A perfect Sunday with...Marie O'Regan
Crime novels, perfect Sunday rom-coms, and weekend lie-ins
Every week, a top writer, artist, actor or creator reveals how they’d fill their perfect Sunday, sharing their favourite comfort reads, movies, food… anything that would make their weekend great.
Today, it's the turn of Marie O'Regan, co-editor of Death Comes at Christmas.
Marie's perfect Sunday… brunch
Sundays are the perfect days to be lazy, so for me it would have to be either cheese on toast (which my mum used to make us every Sunday) made with a thick, white crusty loaf, or avocado toast (sourdough) with a fried egg on top. Both are bliss, real comfort food.
Marie's perfect Sunday… read
That’s a hard one, as it would depend on my mood – sometimes I want to dive into a crime novel, preferably a psychological thriller – and in that case it would be something like Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, or any of John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series; I love those. At other times, I want to lose myself in something like Bag of Bones or Lisey’s Story by Stephen King or NOS4A2 by Joe Hill, or Someone Like Me by M.R. Carey – all favourites of mine. At the moment, I’m reading The Midnight Feast, by Lucy Foley, and thoroughly enjoying it.
Marie's perfect Sunday… comic
I read more books than comics, I must admit – in my teens I was a voracious comics reader and had quite the collection, then I went on holiday with my friends at the age of twenty and my mum threw them out to ‘make more space’ in my room. Something a lot of people have had happen, I’m sure. From those days, I’d choose the UK run of The Titans. It only ran for something like fifteen or sixteen issues, if I remember rightly, but I had them all and loved them. If I’m talking about present-day comics, then I really enjoyed Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, and also the graphic novel of Owen and Stephen King’s Sleeping Beauties (written by Rio Youers, with artist Alison Sampson and colourist Triona Farrell). I’m also a big Mike Carey fan, and loved a recent one of his, The Dollhouse Family. There are so many to choose from, but those spring to mind.
Marie's perfect Sunday… movie
This is how Paul and I spend a lot of our weekends – especially Sundays. Again, depending on mood – I think While You Were Sleeping is the perfect rom-com, and I’m a huge Nora Ephron fan when it comes to those. If we’re in the mood for crimey-wimey films, then you’d have to go a long way to beat something like Shutter Island, The Drop, or Gone Girl… but I’m also a huge Spielberg fan, especially Jaws. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve watched that, either before or since I met Paul. And then of course there’s Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep… I think you’re starting to see how hard I find it to choose just one as a favourite! Favourites change all the time, according to mood, and newer things coming out that I love.
Marie's perfect Sunday... TV binge
Oh, this is another hard one to answer, we watch a LOT of TV and movies. I think I’d have to go for something like Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House or Abi Morgan’s The Split for present-day favourites – and my all-time favourite show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Love it to death.
Marie's perfect Sunday… podcast
I don’t listen to many podcasts, but one I do enjoy is Page One - The Writer’s Podcast – that’s always interesting.
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Marie's perfect Sunday… album
Anything by Pink!, I love her – my all-time favourite band is Queen, so anything by them. I don’t really have a favourite album by either of those, I just love them.
Marie's perfect Sunday… treat
A favourite Sunday thing for me is a lie-in; we don’t tend to get up till around lunchtime on Sundays, and that extra sleep is wonderful. We work long days, and by Friday night we’re both exhausted, so a chill-out weekend is perfect. We sleep late, watch movies and/or binge a TV show, eat our favourite things, read in bed… that’s a perfect Sunday, the two of us chilling out, together.
Death Comes at Christmas is out now from Titan Books.
The award-winning Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane invite you to a festive gathering of bestselling, critically acclaimed and award-winning writers in tribute to classic crime stories.
From locked room mysteries on Christmas Eve to devilish whodunits and tales of simmering rivalries unfolding at the dinner table, these eighteen seasonal tales will delight and shock at every twist and turn.
So, unwrap the presents, pour a mug of mulled wine and follow the bloodstained footprints through the freshly fallen snow as winter descends and darkness lurks in the shadows.
Featuring stories by: Fiona Cummins, Angela Clarke, A. K. Benedict, Susi Holliday, J. T. Ellison, David Bell, Sarah Hilary, Claire McGowan, Tina Baker, Sam Carrington, Liz Mistry, C. L. Taylor, Helen Fields, Russ Thomas, Tom Mead, Vaseem Khan, Samantha Hayes and Belinda Bauer.
Marie O'Regan is an award-nominated writer and editor of horror and dark fantasy fiction, and her short fiction has been published in such places as The Alsiso Project, When Darkness Comes, Terror Tales 2, Terror Tales of London, Best British Horror 2014 and Great British Horror #2: Dark, Satanic Mills, among others.
Marie is also Managing Editor of Absinthe Books, an award-winning imprint of PS Publishing devoted to the novella. In 2022, she was awarded the British Fantasy Society 'Legends of FantasyCon' award. She is a former Chair of the British Fantasy Society, and former Co-Chair of the Horror Writers Association UK Chapter, as well as former Co-Chair of ChillerCon UK.