Dark Academia—A New Literary Aesthetic

“Dark academia.” You may have seen this phrase being used by bookish influencers on TikTok or tagged onto writers’ mood boards on Twitter and Instagram. The phrase is generally accompanied by images in muted earthy tones and dark burgundy, often featuring cardigans with elbow patches and pleated skirts, dark wood furniture, hallowed halls of learning, and libraries full of cloth-bound tomes. Though the term has only come into popular use in recent years, perusing an image search is enough to quickly give you a sense of the vibe—a cohesive aesthetic that encompasses fashion, architecture, and personal paraphernalia. But is there something more to dark academia than just visually appealing imagery with which to decorate one’s social media presence?

Photo by Thomas Kelley on Unsplash

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Review of Yellow Jessamine—Poisons and Possessions

Yellow Jessamine coverWhen you’re a woman alone in a patriarchal world, you claw your way to power by any means necessary. This is the philosophy of Lady Evelyn Perdanu in Caitlin Starling’s 2020 fantasy novella Yellow Jessamine.  Continue reading Review of Yellow Jessamine—Poisons and Possessions

Review of Lacrimore—A Monstrous Mansion

Lacrimore cover“It feeds on the horrors we commit….” A malevolent, sentient house serves as the lively setting of Lacrimore, a debut Gothic novella by S. J. Costello. The book came out in 2020 and was a winner of the Independent Publishers Book Awards. Continue reading Review of Lacrimore—A Monstrous Mansion

Review of A Snake Falls to Earth

A Snake Falls to Earth book coverCan a snake save the world? Oli the cottonmouth snake spirit is determined to save at least his little patch of it in Darcie Little Badger’s YA fantasy novel A Snake Falls to Earth, which came out last fall. Inspired by traditional Lipan Apache storytelling, this book brings together the human world and the spirit world in a tale of monsters, magic, and family.  Continue reading Review of A Snake Falls to Earth

LGBTQ Reading Recs

I know we’re heading toward the end of Pride Month, but it’s never too late to expand your reading to include more books with LGBTQ representation! In this post, I’ll be giving you some recommendations of books that feature characters across the spectrum of queer identities, based on the literary works, genres, and tropes you already know you like:

graphic with The Gothic Library logo of a skull on a stack of books, plus rainbow hearts and the words Happy Pride Month! Continue reading LGBTQ Reading Recs

Review of The Ghost and Mrs Muir—Midcentury Ghost Romance

The Ghost and Mrs Muir coverWould you move into a haunted cottage? For Lucy Muir, the ghost of a grumpy old sea captain turns out to be just what she needed to complete her picture of perfect domestic bliss in The Ghost and Mrs Muir. The novel was published by Irish author Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym R. A. Dick in 1945. It was adapted into a popular film in 1947, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. If you’re looking for something sweet, slow, and low-stakes to read this summer, definitely check out this classic! Continue reading Review of The Ghost and Mrs Muir—Midcentury Ghost Romance

Review of In the Vanishers’ Palace—Loving a Monster

In a corrupted and poisoned world, the worst diseases can only be cured with the aid of a powerful dragon. But a dragon’s help always comes with a price. Aliette de Bodard beautifully blends the post-apocalyptic genre with Vietnamese-inspired fantasy (and some spicy sapphic romance) in her 2018 novella In the Vanishers’ Palace.  Continue reading Review of In the Vanishers’ Palace—Loving a Monster

Review of The Outcast and The Rite—Interwar Supernatural Stories

The Outcast and The Rite coverI love discovering new-to-me authors from centuries gone by, whose works could sit comfortably alongside those of Poe and Lovecraft but haven’t received quite the same attention. And no one provides better opportunities for such discoveries than Melissa Edmundson and the folks at Handheld Press. Over the last few years, this team brought us two volumes of Women’s Weird collections. Now, they are focusing in on one such weird fiction writer: Helen de Guerry Simpson. The Outcast and The Rite: Stories of Landscape and Fear, 1925-1938 contains thirteen tales of weird, supernatural horror published during the period between the two World Wars by this underappreciated Australian writer. The collection came out from Handheld Press earlier this month.  Continue reading Review of The Outcast and The Rite—Interwar Supernatural Stories

Dracula Daily: An Internet-wide Book Club

Image of Dracula head popping out of open envelope like an email icon, against a red backgroundYou have no idea how warm and fuzzy it makes me feel to see vast swathes of the internet get passionate about Gothic literature! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me introduce you to the best thing that has happened online this year: Dracula Daily. Created by web designer Matt Kirkland, Dracula Daily is a brilliant new way to experience Bram Stoker’s vampire classic. The project takes advantage of Dracula’s epistolary format to turn the text of the novel into an email newsletter so that you can experience the story in real time. If you’re unfamiliar: Dracula is told entirely through a series of journal entries, letters, newspaper clippings, and ship’s logs dated from May 3 to November 7. Subscribers to Dracula Daily will get each entry delivered to their inboxes on the corresponding date. Though we’re already a few weeks into the story, it’s not too late to sign up! You can go back and read the entries you missed in the Dracula Daily archive. I started last week and just got caught up. Continue reading Dracula Daily: An Internet-wide Book Club

Review of Ring Shout—Making Monsters

Ring Shout coverWhite supremacy can make people into monsters. This is as true today as it was during the heyday of Jim Crow laws and burning crosses. P. Djèlí Clark literalizes this metaphor in his celebrated novella Ring Shout, which came out in 2020. Continue reading Review of Ring Shout—Making Monsters