01-01-2008, 05:40 PM
I'm starting this thread because I think there are a lot of good Gothic novels out there, even modern ones, that don't fit into the category of either Horror Gothic or Gothic Romance. Rather than get hung up on definitions, it makes sense to just start a recommended list on the General Off-Topic Forum.
The criteria for this list is simply that it's a Gothic novel (however you define it) and you want to recommend it, but it doesn't fit in either the Horror Gothic or Gothic Romance categories.
I'll start with a great book I just finished called The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I really, really enjoyed it. It is a book written for fans of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights The Turn of the Screw, Wilkie Collins'' books, and any other recognizable Gothic or ghost story. It kept me entertained, it puzzled me, it tricked me, and it moved me. The author is clearly a voracious reader and lover of the whole art of reading. AND IT'S A GREAT MYSTERY!
From Booklist...
Margaret Lea, a bookish loner, is summoned to the home of Vida Winter, England's most popular novelist, and commanded to write her biography. Miss Winter has been falsifying her life story and her identity for more than 60 years. Facing imminent death and feeling an unexplainable connection to Margaret, Miss Winter begins to spin a haunting, suspenseful tale of an old English estate, a devastating fire, twin girls, a governess, and a ghost. As Margaret carefully records Vida's tale, she ponders her own family secrets. Her research takes her to the English moors to view a mansion's ruins and discover an unexpected ending to Vida's story. Readers will be mesmerized by this -story-within-a-story tinged with the eeriness of Rebecca and the willfulness of Jane Eyre.
The criteria for this list is simply that it's a Gothic novel (however you define it) and you want to recommend it, but it doesn't fit in either the Horror Gothic or Gothic Romance categories.
I'll start with a great book I just finished called The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I really, really enjoyed it. It is a book written for fans of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights The Turn of the Screw, Wilkie Collins'' books, and any other recognizable Gothic or ghost story. It kept me entertained, it puzzled me, it tricked me, and it moved me. The author is clearly a voracious reader and lover of the whole art of reading. AND IT'S A GREAT MYSTERY!
From Booklist...
Margaret Lea, a bookish loner, is summoned to the home of Vida Winter, England's most popular novelist, and commanded to write her biography. Miss Winter has been falsifying her life story and her identity for more than 60 years. Facing imminent death and feeling an unexplainable connection to Margaret, Miss Winter begins to spin a haunting, suspenseful tale of an old English estate, a devastating fire, twin girls, a governess, and a ghost. As Margaret carefully records Vida's tale, she ponders her own family secrets. Her research takes her to the English moors to view a mansion's ruins and discover an unexpected ending to Vida's story. Readers will be mesmerized by this -story-within-a-story tinged with the eeriness of Rebecca and the willfulness of Jane Eyre.