Noises In The Night Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Mayfair Witches

Set in New Orleans "The Mayfair Witches" series recounts the history of a family of witches. Most are female, but not all, and the name Mayfair is always kept by the women when they marry. For years their destiny has been manipulated by a spirit known as "Lasher". He wants to be reborn and chooses Rowan Mayfair, a surgeon who is ignorant of the history of her family, as the means to achieve this.

Anne Rice was born in New Orleans, where many of her books are set. Her best known are her "Vampire Chronicles" series, starting with "Interview with the Vampire".

Answer: House of Leaves

Returning from holiday the Navidson family notice that their house has become very strange. There are doors that never used to be there, secret passages have appeared, and sometimes the house seems to actually growl at them. Like the Tardis in "Dr. Who", it is also now bigger on the inside than the outside. The family are eventually driven insane by the house.

The book itself is presented in a very different style. Footnotes abound, some refer to real books and films, some to fictional ones. Some pages have only a few words on them, others have text that has to be read back to front, or vertically. It all adds to the sense of insanity that pervades the novel.

"House of Leaves" is the debut novel from American Mark Danielewski. He went on to write a sort of sequel "The Whalestoe Letters". His books are characterised by experimental layouts such as blank pages, or only a few words on a page and text that runs in different directions. He has achieved something of a cult following.

Answer: He is a ghost

"The Morganville Vampires" is a long series of novels about a town, Morganville, controlled by vampires where vampire and human live together. Michael Glass, a native of the town, is one of the main characters. A failed attempt to turn him into a vampire has left him as a sort of ghost. He is not completely dead, yet he only has a body and can only be seen at night. His house, the Glass House, has powerful protections built into it, but he is only able to tap into these in the house, so he can never leave it. Strangely his two housemates have not realised that the fact he is never around during the day is something peculiar. It takes new housemate, Claire, to stumble across his secret.

Written by Rachael Caine, "The Morganville Vampires" series comes under the young adult urban fantasy/vampire genre which has proved so very popular. Rachael Caine also writes as Roxanne Longstreet Conrad and as Julie Fortune.

Answer: Freelance exorcist

First introduced in "The Devil You Know", Felix Castor exorcises ghosts for a living. He really wants to give up this line of work before he comes across a spirit he can't deal with, but somehow the bills need paying so he carries on taking the work. He has a friend, Rafe, who is possessed by a demon, and there is a succubus, Juliet, who has been hired to kill him.

Mike Carey is a very busy British writer. In addition to his Felix Castor series he has written for DC Comics, Marvel Comics and 2000AD. He has written X-Men Legacy and has also published several graphic novels. The first Felix Castor book, "The Devil You Know", was his first prose novel.

Answer: Necromancer

In the popular series by Laurell K. Hamilton, Anita Blake has a job as a necromancer. She can summon the dead from their graves and reanimate them for a short while to answer questions. Many of the questions their relatives wish to put to them involve finding out where they have hidden their money. She also works as a supernatural consultant with the local Police and is licenced to kill vampires who kill humans.

Laurell K. Hamilton has enjoyed great success with her "Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter" series. It is estimated there are now some six million books in print. She also writes the "Merry Gentry" series of fantasy novels, which revolve around a fairy princess living in the real world.

Answer: It

A shape shifting creature lives in the sewers of Derry. It takes on the persona of Pennywise the clown in order to lure children to it. Once it has lured them to it it then switches to the form they are most terrified of. A group of children think they have driven it away, but several years later, when they are all adults, Pennywise returns and they have to fight their fears to try to defeat it once again. "It" was published in 1986.

Stephen King's first book was "Carrie", published in 1974. It immediately established him as a top class horror writer. Since then his output has been prodigious. Many of his books run to well over 1000 pages. Several, including "Carrie" have been made into films, although, with the possible exception of "The Shining", somehow they never quite convey the same sense of menace as the books.

Answer: Handling the Undead

"Handling the Undead" is a 2005 novel by John Ajvide Linqvist. In the middle of a massive heatwave thousands of recently dead people start coming back to life. Although this is a zombie novel it deals more with the relationships between the resurrected and their relatives, and how society reacts to having dead people walking among them.

John Ajvide Linqvist is a Swedish writer of mainly horror stories. His first, "Let the right one in" was a vampire story. His works are very popular in his native country and have been translated into several languages.

Answer: Daphne Du Maurier

Daphne Du Maurier did psychological horror very well. "Rebecca", one of her best known works, has dark psychological elements, and "Death in Venice" is another that heads towards an inevitable horrific climax. "The Birds" was first published in 1952. Like many of her books it is set in her native Cornwall and the time frame is just after World War Two. Alfred Hitchcock directed the film, which starred Tippi Hedren.

The location was moved to America, and the plot was more elaborate. The basic premise of unexplained bird attacks was however retained.

Answer: The Howling

This 1977 book was the vague basis of the film "The Howling". In the book Karen Beatty and her husband leave Los Angeles to go the village of Drago. This is for her to recuperate after being attacked in her own home. The quiet lifestyle and friendly villagers are exactly what she needed, but she insists she hears strange noises in the woods that surround their home. After her husband is attacked and turned into a werewolf Karen realises that everyone in the village, except her, is a werewolf.

Gary Brandner wrote two sequels to "The Howling", neither of which were used in the film sequels. In a long career he wrote many horror novels including "The Walkers", "The Brain Eaters" and "Floater".

Answer: Red Dragon

In 1981 Thomas Harris introduced us to psychiatrist and cannibal, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. "Red Dragon" was the first book to feature the serial killer. It was made into a film with Brian Cox as Lecter, but was later re-made with Anthony Hopkins playing the role, which he made famous in the film of "The Silence of The Lambs".

Thomas Harris has written a series of novels about Dr. Hannibal Lecter. He has gone back to his early life to see what shaped him, and forward to see how he developed after "The Silence of the Lambs". Little is known about the author himself. He shies away from publicity and does not give interviews. His friend and literary agent describes him as "wonderfully jovial".