- Hardcover: 200 pages
- Published: 11/3/26
- IBSN: 9781636143132
- e-IBSN: 9781636143149
- Genre: Fiction
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A Good Haunting: Stories
A beautifully written and often speculative story collection infused with Caribbean and African myths and cultures, exploring love, betrayal, motherhood, death, and home
Now available for preorder. All preorders will ship on or before November 3, 2026.
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Forthcoming: 11/3/26
What people are saying…
“Caribbean islands have always seethed with ghosts and Carol Mitchell’s eerie short story collection welcomes them to the page. Swirling with the lives and voices of women facing rupture and revelation, A Good Haunting transports the reader across oceans, time, and landscapes to settings where the uncanny is commonplace. Original and provocative.”
—Diana McCaulay, author of A House for Miss Pauline
Praise for What Start Bad a Mornin’ by Carol Mitchell
“Mitchell’s ability to sustain tension while telling a nuanced story that balances family tragedy with a vision of acceptance and support makes this an engaging and life-affirming read.”
—Booklist
“With luminous prose, Carol Mitchell tells the story of every Caribbean immigrant, indeed any immigrant, who has had to remake a life they have known in their homeland for the uncertainties in the US where race is often the determinant for success.”
—Elizabeth Nunez, author of Prospero’s Daughter
Description
Grounded in contemporary life and infused with traditions of Africa and the Caribbean, A Good Haunting: Stories spins myth, magic, and realism into heartrending tales of characters seeking love and connection. Death is the primary antagonist in each of these stories, sometimes appearing as death of self, other times as death of a loved one, and often as both.
In the title story, “A Good Haunting,” a widower in the midst of an unorthodox death ritual uses humor to deal with grief and guilt while coming to terms with unsavory details about his spouse’s sudden death. In “The Way of the Volt,” an eighteenth-century African queen is made immortal, sold into slavery, and left to face a series of impossible choices that force her to struggle with what it means to be human. In “The Sunset Toll,” members of the last community on earth disappear one by one until there are just three people left, trying to maintain hope even as they question the forces that keep them trapped on earth.
The characters wrestle with foes, agonize at crossroads, and face painful truths, all while grappling with grief, love, betrayal, motherhood, and ideas of home. Some triumph, some do not—but they all emerge irrevocably changed by their experiences.
- Subjects: Black Interest, Caribbean Interest, Forthcoming, Literary Fiction, New Releases, Women’s Studies
Book Details
Author
Carol Mitchell is the author of the short story collection A Good Haunting: Stories, the novel What Start Bad a Mornin’, and nineteen books for children. Her book reviews and short stories have appeared in numerous journals. She holds an MFA and is a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and several other arts institutions. By day, Mitchell teaches writing to support her current nightly obsession: working on her new novel.