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Sinners—Vampires and the Jim Crow South

Okay, I think it’s been long enough that nearly everybody who wants to see Ryan Coogler’s new vampire film Sinners has, by now, and I can talk about it here. (Beware, minor spoilers ahead for the film’s overall themes and its depiction of vampires.) If you didn’t catch this spectacular film while it was in theaters, it is now available to stream. I highly recommend all vampire-lovers check it…

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Ten Years of The Gothic Library!

Can you believe I’ve been blogging for a full decade? This Thursday, June 5, will mark the tenth anniversary of when I first launched The Gothic Library. For eight and a half years, I blogged every single week, with some extra posts at the beginning to juice the engine. In 2024, I switched to posting every other week. Over the last ten years, I have written 511 posts. That’s a total of 415k…

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Review of Staircase in the Woods—A House that Haunts

If you came across a mysterious set of stairs in the middle of a forest, would you climb them? Doing so might not be such a good idea, as a group of friends are quick to discover in Chuck Wendig’s latest horror novel, The Staircase in the Woods, which came out last month. This is some of the most chilling horror I’ve read so far this year, and it takes a truly unique approach to the concept of a…

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Review of The Artist of Blackberry Grange

It’s been an established trope from the very first Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto: portraits of the dead that can come to life and roam the halls. In Paulette Kennedy’s The Artist of Blackberry Grange, the home of an elderly painter living with dementia is haunted by her portraits of figures from her past. This historical Gothic, which came out last week, uses traditional tropes of the genre…

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Review of The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Sixteen

Well, we’re nearly halfway through 2025, but I’ve just finished reading Ellen Datlow’s 2024 collection of the best horror short stories published in 2023, or in other words: The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Sixteen. Ellen Datlow is one of the most celebrated editors and anthologists in the horror genre, and I have particularly enjoyed her themed horror anthologies like Haunted Nights and The…

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Review of Murder by Memory—Cozy Sci-fi

The “cozy” label for subgenres has been tossed around a lot lately, ever since the success of Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes series kicked off a fervor for “cozy fantasy” and discourse began over what other genres might get in on the hype. But Olivia Waite takes the term right back to its roots by simply transposing the tropes and trappings of the original cozy genre—cozy mystery—onto a…

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Review of They Bloom at Night—Algae Horror

You’ve heard of mushroom horror? Well, make room for its new cousin: algae horror. Anyone who has experienced the notorious “red tides” off of the United States’ southern coasts knows just how harmful, creepy, and off-putting large-scale algal blooms can be. But Trang Thahn Tran (author of She Is a Haunting) takes the red tide to new supernatural heights in their latest YA horror novel, They…

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Review of Beneath the Poet's House—A Poe-inspired Thriller

It’s not unusual these days to see modern horror stories inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Here on The Gothic Library, I’ve reviewed such books as T. Kingfisher’s fantastical reimagining of “The Fall of the House of Usher” and a YA anthology that retells a variety of Poe stories for the next generation. But Christa Carmen takes this idea a step further by drawing not just on Poe’s fiction…

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Review of The River Has Roots—Magic and Murder Ballads

If you’re into folk music or murder ballads at all, you have probably heard at least one version of the classic ballad sometimes known as “The Two Sisters” or “The Bonny Swans.” The song has many variations, but the lyrics generally tell the story of one sister who drowns the other out of romantic jealousy. The body of the dead sister is then made into a musical instrument and sings out her…

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Review of Dark Archives—Macabre Nonfiction

Books bound in human skin—it’s a gruesome image and one most often tied to legends of occult treatises or murderous keepsakes. But are all of the macabre legends out there really true? How can you tell the difference between leather made from human skin and that made from animals? And, historically, what kind of books have actually gotten this treatment? Megan Rosenbloom, the world’s foremost…

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Review of The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years—Multi-faceted Hauntings

Looking for a beautiful, lyrical haunted house story unlike anything you’ve read before? The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan came out last January and was first on my list most anticipated 2024 reads, but I didn’t get to it until the end of the year. However, I’m glad I waited until I was able to take my time and savor this slow and atmospheric story!  Continue reading Review of The…

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Review of Robert Eggers's Nosferatu

Nosferatu 2024 was a delightful film—as long as you like your Dracula adaptations both as horny and as gory as possible and cloaked in beautiful and atmospheric cinematography. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last month, the movie-going horror world has been abuzz about this new remake of Murnau’s 1922 silent film. This Nosferatu, directed by Robert Eggers and starring Bill…

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Books I'm Excited for in 2025

Happy New Year (almost)! As I get ready to write my New Year’s Resolutions for 2025, I always like to look ahead to the books that will be coming out over the next year. Here are just a few of the ones that I’m excited for:  1) Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito (set to be released February 4) A Victorian, gender-swapped American Psycho? The pitch for this one certainly has me intrigued. The book…

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My 2024 Reading Recap

I can’t believe 2024 is already drawing to an end! This has been another great reading year for me. While not quite the high of 2023—which I called one of the best reading years of my adult life—I’m quite happy with both the quality and quantity of books I read this year.  I’m still adding my August books to the Book Snake… Continue reading My 2024 Reading Recap

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If I Stopped Haunting You—Horromance

What better way to fall in love than by running through the halls of a haunted house together? I have been absolutely sleeping on the horrormance subgenre, which combines—you guessed it!—horror and romance. At first glance, you might  think these genres are complete opposites and wouldn’t blend well. But when you think about it some more, it makes sense: Both horror and romance are about putting…

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Death Becomes Her—Musical Comedy Revitalized

What if you could live forever . . . but so could your worst enemy? This is the premise of the cult classic film Death Becomes Her, which has recently been adapted for Broadway! The 1992 black comedy film, starring Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, is celebrated for its high camp and ridiculous violence as the two ruthless rivals wreak havoc on each other’s immortal bodies as they fight over the same…

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#AScareADay 2024 Reading Challenge Reflections

If you saw my Preview of #AScareADay Reading Challenge 2024 post last month, you’ll know I spent my October reading 31 scary stories and poems curated by Dr. Sam Hirst of Romancing the Gothic.This was my third year participating in this spooky season reading challenge, and I loved it more than ever! Every year, I discover new-to-me authors, both contemporary and from centuries past, that I’m…