If you’re looking for a spine-tingling book to sit down with on a candle-lit All Hallows’ Eve, try local Peterborough author Ian Rogers’ collection of short stories, Every House Is Haunted.

While it can be found in the Horror section of bookstores, I found the stories to be more supernatural. Each story had a twist that took ordinary regular day-to-day events and shifted reality ever so slightly. You won't look at your cat, a house in the woods or even a school the same way after reading these stories.

Ian also has a gift for adjectives and had no shortage of different ways to characterize people or things. His work hasn't gone unnoticed. “The House on Ashley Avenue” short short which is included in this book was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award in the novelette category, selected by Ellen Datlow to be included in The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 5. Also, "Aces" has been selected for Imaginarium 2013: The Best Canadian Speculative Fiction.

Ian loves Peterborough and is a huge fan of the growing restaurant food selection. I had the opportunity to go for coffee with Ian and I asked him if Peterborough provided any inspiration for any of his stories. He mentioned that the short story "The Candle" is entirely set in a house he used to rent on McDonnel Street, and even is inspired from scented candles that they light, and conversations he had with his wife about "who was going to go blow out the candle". He found there to be very human elements to the story and enjoyed making reference to Peterborough landmarks (one being the now closed I See France lingerie store).

There are a couple copies left of Every House Is Haunted at Chapters at the time of writing (one of them is even signed by Ian himself) and you can purchase them online to read as well.

[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]

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