Wendy Webb, The Haunting of Brynn Wilder (Lake Union) Also, since this is Sam Miller, be warned: there will be whales. In The Blade Between, the relationship reaches its zenith, as a photographer and his two childhood besties attempt to save their beloved city of Hudson from corporations and yuppies, only to find themselves instead awakening an ancient force bent on vengeance. Lovecraft first drew attention to the plight of New England architecture by filling his fictional decaying homes with hideous monstrosities, Gothic fiction has been a surprisingly partisan force for housing preservation (Jane Eyre and Rebecca notwithstanding). Miller’s The Blade Between stands out for its heroes’ plan to raise sinister supernatural forces in defense of their city.
A student on the run from the authorities sees the school as the perfect place to hide, but she slowly discovers the school has much more in mind for its students than simply refuge and learning.Ģ020 brought a plethora of new additions to the gentrification noir canon, but Sam J. If The Magicians trilogy is Harry Potter with sex and drugs, then Catherine House is a spiritualist version of The Magicians.
The exclusive private college of Catherine House is filled with experimenting scientists, nihilistic students, eerie doppelgangers, and plenty of long corridors to nowhere. As they say in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, “teeth are your bones escaping.”Įlisabeth Thomas, Catherine House (Custom House) I would like to see more authors write about teeth. Of particular note is Rose Gold’s relationship with her twisted, yellowed teeth. And now that Mama’s getting out of prison, Darling Rose Gold has an intricate plan for her own sweet, sweet revenge. Rose Gold spent her whole childhood thinking that she was desperately ill-at least, until her mother’s sent to prison for poisoning her own flesh and blood. If Munchausen-by-proxy syndrome doesn’t fit into Gothic tropes, then I continue to be rather unsure of what, exactly, gothic means. Stephanie Wrobel, Darling Rose Gold (Berkley) Nature’s revenge is a potent and powerful theme, especially in the hands of a genre master, and those who enjoy literary horror will find themselves riveted by Jones’ dark visions of vengeance. His latest, The Only Good Indians, juxtaposes wisecracking characters against a shadowy, destabilized nature, as four men attempt to outrun the vengeful spirit of a mother elk they had wrongfully killed as teenagers, and each falls victim in turn. Indigenous author Stephen Graham Jones is widely celebrated for his pulp visions and folklore-infused fiction. Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians (Saga) She teams up with the one sympathetic relative to discover the family’s secrets and lift their hold over her ailing cousin. Upon arrival, she encounters the inbred denizens of the Doyle family, a sinister group of English-speaking aristocrats living in a gothic deathtrap of a house with an unimaginably cruel story to its origins. A fabulous combination of gothic tropes and fungal weirdness, and as speckled with Mexican Golden Age cinema references as it is with descriptions of mold, Mexican Gothic follows an independent and stubborn socialite as she heads to an old mining town, determined to rescue her cousin from the clutches of her husband after receiving strange letters that hinted at grave predicament. I’m very embarrassed to say that I just now (as of November 10) finished reading Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s brilliant and absurdly entertaining gothic thriller, and OMG IT IS SO GOOD.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic (Del Rey) Beams’ protagonist, the daughter of the commune’s golden couple, is trapped between the patriarchal concern of the men running the school, the teenage rebellion of its students, and her own complicated desires her thoughts are relatable but also grounded in 19th century ideals for a perfect historical novel.
In this elegantly crafted tale of utopian woe, a new girls school set up in a former utopian colony becomes the site of a mysterious illness-and a very dubious cure. Gothic fiction of the 19th century also harkens back to the rise of anxiety, a preoccupation with mental illness, and a desperate fear of ruin, all back in vogue in our current extraordinary times.Ĭlare Beams, The Illness Lesson (Doubleday) Shifts in technology have sent some authors into the dystopian world of smart homes, while other writers have taken to the past to glory in manor houses seeping with decay, infected with pride, and corrupted by evil. Well, friends, I admit that gothic and horror fiction are not my expertise, but I’ve just read so many good books this year, I couldn’t resist having a go at the best of gothic! The great gothic revival has been going on for a couple of years now, a natural offshoot of domestic suspense and psychological thrillers that borrowed heavily from gothic tropes in the first place.
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