Kelley Armstrong is primarily known as a writer of thrillers and suspense novels, so a timeslip paranormal with a distinctly gothic-y feel about it is something of a departure for her. A Stitch in Time set in and around an old manor house on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors, is an entertaining mash-up of time-travel and…
Here’s a six-word summary of this book: Gender swapped Jane Eyre with vampires. But before I begin my review of Mimi Matthews’ John Eyre, I have a confession to make. I never finished Jane Eyre, because Helen’s death was so sad I couldn’t read any more. So readers with more knowledge of the source material…
There are many, many books and blogs dedicated to helping you create a “killer” wedding. For the bride and groom of Her Dark Lies that doesn’t just mean designing a dress to die for and booking a location you’d commit murder for – it means an actual body count. At the beginning of the tale,…
COVID-19 has made us more aware than ever of the importance of the spaces we call our own. That makes this the perfect moment to read the uncanny, absorbing Mexican Gothic, a tale about the kind of location in which you most definitely wouldn’t want to shelter in place. Wealthy socialite Noemí Taboada had planned…
I love when the different elements of a story combine to create something greater than its whole. The strong hero and his brainy heroine. The setting you can jump right into. The storyline that is both familiar and yet strikingly new. Beauty and the Clockwork Beast weaves all of these things into a wry and…
Completely addictive, riveting, and engaging, The Sun Down Motel is the latest supernatural thriller from Simone St. James. A dual timeline tale of two women thirty-five years apart looking for answers to a series of disappearances, it contains the eerie, haunted tone I expect from this author’s work together with an excellent, engrossing mystery which…
A Convenient Fiction beautifully mixes Georgette.Heyer with Victoria Holt. Part gothic romance, part family story with a tiny sprinkling of humor thrown in, it’s a lovely, spooky heartbreaker of a novel that sinks its claws right into you, then kisses the wound it leaves behind. Laura Hayes is taking a dip in a leaf-strewn pond…
Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen takes a break from her popular Rizzoli and Isles mystery series with The Shape of Night, a standalone thriller about a girl, a house and a very alluring ghost. Nearly incapacitated by guilt, stagnated cookbook author Ava Collette takes a summer rental in a remote, seaside village in Maine, hoping the…
May Peterson’s début novel, Lord of the Last Heartbeat, is an intricately constructed gothic fantasy with an intriguing storyline, set in a world that reminded me somewhat of eighteenth century Italy where dark secrets lurk behind the scenes, political backstabbing is rife and influential families jostle for power. Adding to that particular vibe is the…
There’s a captivating sense of gothic tension filling Finding Lady Enderly, a romance that mixes suspense, a rags-to-riches Cinderella story, elements of faith and class division all in one fascinating wrapper. Raina Bretton is miserably poor working as a rag picker in London’s East End. She’s on her nightly rounds when a man approaches her…