I have a confession to make: I used to think Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart a prime example of a Guilty Pleasure. Very well written, but verging on melodrama, and thus only to be enjoyed with a touch of embarrassment. Rereading it for the purpose of this review, I realized I couldn’t have been…
Castle of the Wolf certainly delivers a refreshingly different setting, but the characters and the story have a regrettably familiar feel. Still, for readers craving a story not set in Regency England, this book might well hit the spot. The plot involves Cissy Fussell, a young woman destined to be a poor relation living on…
His Dark Kiss is a gothic tale that gets the atmosphere right. But with easily recognizable scenes reminiscent of Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Austen’s Northanger Abbey and Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, it’s hard not to. However, there is more to a good book than atmosphere. Emma Parish is an illegitimate poor relation living with her…
“The apartment house stood at the edge of a woods outside a city in southern New Hampshire. Beyond the woods flowed the river, dark and twisting.” And so begins Bethany Campbell’s Dead Opposites, a romantic suspense novel set in a creepy old apartment building no one would want to call home sweet home. Both a…
Eve Silver’s debut tale of a damsel in distress and the mysterious doctor who rescues her draws the reader in with a deliciously dark, Gothic atmosphere that sets it apart from the light and fluffy historicals of recent years. Silver does an excellent job of evoking a dark and spooky mood and, while the organization…
On Winding Hill Road is a gothic romance in the classic mold. Diane Tyrrel ably captures the style and tone of the old gothics, delivering a story that should appeal to fans of the subgenre. <!– var browName = navigator.appName; var SiteID = 1; var ZoneID = 4; var browDateTime = (new Date()).getTime(); if (browName=='Netscape')…
My review copy of Shadow Haven describes it as “a contemporary gothic tale of romantic suspense.” Well, it’s fairly gothic, somewhat suspenseful, and not very romantic. All in all, it’s very much an average read. When Gabriella Deveaux married her husband Charles, she left behind her family home in the Louisiana bayou to begin a…
Elizabeth Morris’s The First Horseman is one of my very favorite romance novels, a comfort read that has come to feel like a cherished friend over the years. Rachel McKinnon and Allison Girard were best friends in their childhood days in Magnolia Grove, South Carolina. Rachel was the daughter of the town’s much revered minister,…
The Lost Angel Inn is an appropriate setting for a trio of gothic tales. It’s too bad that the stories that take place there aren’t more interesting. One hundred and forty years ago, a young maid was accused of murdering the owner of the Lost Angel Inn, which was then a private residence. As she…
This book features a mysterious house with a secret passage, a poor governess who narrates it in the first person, a dark, brooding, intense hero, and the word “mistress” is in the title. Could it be…a gothic novel? Yes it is. How is it? Well, it’s not bad, but Dorothy Eden still did it better….