Tag: gothic

Book Review: What Moves the Dead

T. Kingfisher is one of my go-to authors these days, so I snapped this one up even though it’s much shorter than her other works. The other reviewers said it’s a retelling of the Poe story “the Fall of the House of Usher,” a work I had not read. I read the spark notes for …

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Book Review: The Hollow Places

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher The good news and the bad news about this book is that it’s very much like The Twisted Ones. A freelancer moves to live in a cluttered relative’s house, and, with the help of a friendly neighbor, explores a supernatural world that can be accessed through seemingly normal terrain. …

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Book Review: Bellman & Black

Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield This book feels like a skilled author who has contempt for fantasy set out to write a fantasy novel but chickened out at the last minute. Three stars isn’t an accurate rating for the book. The first part is four stars, and the last part is one or two. …

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Book Review: A Great and Terrible Beauty

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray This book had a few rough patches and a few bursts of brilliance that evened each other out. I liked this book overall, especially for the surprising feminist undertones, but it had a rough start. It starts out in India, on the day of Gemma’s 16th birthday, …

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Book Review: The Seance

The Seance by John Harwood This definitely delivers on the Gothic horror front. It’s moody, gloomy, and has plenty of lovers who die tragically in their youth. It has a treacherous bad guy, plenty of innocent maidens, and a crumbling old wreck of a house set in the middle of the haunted wood. The story …

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