I bought this because I saw a video about it on TikTok and it looked really fun. I just can't say no to gothic romances, especially not if they have my favorite trope: is the house actually haunted or are we just slowly going mad? ALSO, the author failed to disclose that this is basically a stepmother x stepson romance because the heroine was actually married to the hero's father, which I think was a HUGE mistake, because there are people who are VERY into that (like me). Marketing, marketing, marketing. :p
Anyway, before she married his dad, Remi was in love with Ben. They were childhood friends on the cusp of becoming more, but her uncle kind of pressed her to marry Edgar. Then Edgar dies and things get weird, because his death might be connected to a couple other deaths that all seem to revolve mysteriously around Leone Manor. Ben is also a little bit of a fuckboy, which was giving Bridgerton Boy vibes. In some ways, this book is like Bridgerton if Bridgerton was having a goth phrase. Which you might be into.
The prologue and beginning were AMAZING. However, I really wish the pacing and atmosphere had been a little more intense. There were some fantastically creepy scenes scenes in here but I personally wanted more, although I did love how unlike traditional gothic romances, this one is very much open door. I wouldn't call it spicy but there is descriptive sex.
The ending was great and made up for some of the saggy middle. Like I said, the premise was awesome and reeled me right in and I happen to love this publisher a lot. It was just a bit cozier than I was expecting, based on the summary and the reviews, which made it feel blander than it probably would have felt if I were in the right mood for it. I would recommend this book to people who are fans of cozy horror/gothic authors like Chasity Bowlin and Darcy Coates.
LUCILLE is a pretty solid gothic novella. It's a Bluebeard telling with vampires and vampire hunters, set in France. The historical details were great and I thought the author managed to capture the Victorian "style" with her narrator, Lucille, who, even though she is often TSTL, is very young and sheltered, so I could sort of tell myself that her behavior made sense. After all, she doesn't have TikTok and fake news to make her skeptical and jaded before her time.
Bluebeard is probably one of my favorite fairytales of all time so I'm always a little picky when it comes to retellings. This is a good one, although the pacing felt off. Lucille decides she loves Jakob very quickly. So quickly that when she said she did, I was like, "What?!" The ending also felt super abrupt, especially the climax, which felt like it should have been drawn out a little more to give the reader time to both dread what was happening and process going on.
Based on the blurb, this is also being branded as a dark fantasy romance, but this doesn't really feel like a dark fantasy or a romance. It feels more erotic horror or gothic paranormal. I thought maybe you could argue that it was possibly an HFN since there is a sequel but then I realized that the sequel is about another couple, so there isn't going to be a whole lot more development between these two, since it ends on a note of tragedy and manipulation.
Overall, this was pretty solid and I do think that readers of gothic and horror fiction will enjoy it. Her follow-up novel, SONG OF THE DEMON COURT, was a lot better, so it was nice to see where she started and how much she improved-- especially when it comes to world-building details and character development.
Look, 9 times out of 10 when an author decides to rewrite their book from the male love interest's perspective, it's not interesting and feels wholly unnecessary. LOVER is that 1 book out of 10 that really adds something to the story, and it's also basically a masterclass in how to write a gentlemanly simp who is respectfully obsessive. HAWT.
Do NOT read this book if you haven't already read THE CRUEL DARK because it contains major spoilers for the book. Before I dive into my review, I will say that these two books are set during the roaring twenties, and are a lushly written gothic saga about a girl with a tragic past coming to help a hot and tormented professor with his research, only to discover that the house that they're working in harbors dark secrets that inextricably twine with both of their own sordid histories.
Callum is such a great hero. He had some of the best lines in this book ever, and the spicy scenes were both elegant and hot. A Michelin starred dish of spice, if you will. I also loved seeing Millie through his eyes. I loved her a lot in her own book, and getting to see the hero falling in love with her, being in love with her, was a real treat.
Does this book do much for the plot? No. But it advances the story emotionally and is actually a very thoughtful and complex piece of fan service that goes beyond a mere smuttening, so I am happy.
DEEP AND DARK AND DANGEROUS is a fantastic middle grade gothic ghost story about a girl who goes to the lake for the summer, only to find out that her mother and her aunt are harboring a dark and terrible secret. It all starts when Ali finds a picture in one of her mother's old books of three girls: her mother, her aunt, and a mysterious girl whose face has mostly been torn away.
When she asks her mother about it, she shuts down. So she wants until her aunt comes to visit and her aunt acts just as strange. With the persistence only a kid can summon, she manages to convince her aunt to take her to the lake for the summer along with her small young cousin, Emma. And at first, it's beautiful and picturesque, but the lake creates its own foggy weather and all of the locals have warnings about how dark and deep it is. A body could get lost down there.
Maybe a body already has.
If you like the vibe of those old 70s gothics, you'll love Hahn's work. She basically writes the kid versions of them, and she does a great job. Some middle grade feels like you're being sat down and taught a lesson, but Hahn writes her kids in all of their bratty precocious glory, and I love that about her work. I honestly think the kids reading this will, too. Kids are a lot smarter than adults give them credit for. They know when they're being patronized.
This haunting, beautiful, creepy story is going to be living rent-free in my head for a while. Thank goodness I don't have any creepy lakes or creepy little girls in my backyard.
I buddy-read this book with my IG buddy, usedbookin. This is the second vintage gothic we've read together and the first one that I really adored. The Zebra gothic line could be hit or miss but this one has everything: lost birthrights, family secrets, hot stepbrothers, mysterious heirloom jewelry, and a fucking albino witch with a pet white wolf. DAMN.
When Annie's father is on his deathbed, he reveals to Annie that he's not actually her father: she was given to him to care for and she's actually the long-lost daughter of a rich winemaker family who lives in a castle. But when she writes to the family, the lawyer basically writes back and is like, "OUR CONDOLENCES BUT NO. XOXO."
Annie isn't about to take that shit, so she goes to the family to deal with them in person, and is almost turned away by the hot stepbrother, Christian, but the man who might be her father intervenes. He's half-mad and has never gotten over his first wife (Annie's supposed mother), despite his new wife literally BEING RIGHT THERE, but he is the one who decides that Annie simply must stay.
Weird shit starts happening pretty quickly. Christian makes a point of letting her know he thinks she's a fraud and calls her the G-slur literally dozens of times. His cousin isn't a fan of her either. Henri, a friend of the family, is a little *too* friendly, and the servants intimate that maybe her mother's disappearance was more sinister than mere flightiness. But honestly, who knows?
I thought this was a lot of fun. There were some great chilling scenes, it was extra without being too extra, and the novelty of a historical stepbrother romance was too good to miss. This reminded me a lot of BLACKMADDIE but more consistent in pacing. A must for anyone who loves vintage gothics.
THE HOUSE OF LOST WIVES was an impulse buy. I thought the cover was beautiful and the blurb sounded very Bluebeard-y. Then I checked out the sample and thought it looked awesome. Better yet, my friend lacy agreed to buddy-read this with me, because the only thing better than a gothic read is a gothic read with friends.
Lizzie is the daughter of a gambler/alcoholic and an enabler in Victorian England. She's gently-raised but her father's shittiness with money has steered her a little too close to the crime- and poverty-stricken parts of Victorian England, as we see right at the beginning when she and her sister cower in the face of shady repo men who take some of their family heirlooms after roughing up their dad.
Now an adult woman, Lizzie is about to be married off to the same man that her sister married... before she died mysteriously and suspiciously. Her parents don't care, though, because Lord Blountford has agreed to forgive her dad's gambling debts if he can marry her and that's too good of a deal to resist.
We follow Lizzie in her new soon-to-be-married life as she navigates the mansion and realizes that her husband had FOUR other wives. Also, she can talk to them... because she can see and hear ghosts. Which sounds like it should be twee, but it actually makes this feel like a fun grown-up version of Meg Cabot's Mediator series that really adds to the gothic vibe of the story.
As far as gothics go, this is a pretty gentle one. But it's really fun. The mystery kept me turning pages, there's a bit of a romance (several, actually), and the heroine's SA is handled BEAUTIFULLY. I really appreciated that it was off page and how realistic her PTSD was. It was handled very delicately and I thought that was great and wanted to make a point of calling that out.
Anne Stuart is one of my favorite authors, so when I found out completely by accident that she had released a new book (very quietly, apparently, and with zero fanfare), I was SHOOKETH. Especially since she appeared to be going back to grassroots by making this a first person gothic (whaaaaat??) and it has the most Colleen Hoover-looking cover I've ever seen that wasn't slapped on a Colleen Hoover book.
RETURN TO MARIPOSA is about a woman named Kitty, who has the most bizarre chain of degrees I've ever seen: BA in English, Master's in contemporary Spanish lit, and then 3/4 of a PhD in, I kid you not, "plant eugenics" with "an emphasis in olive trees." She tells us, the readers, that she got this degree because she comes from a super rich family that lives as expatriates in Spain on a massive estate called Mariposa, with an adjoining and successful olive tree farm.
But for some reason, Kitty is ostracized from the family. It's not super clear why except her mother made her leave early one summer and apparently her grandfather decided to Take That Personally(TM). Every year through her cousin, Bella, Kitty has asked to come back and every year (through Bella), she is told no. In addition to Bella, she also has two adoptive stepcousins, both brothers, named Ian and Marcus. When they were young, Kitty had crushes on both of them, but they didn't like her because she was chubby. Instead, they called her "Podge" because she was pudgy, and treated her like shit. What assholes.
Anyway, now the grandfather is dying and Bella gets the BRILLIANT idea that they should Parent Trap the shit out of their dying grandfather as a chance for Kitty to make amends and get closure while incognito. This plan is ridiculous, but Kitty, longing for home, doesn't question it. But almost immediately, her return starts to feel super sus. Apparently Bella was dating a mobster, and grandfather maybe doesn't hate Kitty as much as everyone thought, and both of the stepcousins are still very hot. Also, someone might be trying to kill her for reasons. HUZZAH!
This book takes a while to get rolling and it is BIZARRE. First of all, no way is this woman twenty-eight. This woman who uses words like "blandishments" and "sobriquet" and has apparently had sex but never been kissed with tongue??? (As an adult, she is SHOCKED to be Frenched; like, girl, you're acting like a dick sprouted from his mouth Alien-style and beejed you???). She is also SO resistant to the idea that she might be in danger. At one point, she says "no one is trying to kill me!" after a stranger at a bar literally takes her aside and tells her he wants to kill her AND someone tampers with the brakes of her car. People are so quick to call heroines TSTL, and throw the term around like rice at a wedding, but I'm afraid that Kitty might actually be a whole-ass onigiri.
That said, this was addictive to read and so cheesy that I couldn't put it down. Is it plausible? NO. Did I read it anyway because my fave wrote it? Yes. Ian is douchier than a lot of her other heroes and I didn't really like him all that much, but he has a lot of the hallmarks of a classic Anne Stuart Hero(TM). The sex scenes were also more descriptive than the usual Anne Stuart novel and I thought Stuart did a good job showing the angst of crushing on a guy who was unattainable and treated you like garbage when you were young. (Honestly, first crush might be a favorite trope of mine.) I also thought there was some halfway decent foreshadowing and some interesting plot points that felt like nostalgic throwbacks to old school gothic romances.
I wouldn't recommend this to people who are new to this author, but if you like her books already and enjoy a classic old skool romp, then you'll probably find this as entertaining as I did.
Note: this book has been rereleased as CASTLE OF SECRETS but I personally like the older title and cover better.
Amanda Grange is a new-to-me author. I actually found one of her books at a thrift shop and it had been critically panned. Bad average ratings don't usually scare me off, though, and when I had finished reading MR. DARCY, VAMPYRE, I actually found that I had had an incredibly good time, 2.89 average rating or no. I found out that a lot of her backlist is actually on KU, so I started downloading her books one after the other, and each was better than the last!
STORMCROW CASTLE is an absolutely fantastic book, which hits all the notes you would expect in a gothic romance. It's very Jane Eyre in nature, minus the governess bit, so if you enjoy books that have the Jane vibe, you will eat this up on a silver spoon.
Helena is engaged to this guy she's kind of ambivalent about, but when she goes to the castle where her aunt works, she finds out that her aunt has mysteriously disappeared-- to visit a "sick sister," except Helena, being her niece, knows that her aunt doesn't have a sister. Disturbed, she gets the brilliant idea to pretend to be the new housekeeper so she can infiltrate the house and get the intel on her aunt's whereabouts.
Lord Torkrow (doesn't his name sound like a Pokemon???) is the man who owns the castle, although everyone in town refers to him and his family as stormcrows, which seems to be a bird of ill-omens. Strange cries come from the attic, there's a rumor that he was in love with his brother's wife and caused both their untimely deaths, and now, with the missing aunt, Helena soon wonders if maybe Torkrow is a serial murderer-- and if maybe he might plan to do away with her, too.
I just had so much fun with this book. There's sinister graveyard shenanigans, secret rooms, masquerade parties, beautiful writing, longing looks, and, in tradition of Jane Eyre, a hero who is described as ugly at a first glance, which is very Edward Rochester. I seem to recall that the heroine was plain as well(?), and I really enjoyed that. Especially since, with all her detective work and banter, Helena gives the hero plenty of reasons to respect her beyond wanting to bang her because she's hot. (Not that that isn't sometimes the vibe, too.) I'm honestly shocked this author isn't more popular.
Amanda Grange is officially a new autobuy author of mine and she's woefully underrated. I actually bought this book because it had a 2.89 average rating on Goodreads and I was dying to know why it had been panned. I honestly don't know why it was, though. It's a fun cross between Twilight, Dracula, and Pride and Prejudice, and I had such a good time reading it. My best guess is that because this author mostly writes Jane Austen fanfic, her primary audience was people who want traditional Jane Austen fanfic and didn't appreciate the high camp.
This book is a direct AU sequel to Pride and Prejudice that starts with Jane and Elizabeth's joint wedding and then jumps into action when Elizabeth and Darcy go on their European honeymoon. Elizabeth is slightly worried that Darcy won't consummate their marriage, and even as she is awed by their trip to first Paris and then Venice, she is disturbed by his relatives and acquaintances, and all the sly little hints they keep dropping about his dark secrets.
The title is definitely a bit of a spoiler but there were still tons of fun surprises. I loved Elizabeth's character and Darcy definitely gave off Edward Cullen vibes, which weirdly works because of course, Smeyer based Edward on so many Byronic and Byronic-adjacent heroes, like Darcy, Rochester, and Heathcliff. I'd recommend this to that very niche audience of people who enjoy both literature and camp, because it contains elements of both.
This was an impulse download because I kept seeing it being suggested to me every time I went on Amazon. On a whim, I downloaded THE CRUEL DARK and ended up completely obsessed. It's kind of like a threeway cross between Gothikana, Jane Eyre, and RoseRed, but set in the 1920s with a headstrong heroine who has come to a remote and supposedly haunted mansion named Willowfield to help a hot and standoffish professor with his research, only to realize that nothing about the house-- or the man-- is truly as it seems.
The lush writing and rich setting are good enough for those who read their gothics for the vibes, but the characterizations and SPICE are also top tier. Spice does nothing for me if there's no emotional element to it, so I was delighted that the chemistry between Callum and Millie basically set the pages on fire. They're so good together, and the dangerous edge to Callum's character makes it even better.
I was thinking this was going to be a four star read for a while because there were a few niggling things that weren't my fave, but then that TWIST flew out of nowhere and everything suddenly flew neatly into place, and I was like holy shitteth, there is no way that anything that made me gasp out loud like that is getting anything less than the full five stars. I don't make the rules. (JK, I do.)
If you're a fan of Keri Lake, you need to read this book.
The author was kind enough to gift me books two and three in her Phantom Saga series after my father was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer. It was such a wonderful present and a great pick-me-up, but I've been so slow in reading anything that isn't easy because I've been so depressed. Anyway, I finally finished ANGEL'S KISS and I'm happy to report that it is a wonderful sequel to the phantom.
ANGEL'S MASK was more of a straightforward retelling of the Phantom story we know and love, but ANGEL'S KISS takes more liberties with the story. What happens when the Persian Daroga continues to dog Erik's every step in an attempt to avenge the Shah he worked for? What happens when Christine begins to make it big and endures the jealousy of La Carlotta and the suspicions of those who believe in the curse of the Ghost? And how does Erik reconcile his jealousy and obsession with learning to treat Christine as a person?
There was a little bit of second book syndrome with this book, as most of it is character and relationship building. It has a little less action and suspense than the first book, which was a lot of will they/won't they with Christine discovering the identity of the man seducing her through the mirror. However, what this book lacks in tension, it makes up for in atmosphere and smut and exquisitely researched depictions of Paris and its opera house. It is also delightfully gay, with Erik and Raoul being canonically pan/bi, and several queer side characters. Also Christine gets her femdom on! Girl, you RIDE that phantom D.
I'm excited to read ANGEL'S FALL. Hopefully it doesn't take me as long to get through as this one did but they say genius can't be rushed, so if I have to take my time fangirling over my obsessive masked strangle king, then so be it.
Thanks to the author/publisher for sending me a copy!
This was a buddy-read with my friend Corvina. WALK OF THE SPIRITS has been on my TBR for a while because Richie Tankersley Cusick is one of my favorite horror/thriller books of all time. Most of her books are YA but she has two adult titles. Her adult titles are among her best work, I think because she had to dial stuff way down for her YA publishers. Even so, her older stuff tends to be wilder than her newer books. WALK OF THE SPIRITS is so mild that it could probably be on the Disney channel.
There's a lot about this book I did like, though. Nobody does atmosphere like this author. I also thought the heroine was bland but fine (surprised by how many people were calling her obnoxious in the reviews; she's almost ridiculously inoffensive). Also, one of the other girls talks about how she's had casual sex and the heroine is super unjudgemental about it, which is a rarity for the 00s. I also liked the Louisiana ghost culture elements and the fact that one of the love interests was a hot, dangerous Cajun guy.
Where this book fell apart was that it foreshadowed creepy stuff but then it didn't pay off. I had an idea of how this book would end and when I wasn't even close, I was mad, because I liked my idea better. The ending was ridiculous. Apparently, there's a sequel, so some of the open-endedness made sense, but my issues with the main storyline remain.
I still love this author but I won't be recommending WALK OF THE SPIRITS to anyone.
This scratched the dark academia itch I've been touting since starting the Zodiac Academy series: girls with cut-out hearts, creepy cults, and town founders with too much time and power on their hands, Hollow Oak is not a safe place for the unwary. Luckily, Luz, a half-Puerto Rican wunderkind who speaks four languages and has a whole J. Crew-inspired closet full of dark secrets, is hardly unwary.
Why Choose? is not normally a genre I gravitate too, but I just loved the academia setting so much. I also liked all the Blackwells, especially Locke (he gives major Lance Orion vibes, so if you stan Blue x Orion, you'll probably love this book). Allister, Nixon, and Everest were all interesting too and I'm excited to learn more about them.
For some reason, I was expecting a supernatural element, but this feels more like a horror movie pastiche. I was reminded of Wednesday, Happy Death Day, Trick 'R Treat, and Scream, in particular. Most of the gore is on the DL, although there's one pretty gory torture scene towards the middle that was very hard to read. It's not integral to the plot, though, so if gore is hard for you to handle, you can totally skip over it without missing anything.
The book ends on a major cliffhanger, with a potentially large twist. I still have so many questions and I'm very excited to have them answered when I read more from this author. What a stellar debut.
I have been going through some shit lately, and haven't wanted to read anything too dark or disturbing. Which hurts me in my soul because I am a dark romance girlie at heart, and dark romance novels and thrillers are basically my favorite things to read. ERIK'S TALE was the perfect antidote to my quandary because even though it's dark (very dark), it's the prequel to a book I already read, so I know everything turns out OK. (And trust me, with a book like this, you're going to want that guarantee.)
This book chronicles Erik's very dark past as a child who was the product of rape, and who grew up in a highly abusive home with a mentally ill mother who literally tried to cut his face off, and an alcoholic father (not the rapist in question, FYI) who resented his "cold" wife and bastard/disfigured son. This whole portion was very hard to read and I basically wanted to give Erik the biggest hug. The circus/freak show portion is also very hard to read, but these two sections are the worst (in terms of content) parts of the book. Once you get past them, you'll be good to go for the rest of the story.
That's because from here, the book basically catapults into the globe-trotting WTFest of one of those old skool 70s bodice-rippers, where the protagonist is hurdled towards misfortune after misfortune, somehow managing to survive despite all odds. I thought specifically of Natasha Peters's DANGEROUS OBSESSION and SAVAGE SURRENDER. Especially with the role Erik played in various royal courts, and his wandering journeys with the Roma people. The retro vibes of this book played quite well with the many references to the original Leroux story (which I've read). One of my favorite OTT elements of the original book was Erik's nightmare torture forest made of metal. So many retellings omit this detail (and I've always wondered if the Nome king's metal forest in the Oz series was inspired by Phantom!). It's such a cool detail and I'm glad Ms. Mason made use of it.
I really enjoyed ERIK'S TALE and that says a lot about me because I'm notoriously not a fan of novellas. I feel like it takes a talented author to make a story come full circle in a limited amount of pages, and usually characterization and story suffer. Neither of those things is the case in this book. I also loved how beautifully queer it was, with asexual, trans, gay, and sapphic characters all given representation. Also, I stan our Strangle King-- some of the people he murdered were in defense of said trans character. We love a spicy cinnamon roll vigilante, don't we? Also it's written in first person, so you really get a feel for all of his arrogance, vulnerabilities, and intelligence, all firsthand. (Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel...)
My only real qualm is that everything was moving so fast that sometimes it felt very boom-boom-boom and I almost wished it was bodice-ripper saga length just so we could have time to soak into some of these settings. There were also more typos in here than in ANGEL'S MASK, but apparently I have a first edition (collectible! SUCK IT BITCHES) so I'm guessing some of these have been fixed (this didn't factor into my rating, btw, but some people get weird about typos-- w/e it's indie). It's also my understanding that this author has started putting TWs into her books. This edition didn't have one inside, but I believe she has them on her website if you're nervous about anything specific.
Overall, though, this was a win, and exactly the thing to get me out of a pretty bad funk. And I'm very grateful for that. Can't wait to read the next in the series. :)
Thanks to the author for sending me a review copy!
THE HUNGRY DEEP was such a pleasant surprise. It has the same vibes as a retro work of gothic horror, like something by Ira Levin, but the themes are more similar to the classic canon of gothic novel: rigid societal structures that breed harmful traditions, toxic masculinity, a bleak and accepting terror of the unknown, and female rage.
Told in multiple POVS, THE HUNGRY DEEP starts out like any other Rebecca or Jane Eyre retelling: a woman comes to a worn-down estate deep in the country with her new husband, only to find out that all of the people in town are wary of him and-- surprise-- he's been married before.The folksy twist is that the husband seems to think some kind of eldritch horrors lurk in the wood... and the townsfolk are either enabling him out of fear, in on it out of necessity, or something else far more horrifying. What really lurks in those chattering woods?
Obviously I liked this book a lot. I like atmospheric horror more than I like blood and guts, and it's really hard for me to read books that linger on suffering. THE HUNGRY DEEP has its share of gore, but I felt like it was tastefully done, and the other definitely spent more time building up her lore and the personalities of the narrators than she did trying to shock the reader.
On that note, I am very impressed about how each POV was so distinct. Tom, Eleanor, Rachel, Gus, etc. all felt very different. They had different motives and thought about what was going on in different ways. Rachel and Eleanor were particularly good characters because both of them are flawed but likable and neither of them are what they initially appear. I LOVE that-- especially in horror, which has a tendency to fridge women who are too unlikable or too sexual. This is a very feminist work, and could be taught in a comparative lit class alongside authors like Angela Carter and Shirley Jackson.
Perfection, thy name is Ann Aguirre. MIRROR, MIRROR is a spicy feminist fairytale that turns the wicked stepmother trope on its head. Trude has been in love with Viggo since they were children, and he used to love her too, until he fell for their friend, Lisabet, instead, and the other cruel, beautiful little girl stole him away for good.
But when Lisabet dies, Viggo marries Trude. And when she comes home to the man she has been in love with her whole life and his beautiful lonely young daughter, it seems as if she's finally getting the family she has always longed for. Dreams really do come true.
Except... Viggo holds her at a distance, sleeping with her-- sometimes using her roughly-- but never telling her that he loves her. And Albie, the daughter, is babyish and cunning, affectionate one minute and oddly cruel the next. And then, the mirror arrives...
I just loved this book from start to finish. The lush prose, the slow pacing, the build-up of the household and how it was expanded into a claustrophobic, creepy little world, and the quiet, loving strength of the heroine. It was all magnificently done. I read the first book in this series of standalones, BITTERBURN, and liked it, but didn't love it. That book walked so this book could fucking fly, and the little call-out to the previous book was so well done.
Honestly, no notes. Between this and THE THIRD MRS. DURST, Aguirre kills it at fairytale retellings and gothic romances. It looks like there was supposed to be a third book in this trilogy, a standalone Bluebeard retelling (gender-swapped! OMG!) but it seems as if it might have been dropped. That's heartbreaking if true. I know that her witchy books are her best-sellers right now, so I get why she's attending to those, but I'm also praying to every god I know that she'll write another fairytale.
HOUSE OF SHADOWS is title-twinning with another one of my favorite recent gothic novels involving a sinister marriage of convenience, one by Darcy Coates! This one is slightly steamier though, and I feel like the horror element is slightly better done here, just because everything is so much vaguer and suspicious.
Adelaide nearly died while traveling with her father by ship. Worse still: in that same wreck, she saw him disappear between the waves. Though no body ever turned up, he's been presumed dead, and now she lives with her emotionally abusive stepmother, Muriel, who basically tells Adelaide that she can marry and get out, or be evicted with a bootstamp on her behind, as Muriel inherited everything but a small allowance and a dowry accorded to Adelaide.
Not wanting to be homeless, Adelaide turns to one of her father's business partners, Eldren, who is also a Welsh lord. He's got an asshole family of his own but they're even worse: his mother, who goes into violent fits that have harmed the staff, and who blames him for the death of his older brother and refuses to call him by name. He also lives with his alcoholic brother, Warren, and his sister in law, Frances, who is just as cruel and vain as Muriel, and encourages his brother to drink because it amuses her to see him tear himself apart. Bitch!
As if ALL THAT wasn't enough, the house might be haunted. People of Llewelyn blood hear voices before they end their own lives or those of their so-called loved ones. It all comes down to a terrible curse that lies soaked in the moors like old blood. And by marrying Eldren, Adelaide might just have made herself vulnerable to it... and to Eldren as well.
So this book was pretty good although the blurb is a little misleading in the sense that the author says that this is the first in a series "but each book is complete on its own." This is really not true, and going off some of the reviews, it seems like others have gotten upset by this as well. What I think the author means is that there's no cliffhanger ending, which is sort of true. She closes off the main story arc but there are a number of glaringly unresolved threads that are going to be addressed in books two and three. I personally think it would have been better if these 100-something installments had been combined into one book for readability purposes, because I do think it does the story a disfavor, chopping it up and ruining what is honestly some pretty smooth plotting.
Adelaide is a likable heroine and Eldren is charmingly brooding. The scares were well done and highly atmospheric, and I love how this checks off all the main tropes of a classic gothic romance. HOUSE OF SHADOWS is not an erotic work by any means, though it does have some steam. It reminds me of a Victoria Holt novel, but sexier. I just wish it was all one book.
I follow this author on Threads and quite like her posts. When I saw that she had a gothic erotic horror novella out about vampires, I knew I had to have it. I mean, just LOOK at that cover! THE DARK QUEEN'S APOTHECARY is set in medieval Eastern Europe. At first, it starts out feeling very much like an episode of Castlevania, with Andrei, an apothecary, being summoned to the queen to perform a task that defies the rules of life itself at the behest of a sinister Queen.
Viorica was such an interesting and dynamic character. She reminds me a lot of the heroines in Tanith Lee novels: she is a selfish creature of passion, flawed and a little sadistic, but very insecure and flawed, in a way that makes her fascinating rather than unlikable. Her sort of relationship with Andrei after he (SPOILER) becomes a vampire like her was really interesting to read. The way their roles warped and changed as they did was quite well done, and there are callbacks to numerous other gothic works in the storyline, whether it be Island of Doctor Moreau, Frankenstein, or the legend of Lizabet Bathory.
Fun read and quite dark but not overly so. Mind the TWs.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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Books:
doth-the-goth
(152)
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