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Showing posts with label gothic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gothic. Show all posts

March 13, 2026

3 Gothic Stories to Read for Friday the 13th

by Donna Huber


Do you enjoy slasher movies and all things scary? Then you should read the classic Gothic stories from which many modern horror movies draw their tropes. Here are three to get you started on this Friday the 13th.

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October 15, 2022

3 Books Perfect for Your Halloween Reading

by MK French


We have a little over two weeks until Halloween, and if you are still looking for spooky reads I have a few recommendations.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. Free books were provided for an honest review.

January 24, 2022

Hold My Place by Cassondra Windwalker ~ a Review

by MK French


Librarian Sigrun falls for married Edgar Leyward, but his wife Octavia soon dies from a sudden illness. Their illicit affair soon becomes a whirlwind romance, but the shadow of Edgar's former loves hangs over them. Three women met early deaths, and Sigrun feels the edges of her own identity fade as she reads through their letters. She doesn't think dark magic is real, but shadows stalk the halls of the Leyward house, and the lines between the past and present blur.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

September 9, 2019

The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal ~ a Review

by MK French


As the Great Exhibition is built in 1850's London, Iris hopes to escape working in a doll shop and become a painter as she had always dreamed. Becoming the model for Louis Frost opens her world to all kinds of opportunities. The chance encounter with Silas, a curiosity collector that articulated skeletons or butterflies for the morbid tastes of artists and the gentry, is a forgotten moment for Iris. For Silas, it was a moment that sparked an obsession that would never relent.

August 13, 2019

Death Comes to Dartmoor by Vivian Conroy @VivWrites ~ a Review

by Donna Huber



"'What on earth are you so busy with, Merula?'
Merula Merriweather shocked upright, her pencil scratching across the paper she had been completely engrossed in. She blinked as she stared at the dark chiseled features of Lord Raven Royston sitting opposite her in the coach that rattled its way along a country dirt road."

April 26, 2019

Ladies of Gothic Horror, edited by Mitzi Szereto ~ a Review

by MK French

This is a collection of seventeen stories from various well known Gothic authors, including: Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edith Wharton, Marjorie Bowen, Gertrude Atherton, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman,  and Elia W. Peattie. Most people would think of Bram Stoker's Dracula as an example of Gothic horror, but there were plenty of ladies willing and able to delve into the dark for their stories. Mitzi Szareto writes her own Gothic flavored horror stories, so it's only natural that she would collate and edit this collection. Her introduction is a thoughtful look into the time period, and the challenges that these women had faced in getting published, let alone in living their everyday lives. A brief biography follows each story, and I find that sometimes that gives a lot more insight into the text.

January 22, 2019

The Au Pair by Emma Rous ~ a Review #TeaserTuesday

by Susan Roberts

First chapter, first paragraph

A grand estate, terrible secrets, and a young woman who bears witness to it all. If V. C. Andrews and Kate Morton had a literary love child, Emma Rous’ The Au Pair would be it.

December 7, 2018

Evil is Always Human by Eddie Whitlock ~ a Review

by Donna Huber



When I went to the Indie Author Event at a local library earlier this year, I ran into Eddie Whitlock. He is the librarian that runs the post-apocalyptic book club I attend. I didn't know he is an author. Though the genres he writes aren't really my favorites, he wanted me to give his southern novel a try.

October 3, 2018

The Witch of Willow Hall by @HesterBFox ~ a Review

by MK French

Lydia Montrose and her family moved from Boston to the town of New Oldbury in 1821 to escape scandal. Heartbreak seems to follow anyway, and the subtle menace in Willow Hall awakens power that Lydia had never been told about.

April 12, 2018

Review: Dark Surrender by Erica Ridley

by MK French

Violet Whitechapel fled her teaching position when she killed in order to save a student from predation. Without anywhere else to go, she accepted the position of governess for a child that has "sun sickness," where any sunlight caused severe burns and blisters on the skin. The superstitious villagers had thought the girl was a monster, but Violet grows to love her and her taciturn father in spite of her determination not to be close to anyone ever again.

September 30, 2017

Review: Florida Gothic by Mitzi Szereto

by MK French

Ernesto Martinez was an older man of Cuban descent living in Miami, going about his business from day to day until he was killed in a hit and run accident. His spirit still lingered, leaving him to ponder the turns his life had taken, and all of the losses he suffered. Gradually, he realized that it wasn't fair, and he now had an opportunity to enact justice in a way that life had never given him.

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