It’s that season of the year. Snowy evenings, foggy mornings, and early sunsets. Shadows on the streets. The quiet in the house with the radiator buzzing in the background. The quiet outside as everyone stays in avoiding the cold. The quiet everywhere. Winter is the time for ghosts to come calling. I know Halloween month is for spooky stories, but where is the fear in silly costumes and golden autumn light. No, it is the…
Gothic
I often approach contemporary writers with some trepidation, much like Margaret Lea, the narrator of The Thirteenth Tale. I need not have worried, because this gothic tale hooks and reels you in as you open its first pages. It was November – Diane Setterfield The book’s opening sentence is simple and yet it contains the promise of a dark, grim ghost story. For in the end, this is what The Thirteenth Tale is; a ghost…
Wilkie Collins is famous genre-defining novels like The Moonstone & The Women in White – these novels often make it to the top hundred lists. The Haunted Hotel is a lesser known work – a purely gothic story with interesting characters, haunted rooms and scandalous love affairs. Without spoiling the plot, there is a lot making it a page turner. A hush-hush marriage, a scorned lover, rivalry between brothers, missing servants and phantom visions –…
