LORE 2: Wicked Mortals

I was very excited to dig into this second Lore book and pleased I received it from Amazon the day after its release date.

Wicked Mortals is a bit of a misleading title though, because not every chapter is about mortals who are wicked.

Don't expect your modern serial killers either. The ones in these pages aren't very recent.

The book opens with H. H. Holmes, the American serial killer from the late 1800s. Other serial killers include a few different ax men, Elizabeth Bathory and Belle Gunness.

Then there are stories from broader topics such as changelings, witches, witch hunters, spontaneous human combustion, body snatchers, possessions, and doppelgängers. There was at least one flat out ghost story.

There were also chapters on the inspiration behind Jekyll and Hyde, John Dee, different Christmas season creatures, the rabbit baby hoax, and the truth behind the Pied Piper.

I quite enjoyed this, as I did the first one. Perhaps this one a bit moreso, because there were more stories that were new to me.

LORE 1

I'm a big fan of supernatural non-fiction books and I was pleased to discover this series, based on podcasts, on Amazon.

The first volume covers Monstrous Creatures, but they're not all monsters. There are definitely some ghosts and more folkloric creatures in there.

I don't listen to podcasts, but apparently, the majority of the chapters are word-for-word transcripts of them, so if you've listened to them, this may not be for you.

Also, if you're a stickler about more formal language for books, don't buy this. It's like listening to someone talk, which is one thing I really like about it. He's got some great dramatic endings to some of these chapters that work just as well in print as spoken, but when you're reading it, you can imagine him talking to you, telling you these stories.

I loved this a lot and am looking forward to the next two: Wicked Mortals (late May) and Dreadful Places (early October).

They are expensive though. My advice is to catch them marked down, which Amazon does a lot.