The Gothic Library

I realized it’s been nearly four years since the last time I recommended some podcasts that readers of this blog might enjoy. In that time, there’s been a major surge of interest in the Gothic genre and a slew of new podcasts on the subject have cropped up. Today I’d like to specifically highlight three of my favorite shows where the hosts read, analyze, and discuss Gothic literature in a spirit…

“In the house behind the sword ferns, there was a man, and a murderer, and a stain.” Kylie Lee Baker, the author of Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, builds a beautifully haunting tale in her latest horror novel, Japanese Gothic, which came out in April. The title of this novel is, I assume, playing upon Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s highly successful Mexican Gothic, which heralded the current…

Don’t let your job consume your life. That’s a good reminder we all could probably use, but for the protagonist of Carter Keane’s debut horror novella, Morsel, it’s a dire warning that should be taken very literally. The gorgeous cover first drew me to this book, which came out a few weeks ago, but it was the suspenseful narration style and creepy folk horror atmosphere that had me devouring it…

How much do you know about botflies? If you’ve got a squeamish stomach about bugs and body horror, don’t look them up. These creepy parasites—which are horrifying enough in real life—become true fodder for nightmares in the hands of one of my favorite horror writers, T. Kingfisher. I’ve often admired the way Kingfisher brings out the horror in the natural world, from infectious fungi in What…

What’s the opposite of a murder mystery? If murder is the criminal and unexpected loss of life, then the inverse must be the criminal and unexpected creation of life. Detective Dorothy Gentleman investigates just that in the form of a surprise baby among the strictly sterile population of a generation ship in the second installment of Olivia Waite’s new cozy sci-fi mystery series. I reviewed the…

“We thought we’d play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead, and I’m really starting to feel kind of guilty about it all…” Stephen Graham Jones writes some killer opening lines. If you’ve been following this blog lately, you’ll know that Jones is swiftly becoming one of my favorite horror writers, especially with his recent masterpiece The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. But Jones is a prolific…

Looking for some sapphic Jewish romantasy with a historical- and folklore-inspired setting and an edge of dark academia? A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft has it all! Somehow I missed reading this one back when it first came out in 2024, but a friend recommended that I bump it up my TBR pile and I’m very glad I did. A Dark and Drowning Tide scratched an itch that no book has since I last…

A man-eating beast stalks the impoverished countryside of Gévaudan, France. Only Professor Sebastian Grave, who defeated it once before, knows the beast’s true nature and why it seems to have returned. Cameron Sullivan crafts a brilliant reimagining of the historical legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, inspiration for many a modern werewolf tale, in his impressive debut fantasy, The Red Winter, out…

“The villa, once beloved, was better left behind in all its tragedies.” You can try to escape a family curse, but in the end the sins of your past will always find you. A young woman named Sophie becomes a reluctant witness to just this sort of Gothic reckoning in The Villa, Once Beloved by Victor Manibo, which came out back in November. I loved Victor’s debut sci-fi thriller The Sleepless, so…

“What I am is the Indian who can’t die. I’m the worst dream America ever had.” Much blood was spilled forming the American West into what it is today, so perhaps it should be no surprise this setting would make such fertile ground for a vampire tale. When I heard that Stephen Graham Jones—who has quickly become one of my favorite horror authors (check out my reviews of The Only Good Indians, My…

The new year is already well under way, but there’s still plenty of time to add to your 2026 TBR! As I like to do every year, I have combed through book announcements and publishers’ lists to bring you ten of my most anticipated releases for the year. The titles below range from pure horror to fantasy to cozy sci-fi, with some dashes of mystery and romance. But before I dive into my list, I first…

It’s been a weird year, both in my reading life and in the world beyond. I felt pulled in too many directions at once, and wound up feeling less productive than usual—both in terms of how many books I read and in general. That said, I still had some good times and some great reads. And I’m aiming to be more intentional and more focused in 2026.  As of this writing, I have read 43 books out of my…

They say that fear and arousal are remarkably similar sensations. Sarah Gailey, the multi-talented author of alt-history adventure books like River of Teeth and more traditional horror such as Just Like Home, exploits this overlap in their recent erotic horror novella Spread Me, which came out back in September. Part re-imagining of John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film The Thing, part post-Pandemic…

Every family has their demons. But for the Barnes family, theirs are a little more literal… Rachel Harrison, best known for her monster stories Such Sharp Teeth and So Thirsty, tackles the haunted house and demonic possession genres in her latest horror novel, Play Nice, which came out back in September. If you like horror that centers on messy women and dysfunctional families, don’t miss this…

“A ghost was how a building held a grudge.” What if Cinderella was a ghost, murdered by her stepmother and only able to interact with the world outside the home she haunts for the three precious nights of the prince’s ball? Freya Markse (whose The Last Binding series I absolutely loved) puts a delightful, eerie spin on this classic fairy tale in her bite-size novella Cinder House, which came out…

What better way to spend October than reading thirty-one scary short stories and poems? Every year, Dr. Sam Hirst of Romancing the Gothic puts together a magnificent reading list for spooky season of short tales that span the breadth of Gothic literature. We read one story for each day of October and keep a running commentary going on BlueSky or the Site Formerly Known as Twitter using the…

Here’s a recommendation for all of you looking for a good haunted house story this Halloween. What happens when a faux haunting becomes all too real? Christa Carmen (whose Poe-laced thriller Beneath the Poet’s House I reviewed earlier this year) explores this concept and more in her latest horror novel How to Fake a Haunting, which came out on October 7.  Continue reading Review of How to Fake…