Earlier this month, I reviewed Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris, a recent release from the mother-son writing duo of Anne and Christopher Rice. While Anne remains one of the most influential figures in the paranormal fantasy genre, her son is building quite the literary career for himself, as well. Christopher Rice has written over two dozen novels including erotic romance, suspense novels, and a series of supernatural thrillers. But of course, I know him best for the collaborations he’s done with Anne—the most recent of which just came out shortly after Anne’s death. While I am crushed to have missed the chance to interview mother and son together, I am honored that Christopher took a few moments during this difficult time to answer some questions about The Reign of Osiris and his mother’s legacy: Continue reading Interview with Christopher Rice—On Ramses the Damned and Anne Rice’s Legacy
Review of Beatrix Greene—A Spooky Fiction Podcast
When a fraudulent Spiritualist hosts a séance in a genuinely haunted house, she proves to be the key to unlocking the manor’s dark secrets. This is the premise of the fiction podcast Beatrix Greene. A short, nine-episode series produced by Realm and released last spring, Beatrix Greene is written by Rachel Hawkins, Vicky Alvear Shecter, and Ash Parsons, and features the skillful voicework of Shiromi Arserio and Alister Austin. If you love haunted houses, Victorian Spiritualism, and atmospheric horror, I highly recommend that you check it out!
Continue reading Review of Beatrix Greene—A Spooky Fiction Podcast
Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris Review
What has the power to terrify an immortal? Only a god…. An ancient Egyptian king comes face to face with his one great fear in this latest installment of the Ramses the Damned series. Back in 2017, I reviewed The Passion of Cleopatra, Anne Rice’s first co-writing project with her son Christopher and an unexpected sequel to her 1989 novel The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned. Anne and Christopher Rice teamed up again for a third book in the series, The Reign of Osiris, which came out last week. Notably, The Reign of Osiris is also the first posthumous book to be published after Anne Rice passed away in December. Continue reading Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris Review
Lily’s Garden: A Surprisingly Gothic Mobile Game
I’m not usually in the business of reviewing mobile games, but it’s not everyday that the mindless puzzle game you download to kill time turns out to have an intricate narrative chock-full of classic Gothic tropes. Lily’s Garden, created by Tactile Games, is a match-three style puzzle game not unlike Candy Crush that is available from Google Play and the Apple App Store. But while I initially sought out the game for its fairly mindless gameplay, its real appeal lies in between the levels of complicated formations of colored blocks.
Continue reading Lily’s Garden: A Surprisingly Gothic Mobile Game
Review of My Heart Is a Chainsaw
What if your life suddenly turned into a slasher movie? For most of us, that idea is fodder for our most terrifying nightmares, but Jade Daniels is thrilled by the prospect in Stephen Graham Jones’s My Heart Is a Chainsaw. From the moment I read The Only Good Indians just over a year ago, I knew that Stephen Graham Jones was one of the horror writers to be watching right now. Reading his latest novel has only confirmed that assessment. My Heart Is a Chainsaw came out in August of 2021 and is a brilliant self-aware homage to the horror genre. Continue reading Review of My Heart Is a Chainsaw
Review of Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula
The story in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1987) has been told and retold many times, with innumerable adaptations and reimaginings. But what is perhaps the earliest of these only came to light recently: The 1901 Icelandic “translation” of Dracula is no translation at all, but a completely different story! It shares the basic premise and indeed many scenes with the monumental classic of the vampire genre, but Makt Myrkranna—as the Icelandic translation was called, which translates to “Powers of Darkness”—features brand new characters, unfamiliar scenes, and even an entirely different motivation and modus operandi for the infamous Count.
But is Makt Myrkranna an enterprising translator’s attempt to exert his own creative license over Stoker’s story, or is it merely based on an earlier draft of Dracula than the one that eventually made it to print? Literary scholar Hans Corneel de Roos puzzled over this question when he first discovered the unique nature of the Icelandic text in 2014. And now you can explore this question for yourself with the first ever English translation of the Icelandic version of Dracula, complete with scholarly annotations and other supplementary materials. Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula, translated from the Icelandic and annotated by de Roos, came out in 2017. The publishers were actually kind enough to send me a copy back when it first came out, but—relatively new to blogging at the time and intimidated by the intensive scholarly approach and the sheer size of the hardcover—I put it on the back burner and never quite got around to reading it. (Apologies!) But now, as part of my resolution to read more of the books festering away on my shelves, I finally picked it up again—and I wish I hadn’t waited! Powers of Darkness is a truly interesting story both in its own right and in regard to its tangled history with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and I would recommend it to hardcore Dracula scholars and casual Gothic literature enthusiasts alike. Continue reading Review of Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula
Review of Death on the Nile
Can you believe I had never read an Agatha Christie novel before? As the reigning queen of the detective novel scene for much of the twentieth century, Christie’s contributions to the genre are immeasurable. She gave us two of the best-known detective characters after Sherlock—Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple—and some of her major works such as Murder on the Orient Express have been adapted so many times over that they’ve become cultural touchstones. Despite all this, and my love of mystery novels dating back to my earliest reading years, I just had never gotten around to picking up one of Christie’s classics. Thankfully, the Romancing the Gothic book club has been working hard to improve my literary education. Last month we read Christie’s 1937 novel Death on the Nile. And I have to say, I’ll definitely be coming back for some more Poirot! Continue reading Review of Death on the Nile
Books I’m Excited for in 2022
Now that 2021 is behind us, it’s time to look ahead to the new year. There’s no telling what 2022 will bring us, and I’ve been struggling with feeling optimistic as we head into another year of the pandemic, but at least one good thing is certain: there will always be new books! In fact, there are so many exciting new releases coming, that I was able to compile this year’s list of books to read in record time. Here are just a few of the books I’m looking forward to: Continue reading Books I’m Excited for in 2022
My 2021 Reading Challenge Recap
This year has been an amazing reading year for me—though it’s been a real rollercoaster of a year in almost every other way. These days, I’m reading at a pace that I haven’t matched since high school, often finishing more than one book a week. This is the first time in many years that I’ve easily blown past my numerical reading goal. However, I wasn’t quite as successful with my content-based goals. Let me walk you through my year in books:
Books I Edited in 2021
Reflecting back on 2021, the thing I am most proud of this year is finally kicking off my freelance editing career in a serious way. And the years of working on this blog seriously helped me to get there! I’ve held editorial ambitions since well before I launched The Gothic Library, but spending the last six and a half years writing weekly posts in which I critically evaluate books, communicate about what works and doesn’t work in a story, and build relationships with authors and publishing professionals has given me the foundation I needed to finally embark on this path. And I’ve found editing books to be even more fulfilling than I could have imagined! Read on to learn where you can find some of the books that I’ve worked on this year: Continue reading Books I Edited in 2021