#MorbidMarch
Nobody knew who had killed Marlene with the strychnine. A few sources claimed it had been her husband who'd done it. That couldn't be so. He'd died some twenty years earlier. There were no signs of a break-in at the old estate. And so the mystery continued...
“Well,” he said, “it is one of two things. Either we've been gloriously faked, or we've been let in on a very tidy little crime.”
In Mary Roberts Rinehart's SIGHT UNSEEN, neighbors participate in a seance and are pulled into a mystery by the medium's description of a suspicious death.
#MorbidMarch
This week's chat theme was Women in Horror. Here's the thread of all the March 2nd-6th chat questions 🧵👇
Text reading "MYSTERY #MorbidMarch" against a backdrop of a dark smoky/cloudy graphic
#MorbidMarch Prompts 1. casket 2. veiled 3. dig 4. gore 5. sweet 6. strychnine 7. mystery 8. break 9. gilt 10. marble 11. low 12. revel 13. elder 14. iron 15. zeal 16. narrow 17. debris 18. urn 19. blanched 20. rasping 21. lost 22. caul 23. hatred 24. teeth 25. obituary 26. will 27. fantastic 28. anchor 29. jet 30. waters Illustration of four skeletons playing instruments and dancing from The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut, from the Nuremberg Chronicle
Day 7 of #MorbidMarch!
Prompt: MYSTERY
Use #MorbidMarch to share and boost art, writing, reading recs, music, folklore, history, science, etc. Whatever the prompt inspires, whether it's creative work or something to stoke morbid imaginings.
Please use alt text on images. No A.I.
My kingdom for an anthology of recipes for regicide
It was easy.
Kings are just men after all.
They eat like other men. Die like other men.
She taints every dish so no luck, nor fate, nor fortune can intervene.
She watches death dance around the table, in flailing limbs and frothing mouths.
He is not the last or first to fall. Just one of many
Scrumptious 🖤
Delicious 🖤
oh wow, there are too many!
Hailey Piper - I'm a big fan of the short fiction particularly. I regularly reread Queen of the Cloven Heart
Suzan Palumbo - the short fiction. My GOD.
Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta - Loved their 'Feast While You Can'
#MorbidMarch
*chef’s kiss*
The final two questions for this week's #MorbidMarch chat are up!
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, because I loved her 'Gótico', and Pilar Pedraza, who hooked me from the moment I read 'Joyas de la serpiente' (Jewels of the Serpent)
#MorbidMarch
A collage combining a scan of the page beginning Chapter 5 and coverart from a Bantam Books edition of the novel.
CHAPTER V
"IT ISN'T STRYCHNINE, IS IT?"
Agatha Christie in her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
#BookSky #MorbidMarch
#morbidMarch #day6
A STRYCHNINE DISPLAY
Hmmm .... Mouse-nots? I peered the box and saw the white powder within. I held it near my face, but was hesitant to inhale, though was glad of no smell. Perfecto! This will be a brilliant snow substitute for my winter miniatures. And keep the vermin away.
It's a shame she's on a diet and can't eat the butter tea pastries she lovingly made to celebrate their anniversary, but he won't miss eating together much longer. Nor will he continue to have affairs, either. The arsenic in the powdered sugar will make sure of it.
#MorbidMarch
#MorbidMarch It's a tiramisu; the bitterness of the poison hidden with espresso, honey, orange, and cream. A maple syrup drizzled over the top for good measure.
Fun fact: The pastry that makes up tiramisu is called lady's fingers. She wonders if he'll think about that while clawing at his throat.
#MorbidMarch T. Kingfisher - she's a master at integrating humor into her horror and making relatable, ordinary characters.
V.E. Schwab - Holy shit, the prose. Her writing draws you in.
Sarah Maria Griffin - Also for compelling storytelling!
The Destroying Angel - such a name for a delicate mushroom, which looks like a ballerina's legs and tutu in a children's picture book. Handy that it also smells pleasant and has an innocuous flavour - just what he has always expected of her. Now he'll have it in his stroganoff.
#MorbidMarch
#MorbidMarch
Oh, tricky, I'll go with those that come to mind immediately.
Mae Murray (whose debut I'm sorry If I Scared You impressed me deeply)
@tcparker.bsky.social (check out Trad Wife, amongst other terrific books)
@tananarivedue.bsky.social (Still can't get The Reformatory out of my head)
The final two questions for this week's #MorbidMarch chat are up!
#MorbidMarch In #TFTNG, the main vampire character Acanthus poisons his Sire in order to get away from him the first time. I went back and forth between strychnine and cyanide for the poison, but ultimately chose cyanide because of the time period and region that they're in.
That's all for this first week of the #MorbidMarch chat.
A new chat theme and new questions start Monday, March 9th
Until then, keep having fun with any questions from this week that you haven't got to yet. And don't forget to check out what others have been sharing and comment and boost!
(12/12)
Question Ten A special meal with a special ingredient for a special occasion, though, of course, he won't know that until it's too late. What poison dish is she serving up? Tag #MorbidMarch no A.I.
Question Ten
A special meal with a special ingredient for a special occasion, though, of course, he won't know that until it's too late. What poison dish is she serving up?
Remember to tag your response with #MorbidMarch
Please use alt text on images
No A.I.
(11/12)
Question Nine Who are three living women in horror whose writing you recommend? Tag #MorbidMarch no A.I.
Question Nine
Who are three living women in horror whose writing you recommend?
Remember to tag your response with #MorbidMarch
Please use alt text on images
No A.I.
(10/12)
For #6 (STRYCHNINE), I wanted to do another fun UK call out. The Alnwick Garden has a poison garden that contains over 100 species of dangerous, toxic, and harmful plants! Some plants include foxglove, belladonna, and my personal enemy giant hogweed (it makes me scared to touch Queen Anne's Lace 😭).
Watson (Edward Hardwicke) and Holmes (Jeremy Brett) examine the stiff (Ronald Lacey) in the Granada production of Sign of Four, 1984
"[The muscles] are in a state of extreme contraction, far exceeding the usual rigor mortis. Coupled with this distortion of the face, this Hippocratic smile, or 'risus sardonicus,' as the old writers called it"
Effects of strychnine in Sign of Four by Conan Doyle (1890)
#BookSky #MorbidMarch
Saw this marching cat gif and thought it was appropriate for your #MorbidMarch.
The moors keep their secrets.
What he had done was a desecration, but your lips were sealed and the iron grey sky unseeing.
She wailed in the wind. But only you could hear her.
You murmured comfort to her, as you held his head beneath the water, its depths silent and complicit.
I learned about this not very long ago and was shocked to also discover that there have been cases of strychnine being used for doping within my lifetime too!
A runner n muddy shorts collapses into the arms of a man who is holding a glowing bottle. Words behind them read Poisoned To Win.
The 19041 Olympic marathon was chaos, run in 32C heat with no water stops. The winner Thomas Hicks was given egg whites, brandy and strychnine sulphate (legal at the time) to keep him on his feet but became too weak to collect his medal. He never ran a marathon again... #MorbidMarch
