A Scare A Day Reading Challenge
Romancing the Gothic founder and organiser, Dr Sam Hirst, is back for another month of A Scare A Day. Dr Hirst curates a daily reading list, and the challenge is to read the story or poem for that day and post your thoughts on social media using the tag #AScareADay (not #ScareADay – don’t forget the ‘A’ at the start like I always do!)
Last year, I posted a creative response to each story or poem featured in the challenge, and turned them into Season 05 of Eldritch Girl, where I talked about the stories and poems, and read my fiction/non-fiction piece inspired by the daily read.
This year, I’m pairing the challenge with #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days so I’m going to be suggesting a film pairing to go with the story/poem, the way I do for my book reviews over on Divination Hollow.
The challenge list is posted on RomancingTheGothic.com, and below.
The “A Scare A Day” Daily Reading List 2026
October 1st – Joanna Baillie – Night Tales of Other Times – 1790 – Read it here
October 2nd – Nikolai Karamzin – The Island of Bornholm – 1794 – Read it here
October 3rd – Anne Bannerman – The Black Knight of the Water – 1802 – Read it here
October 4th – William Harrison Ainsworth – The Spectre Bride – 1821 – Read it here
October 5th – Charles Pigault-Lebrun – ‘The Unholy Compact Abjured’ – 1825 – Read it here
October 6th – Mary Elizabeth Braddon – ‘The Cold Embrace’ (1860) – Read it here
October 7th – Amelia Edwards – ‘In the Confessional’ (1871) – Read it here
October 8th – Elizabeth Stuart Phelps – ‘Since I Died’ (1873) – Read it here
October 9th – Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – ‘The Witch’ (1893) – Read it here
October 10th – Arthur Machen – ‘The Novel of the White Powder’ (1895) – Read it here
October 11th – Gertrude Atherton – ‘The Striding Place’ (1896) – Read it here
October 12th – Ella Peattie – ‘From the Loom of the Dead’ (1898) – Read it here
October 13th – Mrs Wilson Woodrow – ‘Secret Chambers’ (1909) – Read it here
October 14th – W W Jacobs – The Well (1911) – Read it here
October 15th – Violet Hunt – ‘The Prayer’ (1911) – Read it here
October 16th – Rabindranath Tagore – ‘The Lost Jewels’ or Monihara (1917) – Read it here
October 17th – Ellen Glasgow – ‘The Past’ (1920) – Read it here
October 18th – Mikhail Bulgakov – ‘The Red Crown’ (1922) – Read it here
October 19th – John Masefield – ‘The Haunted’ (1923) – Read it here
October 20th – Elsa Morante – The Secret game (1941) – Read it here
October 21st – Dorothy Quick – ‘After an Air Raid’ (1943) – Read it here
October 22nd – Mayra Montero – ‘Corinne, Amiable Girl’ (1991) – Read it here
October 23rd – Ahmed Khaled Tawfik – ‘The Wall’ – Read it here
October 24th – Mariana Enríquez – ‘The Little Angel’s Exhumation’ (2014) – Read it here
October 25th – A. C. Wise – ‘The Stories We Tell About Ghosts’ (2017) – Read it here
October 26th – Brandon O’Brien – ‘The Lagahoo Speaks For Itself’ (2017) – Read it here
October 27th – Darcie Little Badger – ‘Those Hitch-hiking Kids’ (2023) – Read it here
October 28th – Tyler Sookralli – ‘The Devil Wears Skin’ (2024) – Read it here
October 29th – Eleanna Castroianni – ‘They Return’ (2025) – Read it here
October 30th – Ash Vale – ‘consumed’ (2026) – Read it here
October 31st – Quincy Lee – ‘The Dark Follows Me’ (2026) – Read it here
A Scare A Day: Day 02
Day 2: “The Island of Bornholm” by Nikolai Karamzin (1794). You can read this here (PDF version, navigate to p. 133 of the document) or listen along here. You can purchase an English translation of Karamzin’s works here.
A Scare A Day: Plot Summary
A Russian nobleman travelling home to Russia from England meets a Danish stranger at Gravesend, who is grieving. The stranger sings a tragic song about a lost love, parental curse/condemnation, and the fact their love is condemned by law. (Yeah, it’s his sister). The cause of his misery is on the Island of Bornholm.
Russian traveller’s ship stops at Bornholm for Plot Reasons. Lo and behold there is a mysterious creepy castle, and there he finds a young woman locked up for some vague crime. We don’t know what the story is, as this isn’t ever explicitly told to the reader, but the Russian traveller learns the secret of the young woman’s past from an old man.
The reader is left to infer from the song at the start, and the clues in the text, that this is brother-sister incest and they’ve been split up and are doing separate penance.
A Scare A Day: Film Pairing
I’ve got sibcest recs for days. This is a staple of the Gothic, bonus points for twincest, which is double whammy of Gothic Doubling and Corruption tropes rolled into one squicky package.
Bear in mind that in Gothic texts, incest could act as a stand-in for queer desire, changing it into a taboo heterosexual desire. You can read more about this here, and here. It’s also doing a lot of heavy-lifting regarding patriarchal critique, and as a trope used to indicate the corruption and degradation of aristocracy, or those in some position of power within society. It can also simply be a marker of villainy – such as in The Crow (1994) dir. Alex Proyas – where the villain is shagging his half-sister. Their sibling relationship is revealed in a throwaway line that has no bearing on the plot or anything else that’s going on.
The obvious play pairing is Jacobean drama, ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore by John Ford, first performed in 1629.
The obvious film choice is Crimson Peak (2015) dir. Guillermo del Toro, written by Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins.
I would also recommend the following to the Gothic mix:
- The Lodgers (2017) dir. Brian O’Malley
- Haunted (1995) dir. Lewis Gilbert
There is also The Flowers In The Attic collection to browse. If you want more drama, then Ford’s play ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore has plenty of adaptations!
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