Haunted Book Review Thursday

Eerie Elegance: How to Host a Haunt and Other Fabulous Frights

Britta Peterson, author

This is one of those books that almost flew under the radar, my search parameters on Amazon are words like Halloween, Ghost, Animatronics, Haunted Mansion, booger sculpture (ok, I made that last one up), so this one almost got unnoticed but I read about it by chance from a newsgroup. And it would have been my loss, this is one of those worth having.
Ms. Peterson is pretty, reminding me a lot of Sandra Lee on Semi-Homemade Cooking. Her book jacket is EERILY close to the foyer wallpaper in The Haunted Mansion, not copied, but just under the wire to avoid a lawsuit. Works for me. The pages are full color illustrated throughout, not the best quality, comparable to a home printer but good nonetheless.
This book is mostly about hosting a Halloween party, which is just fine with me, because there's nothing wrong with a party. The book is divided into roughly 2/3 decorating hints and techniques and 1/3 cookbook with some really disgustingly wonderful recipes (the brain pate' made me throw up in my mouth a little), but all of them do-able and fairly easy for the novice as well as the veteran. There's a little bit of everything in this book for Halloween parties and decor.

Would I recommend this book? For the beginning haunter/party monger, they should definitely buy this book. This book starts you off with a bunch of good recipes, a lot of good decor tips (including a very good tombstone tutorial), and inspiration to host your own party.
Should the vets out there get this book. I think so, for two reasons, 1) You can never have too many Halloween books and 2) We need to support our own. I think this book is well worth the 20.00 and would provide a lot of inspiration and ideas for dark parties to come.