Usually, when discussing tropes in Gothic literature, I talk about certain recurring themes and plot elements (such as madness, prophecies, or burning houses) or character types (like the Creepy Housekeeper, Corrupted Clergy, or First Wife). But the genre also makes use of particular structural or stylistic techniques. One of my favorite stylistic tropes in Gothic literature is the found document framing device.
Continue reading Gothic Tropes: Found Document Framing Device
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson has been adapted many times. It has become, in popular culture, the quintessential haunted house story, although Shirley Jackson’s novel leaves the veracity of the haunting intentionally ambiguous. One thing many adaptations struggle with is how to maintain that ambiguity while still evoking horror. The recent Netflix series, directed by Mike Flanagan, accomplishes this balance by diverging from the source material significantly while preserving its central themes. This series arrived on Netflix in 2018, so I’m a little late to the bandwagon. But I finally finished watching it and wanted to share a few of my thoughts with you. Continue reading Review of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House
So many stories focus on the great romance between a human and a vampire and end with that human joining the undead in a happily ever after. But when you’re immortal, that “ever after” is a long, long time. What happens to a relationship over the course of centuries? And what if the immortal being you’ve tied yourself to isn’t the perfect romantic partner after all? S. T. Gibson explores these themes and more in her new adult fantasy novel A Dowry of Blood, which comes out on Sunday, January 31. Continue reading Review of A Dowry of Blood–Vampires and Toxic Relationships
“Vampires are dead.” People have been saying this ever since the overwhelming popularity of the Twilight series led to an explosion of young adult paranormal fantasy in the mid-2000s that saturated the market. But as a life-long vampire fan, I’ve always felt that these denizens of the undead still have more to teach us. There is something universally appealing about the vampire that isn’t going away anytime soon, and there are still infinite new angles from which the topic can be approached. Instead of telling everyone that the genre has been done to death already, why not open it up to a diversity of fresh new voices that haven’t yet had the chance to tell their story? That’s exactly what Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker do in their new anthology Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite, which came out back in September. Continue reading Review of Vampires Never Get Old—Giving the Genre New Life
Our favorite lesbian necromancer is back! Gideon the Ninth was one of my favorite books that I read in 2020, so it’s only fitting that I would start off the new year by finishing the sequel. Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir came out last August, and is the perfect thing to soothe the wound of having your heart ripped out at the end of the first book. Well, after it pokes that wound a few times first, for good measure. Continue reading Harrow the Ninth Review
There are many things I’m looking forward to about 2021—mainly that the seemingly cursed year of 2020 is finally over! While I know that things won’t magically get better just because we’ve turned over a new calendar year, there’s just something refreshing about the feeling of a new start. And part of that new start means planning out a TBR list of new releases for this year! Here are some of the books I’m most excited for: Continue reading Books I’m Excited for in 2021
Well, it has certainly been a strange year! But if nothing else, 2020 has been a fairly good year of reading for me. As always, I participated in the annual Goodreads Reading Challenge, and this was the first time in many years that I easily met my numerical goal well in advance. The pandemic has changed my reading habits significantly, and many of my goals and priorities shifted from what I thought they would be at the beginning of the year. Let’s take a look back at my year in books!
A couple years ago, I wrote about the tradition of the Christmas ghost story—which became an indispensable part of the festive season after Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol in 1843. The heyday of the Christmas ghost story overlapped with the Golden Age of the ghost story more generally, and many celebrated spooky authors began incorporating Christmas into their haunting tales. Last time, I highlighted several stories by male authors, but women were equally if not more involved in the festive ghost story game. Check out the stories by women below for a seasonally appropriate scare!
What happens when the hunters become the hunted? The Only Good Indians by renowned indigenous author Stephen Graham Jones was one of the most-talked about horror novels this year and came out back in July. I finally decided to check out for myself whether it lives up to the hype. Continue reading Review of The Only Good Indians—Indigenous Horror
A skull-faced girl in black slicing her way through an explosion of skeletons—I only needed to see the cover of this book to know that it would be exactly up my alley. Despite the fact that this debut novel was one of the most talked-about fantasy releases of 2019, it took me over a year to finally get my hands on a copy. I am, of course, talking about Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. But if you’re late to the bandwagon like I was, now is the perfect time to hop on—especially since the second book in the series, Harrow the Ninth, just came out this summer. Continue reading Gideon the Ninth Review—Haunted Necromancers
