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 06
Day 6: “The Cold Embrace” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1860). Read it here.
I enjoyed this one. Braddon was a prolific writer, perhaps best known for her novel Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), but has a lot of short stories as well, and had an interesting life.
There is a BBC Radio 4 version of this story, first aired in 1997, available via archive.org: archive.org/details/bbc-female-ghost. The other 3 tales included in this series, available via the link, are ones I’ve also read and enjoyed.
A Scare A Day: Plot Summary
A young German student, who is both awful and a painter, and possibly also an awful painter, has an impassioned fling with his cousin Gertrude but forgets all about her when he’s gone for five minutes. He doesn’t write back to her, and she drowns herself.
He discovers her being pulled from the water on his return and gets creepy about it, wanting to make a sketch of the her, because “suicides are always handsome”. Ew. He then sees it’s Gertrude, and promptly runs away to avoid feeling guilty or responsible for anything.
He catches a fever, recovers, and forgets all about her. UNTIL – Gertrude returns to him as a cold corpse, and latches around his neck in a cold embrace. (The title!) Our German artist doesn’t like this at all, and tries to avoid being alone after that. However, he finds himself in Paris, where he meets a lady at a masked ball. The people fade about them as she takes him in her cold embrace (of the title!) and polkas him to death. The End.
A Scare A Day: Film Pairing
Shutter – there are now several versions of this, including the Thai original, its US remake with a Japanese director, 3 Indian versions in Telegu, Tamil, and Hindi respectively, and the most recent Indonesian remake. I have only seen the Indonesian 2025 version so far, but the image is from the Thai (2004) original. I’ve heard from some reviews that Sivi (Tamil version) is the best? But other opinions are available.
This has a really dark plot, with TW for gang rape and suicide.
Instead of a feckless artist, we have a selfish photographer, and the embrace is ghostly and sinister. Nobody is danced to death, but a lot of young men are driven to suicide (they deserve it), and the photographer is driven to catatonic madness, so I think this works really well as a pairing. Very much a ‘good for her’ movie.
Available versions, all with the same basic plot:
- ชัตเตอร์ กดติดวิญญาณ/Shutter (2004) dirs. Parkpoom Wongpoom and Banjong Pisanthanakun, written by Sophon Sakdaphisit, Banjong Pisanthanakun, and Parkpoom Wongpoom. (Thai-langauge original, Thailand)
- Photo (2006) dir. Siva Nageshwara Rao, written by Siva Nageshwara Rao. (Telegu langauge version, India).
- சிவி/Sivi (2007) dir. K. R. Senthil Nathan, written by K. R. Senthil Nathan (Tamil language version, India).
- Shutter (2008) dir. Masayuki Ochiai, written by Luke Dawson. (English language version, USA)
- क्लिक/Click (2010) dir. Sangeeth Sivan, written by Harish Nayar. (Hindi language version, India)
- Shutter (2025) dir. Herwin Novianto, written by Alim Sudio. (Indonesian language version, Indonesia).
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