Modern Gothic Horror: 5 Novels to Sink Your Teeth Into
Plus, a Brief Explanation of Gothic Fiction
We know #BookTok is taking off, publicizing the basics of spicy romance from everyday authors. Dark romance, romance, romantasy, paranormal romance, and all other genres of romance are alive and well. These genres all stem from their literary grandparents of the classics from the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen. But even the Brontes’ had parents. Gothic literature is the book world’s undead relatives. Unlike Bela Lugosi, gothic literature is living; remaining in the shadows for the subculture community to pick up and find. Modern gothic literature is very present and this list with mini reviews is here to help you dig into it.
gothic romance vibes by Andrea Hunter featuring Kassandra Love, Katakomb, Artifice, My Heart and Armour, and Jane Doe
What is Gothic Fiction?
Gothic novels were born the day Horace Walpole wrote The Castle of Otranto in 1764. If you have yet to read his novel, I suggest you read it. It is beautifully written, and the story is epic considering the time it was written. Gothic fiction is categorized as needing 11 characteristics to qualify such as atmosphere, supernatural elements, and more. Gothic novels do not always have to be like Crimson Peak and can portray themselves more as The Conjuring. The only thing to note about The Conjuring is that they do spend too much time out in other places but they are not so isolated strictly from the house or castle. There is some leniency to certain aspects now that we are in the modern day in 2024.
Fun Fact:
Gothic literature is also called dark romanticism.
Photo by Andrea Hunter featuring Madelaine Frank, Katakomb, Restyle, and Kassandra Love
The 11 Characteristics of Gothic Literature
as Abbreviated from Robert Harris
This list is a summary taken from Elements of the Gothic Novel written by Robert Harris. You can read the full study in the link above, but the information here has been condensed and rephrased for your convenience.
Setting
Setting is the major player here. For novels to be considered gothic, the setting must take place in a single house and town. Traditionally, the house is a castle and is surrounded by intense scenic backdrops like forests, onsite graves, gardens left to grow wild, caves, or a lake, perfect to drown victims of the past in.
In modern novels, this can look more like decrepit town homes in an unsettling backdrop like what is mentioned. The towns should carry the same feeling and must be limited in how much time is spent there.
Atmosphere
Atmosphere is tied to how the author uses the setting and the unexplainable events throughout the novel. The writing should leave you at the edge of your seat and nail biting until something is revealed, faked out, or resolved.
Prophecy
Prophecy helps the story move along while doing so in an unclear riddle sort of way. These are usually done through important key items like portraits. Perhaps a groundskeeper who has been there since the place was built says something foreboding.
Photo by Andrea Hunter featuring Madelaine Frank, Katakomb, and Kassandra Love
Supernatural Events
These are dramatic ghostly, spectral encounters. They do not always need to serve a purpose other than to exist and help with the setting and atmosphere and legend of the setting.
Omens and Visions
Just like what this sounds. The main characters will have a ghost appear to them in real life, dream, or memory and something will be revealed.
Even a bunch of birds will go mad and fly overhead and suddenly they all just drop dead after shrieking in agony followed by a loud thud as they all simultaneously drop.
Highly Emotional Writing
The writing should make you as a reader go on an intense rollercoaster of emotions. This is achieved by having the main characters and other characters in the area experience terrifying events and being descriptive with their reactions like screaming, fainting, heart racing, and the like.
Damsels
What this sounds like, women or a woman in distress. Even if she is also the hero who saves herself and whoever else is occupying the grounds. This is common for modern day novels as we write more women centric stories that do not force their female characters to being rescued.
Women Threatened by a Tyrannical Man, or Men
The damsels are usually facing an overbearing, maniacal male villain. Even if the guy gets turned into a redeemed, morally gray character, or a tortured soul character that the woman ends up saving. Other times, these men will stay the villain and must be brought down by the damsel or a main male character hero. Such themes are now crucial as social commentary and can be an effective way to introduce representation in these modern times.
Photo by Andrea Hunter featuring Kassandra Love, Katakomb, Artifice, My Heart and Armour, and Jane Doe
Metaphors Set in Gloom and Horror
Metaphors tend to predict more foreboding of what is to come, emotions, and tribulations characters are going to go through.
These can be things like a whole kitchen being normal, the character leaves to answer a phone on the wall but the phone is not attached to anything, and the character walks back in after they hear a commotion.
Think of scenes of clanging appliances, cabinets banging, a sink turning on, and walking into everything scattered, battered, and topsy turvy in the kitchen. It can also be as simple as color theory and sounds of supernatural beings or animals and weather as experienced through all five senses.
The metaphor comes in as how these things may represent fear of the unknown, psychological status of the character, gaslighting, extreme sorrow or anger, and frustration.
Certain Vocabulary is Present
Specific vocabulary is used in a gothic literature novel. These words are specifically chosen to set an emotion and atmosphere with their tone. Word choice is huge when taking you as a reader through emotions of the characters and events.
Picking one synonym over another could be detrimental to the tone of the story and thus weaken the overall effect. Example: “Large” versus “hulking” versus “monstrous”.
The Use of Hyperbolic Phrases
Hyperbolic phrases use adjectives that are chosen exactly to increase emotions. Example: “In her was a very strong sense of grief.” Rather than: “In her was soul shattering grief.” Adjectives set mood and feeling which in turn helps atmosphere, emotions, and setting.
Photo by Andrea Hunter featuring Madelaine Frank, Katakomb, Restyle, and Kassandra Love
5 Modern Gothic Novels
Now that the gothic literature lesson is over and without further ado, the top 5 modern gothic novels you must read.
These books are not listed in any order. Some of these novels do branch across other genres as well such as suspense and mystery. Typically, a lot of gothic novels have mystery and suspense thrown in them anyway, so it is a natural joining of the genres of literature.
Dunmoor by London Clarke
Synopsis
“England, 1818. Lady Helena Winters has not seen her husband in over a year, not since he disappeared without a trace. Torn between seeking a new purpose for her life and longing for her husband to return, Helena travels with her father to Dunmoor House for a fundraising ball. Although the estate was once her husband’s ancestral home, it has recently been purchased by Luke Lennox, a gentleman planning to establish a foundling hospital.
Helena quickly finds herself battling memories of life with her husband and searching for answers to what might have happened to him. Even so, she is drawn to Luke Lennox and his dream of saving and educating children, a passion she shares.
But within Dunmoor’s decaying walls lies a long and sordid history, a legacy of evildoers perpetrating unspeakable acts of wickedness. Now, the corridors echo with voices. Vines grow inside the house, and shadowy figures plague the children at night.
And in the dark forest on the edge of the property, a terrible secret awaits, and what Luke and Helena uncover there will endanger both their lives.”
Review
This novel has a lot of trigger warnings of sex trafficking, rape, incest, and more. This is a gruesome and haunting gothic horror-thriller and gothic romance. It features vampires and family secrets all wrapped up in a neat, haunted mansion/castle. The supernatural and realistic threats plaguing this novel’s world, a dead husband, and a missing friend mystery to solve are all just icing on the cake. Especially when the maybe dead husband’s ghost still lurks in the halls.
Another traditional gothic book with classic gothic pacing. Again, goth literature is not for those who need a faster paced book. The writing is also fantastic and sticks as close as possible to reading like the theme’s time period.
Purchase online or read for free using Kindle Unlimited
The Haunting of Whitehall Manor by L.V. Pires
Synopsis
“Thirty-three-year-old Anne Towry is a woman who knows little about herself and even less about her family. Sent away from Whitehall Manor when she was only ten years old, Anne struggles to make sense of her life. When she receives an urgent phone call from Dr. Cornish telling her that her mother, Seraphine, has gone missing, Anne returns to her childhood home to figure out what went wrong. Arriving at Whitehall Manor changes everything for Anne. The longer she stays, the more immersed she becomes in the haunting beauty of the Marigold Garden. When she finds Seraphine’s journal she is shocked as page after page reveals bone-chilling confessions including a retelling of the night her family was changed forever. Unraveling the truth comes at a price when the true terror of a decade old family secret threatens to pull Anne deeper into the horror of the Towry family curse.”
Review
Seraphine is a mean old lady. And it is easy to see how she might have been extra mean when she was younger in how she treated Anne. When Anne arrives, there is a beaten down garden, the walls in the manor are decrepit, lights barely work, and there are dead creatures and insects everywhere because Seraphine hordes belongings in boxes. Seraphine barely eats or takes care of herself. And there is a love interest. It is modernly written compared to some of the other books in this review list.
Secrets are revealed in a good old-fashioned diary style, and it is all about a deep, dark family secret involving murder! If you enjoy this one, there are two more in the series.
Purchase online with bookshop.org and support local book stores or read for free on Kindle Unlimited
A Long Time Dead by Samara Bregers
Synopsis
“Somewhere foggy, 1837… Poppy had always loved the night, which is why it was not too much of a bother to wake one evening in an unfamiliar home far from London, weak and confused and plagued with a terrible thirst for blood, to learn that she could no longer step out into the day. And while vampirism presented several disadvantages, it more than made up for those in its benefits: immortality, a body that could run at speed for hours without tiring, the thrill of becoming a predator, the thing that pulls rabbits from bushes and tears through their fur and flesh with the sharp point of a white fang…But overhead, threat looms, one woman who can destroy everything Poppy holds dear.”
Review
A long Time Dead by Samara Breger was one of my favorite reads of 2023. It will not be for everyone as it is longer. However, being a nod to traditional gothic novels, the lengths and pacing tend to be slower.
The atmosphere, setting, and characters are well written. While this book does include all 11 characteristics, it is done so in a much more modern methodology. This novel is sapphic and not a heterosexual themed book.
It includes open door spiciness not typically found in gothic novels and fiction.
Overall, this book is brilliantly written, and the characters are easy to adore, and the main villain is easy to abhor. Another classically written novel while modernizing it just enough.
Purchase online in paperback or as a Kindle edition
The Dollmaker by Morgan Shamy
Synopsis
“When Dawn Hildegard’s best friend Rose is kidnapped by The Dollmaker, a crazed serial killer who creates ‘art’ from women’s bodies, she drops everything to find her, including her dream of becoming a doctor. With the help of a handsome new acquaintance and his mysterious brother, they set off to find the killer.
Although they quickly become friends, Dawn cannot shake the uneasy feeling that the brothers know more about the murders than they admit. As increased victims are found murdered and displayed throughout town, Dawn must use her wits to find Rose before it is too late. And before she too becomes The Dollmaker’s next victim.”
Review
Dawn and Rose are smart and capable women. They are also damsels on and off throughout the novel. The male main characters are troubled and all character's experience unexplainable events, prophecies, and other gothic literary devices.
Morag Shamy blends the gothic horror in with the suspense and mystery genres and the overall setting takes place in two different houses, a theater/ballet school, and a doctor’s office. So, it does have varying settings, but the micro settings do take place in one local. The novel does take liberties with the setting rule of gothic novels.
There is a lot of character growth, and the ending was not anticipated.
This made the list because most of the requirements list is present in varying degrees and the overall atmosphere felt very historical gothic in nature. There are also strong themes of ghosts, witchcraft, drugs, kidnapping, and murder.
Prophecies are not too prominent and have been replaced by calling cards and riddles/clues to fit the mystery genre.
The writing is superb as it blends the time period’s tone while using some modernity.
Purchase online with bookshop.org and support local book stores or as a Kindle edition
Dark Woods, Deep Water by Jelena Dunato
Synopsis
“In the depths of a remote forest, an enchanted castle preys on unwary travelers. The servants of the Goddess Morana sacrifice to their dark mistress every soul who crosses its threshold. One terrible night, three people who should never have met find themselves trapped there: a spoiled lady escaping an unwanted marriage, an ageing warrior-prince on a deadly mission, and a resourceful rogue caught up in a botched heist. As their destinies entwine and the dawn approaches, the solution to the castle’s riddle becomes clear: if they want to escape, one of them must die.”
Review
This book uses Slavic lore and has three points of view. This is something not really found in most traditional gothic novels. You would maybe find two POVs, though most of the time it follows one.
The author also uses years in the chapters as key parts of the storytelling. The novel's gothic nature is Slavic lore use with monsters and deities and a curse that will bind the characters' lives forever. The curse all starts with the cursed castle where all the main characters will meet, and the story will take place. If you like lore and love to learn about it, then you will want to pick this novel to read next.
Purchase online with bookshop.org and support local book stores or as a Kindle edition
Set the atmosphere and enjoy these modern gothic horror novels.
References
Harris, R. (2020, October 19). Elements of the gothic novel. Woodberry.edu. https://woodbury.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Elements-of-the-Gothic-Novel-Handout.pdf
by Bridget Pyefinch
Bridget Pyefinch is a writer, editor, and proofreader and currently a double major in Clinical Psychology and Mass Communication and Media. In her spare time she enjoys listening to music, going on adventures, crocheting, reading, and spending time with her animal family which includes two dogs, two ball pythons, a leopard gecko, and two cats.
These editorial photos were originally published in the Fall 2023 Issue of Auxiliary Magazine
For further reading… get the latest issue of Auxiliary and read more online articles on dark books and movies.