my ten picks.

SCRAVIR - While Whitby Sleeps by C. M. Vassie (Whitby, UK)

Description from Goodreads

Contemporary Gothic Thriller

The explosive reimagining of Whitby's darkest hour.

The famous Goth Weekend is in full swing. but while a mysterious guest star's music rocks the Pavilion, emaciated corpses are appearing in the streets. Dark forces are mingling with the thrill seekers.

Outsider Daniel Murray has never believed in the supernatural. Local girl Tiffany Harek is not so sure. If they are to survive the next 48 hours they must wise up. Fast.

The Whitby Witches by Robin Jarvis (Whitby, UK)

Description from Goodreads

When orphans Ben and Jennet arrive in the seaside town of Whitby to stay with Alice Boston, they have no idea what to expect. A lively 92-year-old, Miss Boston is unlike any other foster mother they’ve known. Ben is gifted with "the sight," which gives him the power to see things invisible to other mortals. He soon encounters the mysterious fisher folk who live under the cliffs and discovers that Alice and her friends are not quite what they seem. But a darkness is stalking the streets of Whitby, bringing with it fear and death. Could it be a ghost from the Abbey? Or a beast from hell? Unless the truth is uncovered, the town and all its inhabitants is doomed.

Ring by Kōji Suzuki (Japan)

Description from Goodreads

A mysterious videotape warns that the viewer will die in one week unless a certain, unspecified act is performed. Exactly one week after watching the tape, four teenagers die one after another of heart failure.

Asakawa, a hardworking journalist, is intrigued by his niece's inexplicable death. His investigation leads him from a metropolitan tokyo teeming with modern society's fears to a rural Japan--a mountain resort, a volcanic island, and a countryside clinic--haunted by the past. His attempt to solve the tape's mystery before it's too late--for everyone--assumes an increasingly deadly urgency. Ring is a chillingly told horror story, a masterfully suspenseful mystery, and post-modern trip.

The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike (Japan)

Description from Goodreads

One of the most popular writers working in Japan today, Mariko Koike is a recognized master of detective fiction and horror writing. Known in particular for her hybrid works that blend these styles with elements of romance, The Graveyard Apartment is arguably Koike’s masterpiece. Originally published in Japan in 1986, Koike’s novel is the suspenseful tale of a young family that believes it has found the perfect home to grow into, only to realize that the apartment’s idyllic setting harbors the specter of evil and that longer they stay, the more trapped they become.This tale of a young married couple who harbor a dark secret is packed with dread and terror, as they and their daughter move into a brand new apartment building built next to a graveyard. As strange and terrifying occurrences begin to pile up, people in the building start to move out one by one, until the young family is left alone with someone... or something... lurking in the basement. The psychological horror builds moment after moment, scene after scene, culminating with a conclusion that will make you think twice before ever going into a basement again.

Stallo by Stefan Spjut (Sweden)

Description from Goodreads

In the summer of 1978, a young boy disappears without trace from a cabin in the Dalecarlian woods of Sweden. His mother claims he was abducted by a giant.

The previous year, in the Sarek National Park, Laponia, a wildlife photographer takes a strange picture from his small airplane, of a bear running over the marshes. On its back sits a creature. It looks like a small monkey, but the photographer claims he has taken his first picture of a troll.

Twenty-five years later, and back in Laponia, Susso runs a web page dedicated to searching for creatures whose existence have not yet been proven: the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot. But Susso's true obsession is Trolls. When an old woman claims that a small furry animal has been standing outside her house, observing her and her five year old grandson for hours, Susso picks up her camera and leaves for what will become a terrifying adventure into the unknown.

Because what if there really are trolls out there, and they're taking our children?

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Stockholm, Sweden)

Description from Goodreads

Oskar and Eli. In very different ways, they were both victims. Which is why, against the odds, they became friends. And how they came to depend on one another, for life itself.

Oskar is a 12-year-old boy living with his mother on a dreary housing estate at the city's edge. He dreams about his absentee father, gets bullied at school, and wets himself when he's frightened.

Eli is the young girl who moves in next door. She doesn't go to school and never leaves the flat by day. She is a 200-year-old vampire, forever frozen in childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood.

John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel is a unique and brilliant fusion of social novel and vampire legend, a deeply moving fable about rejection, friendship and loyalty.

Savage Jungle: Lair of the Orang Pendek by Hunter Shea (Indonesia)

Description from Goodreads

They are called the Orang Pendek, masters of the steamy Sumatran rain forest.

Henrik Kooper watched his father die at the brutal hands of the orange-haired ape men. Having barely survived helping twins Natalie and Austin McQueen discover and destroy the beasts lurking in Loch Ness, it’s now his turn for vengeance. Within the treacherous jungles of Sumatra lies the fabled lost city of Gadang Ur. Its secrets are guarded by a savage band of Orang Pendek who lord over the strange and deadly creatures of the hidden land. Utter madness is the lifeblood of Gadang Ur. Henrik’s journey into darkness will take them to the ragged edge of hell on Earth.

Some places were never meant to be discovered.

The Haunting of Las Lágrimas by W. M.Cleese (Argentina)

Description from Goodreads

Argentina, winter 1913.

Ursula Kelp, a young English gardener, travels to Buenos Aires to take up the role of head gardener at a long-abandoned estate in the Pampas. The current owner wishes to return to the estate with his family and restore the once-famous gardens to their former glory. 

Travelling deep into the Pampas, the vast grasslands of South America, Ursula arrives to warnings from the locals that the estate is haunted, cursed to bring tragedy to the founding family of Las Lágrimas. And soon Ursula believes that her loneliness is making her imagine things – the sound of footsteps outside her bedroom door, the touch of hands on her shoulders when there’s no one there. Most strangely of all, she keeps hearing the frenzied sound of a man chopping down trees in the nearby forest with an axe, when all her staff are in sight. 

As the strange occurrences intensify – with tragic consequences – Ursula questions if there’s truth in the rumours about the cursed estate. The family’s return is imminent – are they in danger? And the longer Ursula stays at the estate, the more she realises that she too is in mortal danger.

The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran (South Korea)

Description from Goodreads

A bestseller in Korea, a biting, fast-paced vampire murder mystery exploring queer love and the consequences of loneliness.

When four isolated elderly people commit suicide back-to-back at the same hospital by jumping out of the sixth-floor window, Su-Yeon doesn’t understand why she’s the only one at her precinct that seems to care. Dismissing the case as a series of unfortunate events due to the patients’ loneliness, the police force doesn't engage. But Su-Yeon doesn’t have the privilege of looking away. Her dearest friend, Grandma Eun-Shim, lives on the sixth floor, and Su-Yeon is terrified that something will happen to her next.

As Su-Yeon begins her investigation alone, she runs into a mysterious woman named Violette at the crime scene. Violette, hot on the trail of her ex-lover, Lily, gives Su-Yeon the answer: a vampire did it. Su-Yeon is skeptical at first, but then a fifth victim jumps from the window and her investigation reveals the body was completely drained of blood. Desperate to discover the cause of the deaths, Su-Yeon considers Violette's explanation—that something supernatural is involved.

The Midnight Shift is a gripping mystery, overflowing with commentary about societal isolation and loneliness, the sharp knife of grief, and the effects of marginalization, perfect for readers of Cursed Bunny; Woman, Eating; and A Certain Hunger.

You Are Invited by Sarah A. Denzil (Transylvania, Romania)

Description from Goodreads

"There are those who claim the ghosts walking the corridors of Sfântul Mihail are not ghosts at all."

During a midnight journey snaking through the Carpathian Mountains, these are the words whispered to Cath Fenwick. It is the warning she will later wish she'd taken more seriously.

When Cath receives her invitation to The Event--a monetised retreat for social media influencers--she can't believe her luck. Irene Jobert is the most famous influencer in the world, and now Cath will be one of the five participants chosen to stay with Irene in a renovated Transylvanian monastery.

The catch? Their every move will be live-streamed to millions of people around the world. Patrons pay for constant access to their favourite social media stars: Irene, the model, Nathan, the gamer, Jules, the blogger, Daniel, the fitness guru and Cath, the writer. Nestled halfway up a mountain, surrounded by forests teeming with nature, the five are isolated, with nothing but the internet to connect them to the world. That is, until eagle-eyed live-stream followers all around the globe notice a sixth participant. A dark figure lurking in the background. Who--or what--is in the monastery with them?

Wolves roam the nearby forests. Shadows haunt the long corridors of Sfântul Mihail. Slowly, five lonely people begin to lose their minds. You are invited to The Event.