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. To thank Sam for this service, you can leave them a tip on Ko-Fi!
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 – Elia W. 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 15
Day 15: “The Prayer” by Violet Hunt (1911). Read it here.
This one was pretty devastating. Hunt wrote feminist novels, and I can see those themes in this story; a woman can’t let go of her man when she should, and in striving to keep him in unnatural ways, she destroys herself and her family. Ultimately, it is up to her to release him, and herself, which she does. Addiction to men is like addiction to morphia; just as soul-destroying and bad for you.
Hunt lived an interesting life, and her other books and stories are worth checking out too.
Audio version on YouTube:
A Scare A Day: Plot Summary
Alice Arne’s husband Edward has died – they have only been married a year, and she’s pregnant. Hysterical, she stays with his corpse begging him to return to her. When he goes to get her out of the room, the doctor is alarmed to discover that the corpse is warm, and Edward has somehow revived.
Six years later, Edward remains alive but apathetic to life and its pleasures. Alice is a morphine addict. Their daughter Dolly has an instinctual dislike of her father, as do all dogs, and everyone of their acquaintance. Alice herself dresses in black like a widow and wafts around London, weeping.
Eventually, Edward confides to Alice that he feels like a reverse vampire, trying to get back to the grave, and so she gives him all the morphine she has to take back the gift of life she bestowed by her prayer.
A Scare A Day: Film Pairing
There are loads of films I could have picked for this one, but the one that really stuck out in my mind as I read it was Do You See What I See: Cerita Horor #64 – First Love (2024) dir. Awi Suryadi, written by Lele Laila.
Indonesian Gothic, possibly? This one is a slowburn, tragic love story, with a curse in the form of an undead boyfriend who needs to be restored to the grave.
The plot centres on Mawar, who has fallen in love with her first boyfriend, but it’s possible he might be a walking corpse. There’s a very strong relationship between the girls in this, and the friendship of the living pulling their friend out of the relationship with the dead is a theme that is echoed in today’s story, although Alice’s friends fail and she is left to do this herself. I think there are parallels with the endings of the film and the story, also.
