Gothic fiction

With Halloween coming up soon, thought it would be as good a time as any to look at some of my favorite modern Gothic fiction.  To me, Gothic in large part refers to the atmosphere of a book - it's often set at some kind of crumbling mansion, there's generally a hint of the supernatural (anything from implied but not real to actual creepy haunting), and there's often some kind of mystery involving a dead person in the present or past too.

I actually didn't know what the official definition of the genre was so I looked it up - here's what Goodreads had to say:  "Making its debut in the late 18th century, Gothic fiction was a branch of the larger Romantic movement that sought to stimulate strong emotions in the reader - fear and apprehension in this case. Gothic fiction places heavy emphasis on atmosphere, using setting and diction to build suspense and a sense of unease in the reader. Common subject matter includes the supernatural, family curses, mystery, and madness."


Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier - Any list of gothic fiction has to start with this one, right?  Other than this book I'm only going to talk about modern books since that is generally what I read, but this book, published in 1938, is such a classic of the genre.  Great atmospheric, spooky novel about a naive young woman who marries a widower and moves with him to his estate in the English countryside, while constantly feeling under the shadow of his dead first wife Rebecca.

Kate Morton - Kate Morton is both my favorite author of dual time period historical fiction and one of my most favorite must read authors regardless of genre.  And pretty much all of her books have at least some gothic elements - crumbling mansions, mysterious deaths, and in her most recent book, an actual ghost as one of the narrators.  The most gothic-y of her books are probably The Clockmaker's Daughter (see my 5 star review from a year ago), The Forgotten Garden, and The Distant Hours, and 4 of her 6 books have been on my top 10 lists of years past.

Eve Chase - If you've already read all of Kate Morton's books and are looking for something in the same vein to check out, I highly recommend Eve Chase because her two books - Black Rabbit Hall and The Wildling Sisters - both have a very similar vibe.  Both books are set in dilapidated English manor houses with stories set in two different time periods and mystery aspects concerning missing or possibly dead characters.  Black Rabbit Hall was one of my 2016 top 10 favorite books.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield  - This is a fun one - one of those modern books that has the feel of a classic.  In it, a young woman with her own family secrets is summoned to a creepy mansion to write the biography of a famous reclusive author, and a haunting and mysterious family tale unfolds.  This was one of my 2010 top 10 favorite books.

The Last Camellia by Sarah Jio - Sarah Jio is another of my favorite authors of dual time period historical fiction, but her books are usually a bit more fluffy rather than gothic-y.  But my favorite of her books is The Last Camellia, which has a gothic vibe to it.  Set of course in an English country mansion, with one narrative in the 1940s and one in the present, and mystery in both.  This book was on my 2015 ten favorites list

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James - Just to break things up a little, this book is set in a creepy boarding school in America instead of a creepy mansion in England, ha ha.  There are two narrative strands set in two different time periods.  In the 1950s, the book alternates between the perspectives of 4 roommates at a creepy and possible haunted girls' boarding school in Vermont called Idlewild. In 2014, the story is told from the perspective of a journalist named Fiona, whose older sister's dead body was found on the by then abandoned Idlewild grounds many years before. When a new buyer starts construction at Idlewild, Fiona starts investigating both what happened with her sister and what happened back in the 1950s at Idlewild.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton - This book is a little different than the rest of the books on this list, but definitely gothic as well.  It's so original it's a little hard to describe - basically, the book starts with a character waking up with no memory - only to eventually discover that every day for 8 days he will wake up in the same crumbling English manor on the same day (the anniversary of a different murder from 19 years before) as a different person, trying to figure out who is going to murder Evelyn Hardcastle that night - and the only way to escape from this loop is to figure out who the murderer is. So, it's a little bit Agatha Christie, a little bit Groundhog Day, a little bit Quantum Leap, a little bit the movie "Clue," with a bunch of original elements as well. It definitely is confusing at times, both figuring out what is going on at the beginning of the book, and then keeping track of all the characters and elements as the book goes forward. But it's also a really enjoyable puzzle, both seeing how all the different actions of the various iterations of the main character come together, and the even more complex set of mysteries that surround the murders.