The Golem and the Jinni Review: An Unusual Pairing

The Golem and the Jinni coverI love stories of unexpected friendships, and what could be more unexpected than a golem and a jinni? These two mythological creatures come from different traditions, different regions, and altogether different worlds. Yet in Helene Wecker’s debut historical fantasy novel, they meet by chance on the streets of New York City. My whole family has been reading this book, and I’m so glad I finally hopped on that bandwagon!

The Golem and the Jinni begins in Poland at the turn of the 20th century, when a disgraced rabbi makes a woman out of clay—a golem—to serve as his client’s perfect and obedient wife. But after an unexpected turn of events, the golem arrives at Ellis Island alone and masterless. She is taken in by a kindly rabbi who names her Chava and introduces her to the local Jewish community. Meanwhile, a tinsmith in Little Syria sets to work on an old copper flask when suddenly out of it comes a jinni who has been trapped for a thousand years. Adopting the name Ahmad, the jinni reluctantly takes on the role of tinsmith’s apprentice while trying to figure out how to break the bonds that keep in stuck in human form. When Chava and Ahmad meet, they feel a kinship—both are outsiders trying to fit into, yet not truly part of, the human world. Yet their natures are so different, this altruistic being of earth and flighty being of fire, that their friendship brings as much conflict as comfort. All fights are forgotten, however, when they realize that someone who poses a danger to them both has found his way to New York City.  Continue reading The Golem and the Jinni Review: An Unusual Pairing

Review of The Ghost Bride

The Ghost Bride book coverGetting married to a complete stranger can be terrifying … especially if that stranger is already dead! Yangsze Choo tackles the obscure cultural practice of “ghost marriages” in her debut novel, The Ghost Bride. Set in 1890s Malaysia (or Malaya, as it was called at the time), the book is historical fiction with a paranormal twist, drawing on Chinese mythology and notions of the afterlife, as well as the author’s own imagination. The Ghost Bride brings together everything I love—the Victorian era, ghosts, romance, and learning about other cultures—all in one story, and I’m so excited to have come across this new author.  Continue reading Review of The Ghost Bride

Back to School Reading List: Drama Edition

Around this time every year, I put together a mini syllabus of Gothic works commonly read in schools. If you missed them in the past, be sure to go back and check out my original Back to School Reading List and my Back to School Reading List: Short Story Edition. This time, I wanted to tackle some theater! Check out the five plays below that bring the Gothic to the stage:

1) Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Macbeth coverThough Shakespeare was writing a good few centuries before the Gothic literary movement of the late 1700s, several of his works can be considered proto-Gothics—particularly Macbeth. I’ve discussed this in more detail during my post on The Gothic in Shakespeare, but Macbeth displays many motifs that would later become core tropes of the Gothic novel. For example, one of its main settings is a medieval castle; it features ghosts that have returned to address past wrongs; there are witches with ominous prophecies; and Lady Macbeth prefigures later female villains, both of the femme fatale variety and the Madwoman in the Attic. Many later Gothic writers were strongly influenced by Macbeth, including the author of the very first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole. Continue reading Back to School Reading List: Drama Edition

The Vampire Armand Review: Returning to Anne Rice

The Vampire Armand coverAnne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles changed the world of vampire fiction and are responsible for so much of the way the genre is today. You can see Rice’s influence in everything from Twilight to True Blood to The Vampire Diaries. Knowing this, I picked up Rice’s books quite early, reading Interview with the Vampire during my initial bloodsucker craze when I was probably about thirteen. Taken together, the first three books—Interview, The Vampire Lestat, and The Queen of the Damned—have been canonized as timeless classics that are essential reading for anyone who loves these creatures of the night. But as many fans would agree, after Queen of the Damned the books begin to get … weird. I pushed through for a couple more books, but after Lestat embarked on a Dantesque voyage through heaven and hell and back in time to witness the Crucifixion during Memnoch the Devil, I decided I was done and abandoned the series for half a decade. This year, however, I decided to try picking back up where I left off with The Vampire Armand.  Continue reading The Vampire Armand Review: Returning to Anne Rice

The Overlap of Sci-fi and Horror

Gothic literature—and thus the more modern horror genre that grew out of it—was initially created as a reaction against the Age of Reason. Over the course of the 18th century, an intellectual and philosophical movement swept across Europe that emphasized logic, rationality, and scientific advancement. Enlightened thinkers sought to banish outdated superstition and believed that all of life’s great questions could be answered through the use of experimentation, observation, and reason. You can see how this philosophy would give rise to science fiction—a genre of literature which predicts scientific advances not yet achieved and imagines how they might change or shape society. But first something else was born: a genre that would look back to a time before the Enlightenment and revel in unexplained mysteries, heightened emotions, and a disconcerting dearth of logic or reason. These two genres at first seem fundamentally incompatible, and yet they are not so separate as you might think. To understand why, we’ll need to take a look at the history of how they overlap.  Continue reading The Overlap of Sci-fi and Horror

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown Review

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown coverI will never be tired of vampire stories. Especially when authors keep finding clever new ways to reinvent the lore as Holly Black does in The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. I’ve been a fan of Holly Black for years and have particularly enjoyed her books on fairy tales and faeries, so I knew my favorite monsters would be in good hands with her. “The Coldest Girl in Coldtown” started out as a short story, which I came across in an anthology several years ago. Though the story hardly did more than briefly sketch out the vampire-infested world that Holly Black created, I remember enjoying it immensely. Well, the full-length novel that grew out of it is even better. Continue reading The Coldest Girl in Coldtown Review

French and German Gothic

I’ve spoken many times on this blog about how the Gothic genre originated in England with the publication of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, and I’ve gone on to enumerate many other early English writers of the Gothic, as well as several American authors that followed later on. But the Gothic was not limited to the English-speaking world. In fact, many of the early and influential pieces of Gothic literature originated in Continental Europe—specifically in Germany and France. Below, I’ve listed a few seminal works to take a broad look at the Gothic tradition in these two countries: Continue reading French and German Gothic

Tales of Monstrous Mermaids

As you splash in the waves this summer, just remember that the ocean’s depths hold all sorts of horrors. And not least among them are … mermaids. That’s right, these mythical fish folk aren’t necessarily as cute and cuddly as Disney has led us to believe. Mermaids, and their singing sisters the sirens, have long been known for cruelty, cannibalism, and luring sailors to their certain death. Below are four of my favorite tales that tackle the darker side of these sea creatures: Continue reading Tales of Monstrous Mermaids

Bruja Born Review—The Right Way to Do Zombie Romance

Bruja Born coverDo not mess with death—That’s pretty much the golden rule of magic. You can have all the magic power in the world, but if you use it to bring someone back from the dead, things will not go as planned. I know that, you know that, even Harry Potter knows that. But apparently Lula Mortiz does not. Bruja Born is the second book in Zoraida Córdova’s Brooklyn Brujas series. Two years ago, I reviewed Labyrinth Lost, which Alex Mortiz accidentally sends her family to the underworld while trying to banish her magic. Now, in the sequel published last month, Alex’s sister Lula gets her own story.  Continue reading Bruja Born Review—The Right Way to Do Zombie Romance

Review of Winter Tide—Subverted Lovecraft

Winter Tide book cover*A version of this review first appeared as an article in Auxiliary Magazine*

Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys is the perfect book for lovers and haters of Lovecraft alike. H. P. Lovecraft, often considered the father of modern horror fiction, is famous for inventing the Cthulhu Mythos, which was been continued by many others in decades’ worth of novels, movies, games, and pop culture. But he’s also notorious for his rampant racism and serious lack of female characters. In Winter Tide, Ruthanna Emrys takes the amazing world that Lovecraft created, but subverts his negative aspects by using her story to explore the complexities of race and gender in post-World War II America. Winter Tide was published last year, but its sequel, Deep Roots, will be coming out in July. Continue reading Review of Winter Tide—Subverted Lovecraft