Gothic/Noir

Feb 23

Review of All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham

I was hooked on Willingham's past and present storylines and by her unreliable narrator Isabelle, who is desperate to find her missing...

Jan 5

Review of The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

The past timeline explores creativity, love, betrayal, and unexpected loops of consequence--which are echoed hauntingly in the present...

Oct 21, 2022

Six Spooky, Gothic Tales

The Gothic Undercurrents It's the perfect time of year to read some spooky, dark, gothic tales. Desolate settings, mysterious deaths,...

Jun 15, 2022

Review of The Change by Kristen Miller

The Change explores the power of menopausal women and the poignant strength of friendship; supplies satisfying revenge fantasies and...

Feb 17, 2022

Review of One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash

ICYMI: North Carolina author Rash offers a fascinating, Appalachian-set mystery told from various points of view with a Southern gothic...

Oct 21, 2021

Review of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Jackson's gothic horror tale is made all the more frightening by its reliance on terror, shadows, and mystery. This was a wonderfully...

Sep 2, 2021

Review of Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

I was intrigued by the wolves, and I was interested in McConaghy's exploration of the tensions between wilderness and civilization, but I...

Aug 24, 2021

Review of The Manningtree Witches by A.K. Blakemore

Blakemore's book--which is based upon witch hunts during the seventeenth-century English Civil War--is smart, shadowy and gothic, often...

Jul 21, 2021

Review of Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft

I adored the romantic setup and seemingly ill-fated attraction in Saft's young adult fantasy-mystery, but I was dissatisfied with the...

Apr 22, 2021

Review of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

In this gothic Victorian tale, Waters offers a slow build to heartbreak, twists and double twists, hesitant attempts at love, and,...

Apr 20, 2021

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 4/20/21 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to Sarah J. Maas's popular young adult fantasy about the collision of faeries and humans, the...

Apr 12, 2021

Review of The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon

The dark, seemingly bottomless water is the standout, creepy element here: a source of relentless, hungry power that straddles the worlds...

Mar 29, 2021

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/29/21 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading three books that are about to be published: Cory Anderson's debut, a dark young adult novel about...

Mar 3, 2021

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/3/21 Edition

What I'm Reading Now Here's what I've got going at the moment: a dark, intriguing story of interconnectedness between unusual characters;...

Mar 2, 2021

Review of We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker

Whitaker's story builds into a tale of heartbreak and desperate hopes for redemption that folds back upon itself with unexpected turns...

Feb 24, 2021

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 2/24/21 Edition

01 Machinehood by S.B. Divya In her debut novel, Divya offers a society set in 2095. Humanity is reliant on homemade and commercially...

Feb 23, 2021

Review of The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda

Miranda uses the framework of a famous fictional rescue story to imagine the characters' turmoil and desperate coping mechanisms,...

Jan 18, 2021

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 1/18/21 Edition

01 Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo Evaristo won the Booker Prize in 2019 for this novel, which I'm listening to as an audiobook...

Dec 16, 2020

Review of The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

There's brutality and bravery in this spooky tale--and the atmospheric descriptions of the remote, tiny town setting created an eerie,...

Dec 14, 2020

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 12/14/20 Edition

01 Notes on a Silencing: A Memoir by Lacy Crawford Crawford thought the trauma of her assault at St. Paul's boarding school decades...

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