Loved itBut for me, this was a very confronting read is what I would call it, but a very compelling one as well. I could not put it down.
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Bluebeard's Castle (2023)
Others: Positive A subversive take on the famous French fairy tale from the acclaimed director of The Love Witch, and for fans of Jane Eyre When the successful British mystery writer Judith meets Gavin, a handsome and charming baron, at a birthday party on the Cornish coast, his love transforms her from a bitter, lonely young woman into a romance heroine overnight. After a whirlwind honeymoon in Paris, he whisks her away to a secluded Gothic castle. But soon she finds herself trapped in a nightmare, as her husband’s mysterious nature, and his alternation between charm and violence, become increasingly frightening. As Judith battles both internal and external demons, including sexual ambivalence, psychological self-torture, gaslighting, family neglect, alcoholism, and domestic abuse, she becomes increasingly addicted to her wild beast of a husband. Why do women stay in abusive relationships? The answer can be found in the tortured mind of the protagonist, whose richly layered fantasy life parallels that of the female gothic romance reader. Filled with dark humor and evocative imagery, Bluebeard’s Castle is a subversive take on modern romance and gothic erotica.
- ISBN:
- 9781804291856
Genres: romance, horror, mystery
Lists: …
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We Have Always Lived in the Castle
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1962 · 189 pages · 14 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveShirley Jackson's beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family's dark secret Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. This edition features a new introduction by Jonathan Lethem. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Also horror and mystery53%On 2 of the same lists34%Jean's Thoughts loved bothPersonalize your recommendations13%Storm
Dave Pearson
2010 · 288 pages · 2 reviews
Others: Positive"STORM indeed! An adrenaline-accelerating Cat-Five ride on land and sea, in the air, and surging through cyberspace, at one point pitting computer-hacking paramilitaries against U.S. Navy SEALs." - Lt. Col. W. Thomas Smith Jr. (Joint Services Detachment, S.C. Military Dept.), author, columnist, internationally recognized military expert, and a former U.S. Marine "Dave Pearson has delivered an unforgettable one-of-a-kind adventure. With distinctive realism, STORM takes you on a thrill ride filled with cyber-terrorism and Special Ops. This high-tech international tale is a Mach-3, edge-of-your-seat, cyber-thriller. Must read!" -- LTG Thomas McInerney, USAF (Ret.) ________________________________________
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On the same reading list98%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations2%Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen
1818 · 254 pages · 14 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveNorthanger Abbey is both a perfectly aimed literary parody and a withering satire of the commercial aspects of marriage among the English gentry at the turn of the nineteenth century. But most of all, it is the story of the initiation into life of its naïve but sweetly appealing heroine, Catherine Morland, a willing victim of the contemporary craze for Gothic literature who is determined to see herself as the heroine of a dark and thrilling romance. When Catherine is invited to Northanger Abbey, the grand though forbidding ancestral seat of her suitor, Henry Tilney, she finds herself embroiled in a real drama of misapprehension, mistreatment, and mortification, until common sense and humor—and a crucial clarification of Catherine’s financial status—puts all to right. Written in 1798 but not published until after Austen’s death in 1817, Northanger Abbey is characteristically clearheaded and strong, and infinitely subtle in its comedy.
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On 2 of the same lists49%Also horror and romance34%Jean's Thoughts loved bothPersonalize your recommendations17%What Moves the Dead
T. Kingfisher
2022 · 170 pages · 12 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveWhen Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia. What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves. Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.
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On 2 of the same lists58%Also horror and mystery37%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations5%The Little Stranger
Sarah Waters
2009 · 512 pages · 2 reviews
Others: Leaning positiveAbundantly atmospheric and elegantly told, The Little Stranger is Sarah Waterss most thrilling and ambitious novel yet. After her award-winning trilogy of victorian novels, sarah waters turned to the 1940s and wrote the night watch, a tender and tragic novel set against the backdrop of wartime britain shortlisted for both the orange and the man booker, it went straight to number one in the bestseller chart in a dusty post-war summer in rural warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at hundreds hall home to the ayres family for over two centuries, the georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine but are the ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life little does dr faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his prepare yourself from this wonderful writer who continues to astonish us, now comes a chilling ghost story.
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On 2 of the same lists66%Also horror31%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations3%Carmilla
Sheridan Le Fanu
1871 · 86 pages · 3 reviews
Others: MixedFirst published as a serial in The Dark Blue (1871–72), Carmilla is narrated by a young woman preyed upon by a female vampire named Carmilla, later revealed to be Mircalla, Countess Karnstein (Carmilla is an anagram of Mircalla). The character is a prototypical example of the lesbian vampire, expressing romantic desires toward the protagonist. The novella notably never acknowledges homosexuality as an antagonistic trait, leaving it subtle and morally ambiguous. The story is often anthologised, and has been adapted many times in film and other media.
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Loved it