Every week Romancing the Gothic runs an online book group (everyone’s welcome as often or as infrequently as they like – use the contact page to get in touch if you’re interested!) We read short stories, graphic novels, novellas, novels, watch tv shows and sometimes play interactive games. At the end of each year, I send out a form for our members to fit in where they can vote for our five-star reads. Gothic and horror adjacent books with the Romancing the Gothic seal of approval. Have a look at this year’s stand outs!
I was hoping to curate a ‘top ten’ list but the votes were against it with lots of books getting the same number of five star recommendations. There are 11 books in total. I’ve put them in order according to number of votes but bear in mind it’s a very inexact science. Few people have time to read every single book so they can’t vote on all of them – but it gives an idea of what we’ve absolutely loved this year!
1) Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
We’ve read a few Daphne Du Maurier’s in the past and she tends to be a group favourite. For many this was a re-read but it’s one of those books that gives something every time you read it. A deeply unsettling book, which takes the ‘ingenue marrying an attractive and brusque older man’ into ever more worrying places. It’s hard to do it justice with a plot summary but it’s a piece of masterful writing which creeps under your skin. What disturbed me the most on this reread was the unnamed narrator whose focus on whether or not she’s loved is far more important than the revelations of rot at the heart of the story. I can’t say more without giving out the text’s secrets but next time you read, stop a moment on her reactions to revelation. There’s something just a little bone-chilling about the ‘heroine’ who’s been leading us by the hand through the story.
2) The Day We Ate Grandad – C M Rosens
We’ve been reading this series since it started with The Crows a couple of years ago. If you’ve not ventured into the weird universe of Pagham-on-Sea, a horrifying treat awaits you. Family drama is that much more dramatic when you’re talking eldritch entities, cannibal Gods, a multitude of tentacles, cults and sentient houses. I do recommend going back to the start if you’re encountering this series for the first time. Otherwise you’re going to find yourself tipped into the middle of a very weird universe indeed with a lot of backstory missing. For those of you already reading the series, this is the Wes book and he’s just as much of a grade-A prat as you expect!
3) In the Pit of Your Stomach: An Interactive Horror Story – Arden Powell
Oh my gods, this was fun! A little treat to ourselves before we broke up for the winter holidays. We were also lucky enough to have the author come play with us.
It’s an interactive novel which is always a whole lot of fun. So many ways to die! Your chances of survival are slim but there’s queer (horror) romance on the table as one of the few options where you survive (for a given definition of survive).
It’s short and fun to play alone or with friends. It’s also got some absolutely excellent horror writing. Evocative, disgusting and enthralling!
4) Skin Thief - Suzan Palumbo
We here at Romancing the Gothic are nerds about story order in short story collections so this collection starts well with a foreword by A C Wise making it clear exactly how much thought has gone into those choices. It only goes up from there. It is an incredible collection of short fiction, organised in a way which creates a coherence and connection between stories which enriches each one individually. This was one of my absolute favourite reads of the year, tight incredible writing, layered, evocative, disturbing, wonderful.
If you’re looking for the best of contemporary short supernatural fiction, I can’t recommend a better place to start than here.
4) Penhallow – Georgette Heyer
This isn’t the first Georgette Heyer I’ve had the book group read but it was by far the most popular. Which is quite ironic considering it’s one of the least liked books in the Heyer fandoms/communities. I think it just needs to find its audience and apparently that audience is us!
It’s a murder novel but it simply doesn’t fit into genre boundaries. If you go in expecting a whodunnit or a thriller, you’re going to be frustrated. The murder doesn’t happen till over halfway through the book, we know who did it before they commit the murder, and there’s no neat solution at the end. Lay your expectations at the door to get the most out of it.
It’s a claustrophobic family and psychological drama with an incredibly dysfunctional family gathered around their tyrannical progenitor. It seems like a familiar story but the focus is on this disintegration, on the desperation that permeates the house, and the answer that someone thinks will solve all their problems. It’s a murder novel where the murder is the least tragic thing to happen. It’s a hard book to explain but if you enjoy Gothic atmosphere, dark bitter humour, excellent writing and old Cornish houses filled to the gills with secrets, it could be for you!
4) Annihilation – Jeff Vandermeer
Annihilation is the first in the Southern Reach series but it reads well as a stand-alone as well. If you haven’t read it, you’ve probably heard of it, either because of the film version or because it’s a standard point of reference in discussions of ecohorror and weird fiction.
Sent to work out what the hell’s .oing on, a team enter a mutated and mutating zone and end up with few solutions, resolutions or possibilities of survival. Haunting, grotesque and disturbing, its a book that asks unsettling questions while it paints positively baroque pictures of a world turned unknown and unknowable.
4) The Hacienda – Isabel Cañas
The obvious comparison here is Mexican Gothic but The Hacienda steps away from the weird (fiction) at the heart of Mexican Gothic and leans wholeheartedly into the aesthetics of a Mexican Gothic.
Forbidden love, magic, faith, threat, a house with secrets, hostile isolation… it’s got everything a Gothic romance lovers heart can crave and more. I loved the explorations of faith and its failures, the complexities of belief and resistance. The novel is also an incredibly effective supernatural chiller with lush prose that I could just dive into.
8) Trick or Treat – Richie Tankersley Cusick
When I realised that most people in book group hadn’t grown up obsessively reading Point Horror, I knew what I had to do. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so popular. Richie Tankersley Curties’ Trick or Treat though is a solid example of the genre – murder, mysteries, romance (often accidentally with people trying to kill you). Reading Trick or Treat again after a gap of a couple of decades, made me realise how much my understanding of horror and my expectations around horror were formed and solidified by Point Horror. It turns out part of the reason I often guess endings and death orders wrong is because I hard-wired myself to use Point Horror logic (or the lack thereof) and it doesn’t always translate.
If you haven’t read Point Horror, or if you haven’t read it for a while, why not dive back into some of these nuggets of teen horror. You’ll find some compact, often pretty effective stories, and (for some) a trip down memory lane.
8) Kintu – Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
I picked this book for book group after seeing it on a friend’s shelf (shout out to Sreya!) and I’m so glad I did! You’ll need a good chunk of time to get through this one but it’s absolutely worth it. It’s the story of one family through multiple generations and a curse that follows it. The story also takes us into different eras and events of Ugandan history, winding them in with the story of the family. The book is enthralling and, for all its historical complexity, hard to put down
8) The Book Eaters – Sunyi Dean
What if there was another society alongside ours. One that survived on books rather than food. What if some of them ate minds rather than printed words? That’s the world Sunyi Dean’s novel draws us into. It’s the world of a mother trying to protect a son’s whose survival is making them both murderers. Torn between loyalties, between duties, and faced with impossible sacrifices and impossible choices. It’s also a fast-paced adventure full of near misses, chases, betrayals and fights. A dark read and one which leaves no easy resolutions and solutions for the reader. It sucks you deep into the world it creates though, and you come up after reading, gasping for air and longing to stick your head back under the water.
8) The Things She’s Seen or Catching, Teller, Crow by Ambellin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina
This was one of the many, and one of the best, mysteries we read this year. A ghost helps her father to solve a crime. A simple premise but one written with devastating beauty at times and extraordinary elegance. The narrative is split between two narrators with two completely different forms of story-telling. It is a story and stories, a story about histories, a story of survivals and letting go.
It’s a short read and one that’s well worth the time. I’ve already read it twice this year and it keeps haunting me.
I hope you enjoy these books as much as we did. If 11 isn’t enough, you can find the list of all the books we’ve ever read here.
Romancing the Gothic 