Each week we have a book group on Mondays and Tuesdays. There are two slots: 10 am Tuesday and 7 pm Monday (BST) and you’re very welcome to either, wherever you are in the world and however much you’d like to participate. To sign up get in touch with @RomGothSam on twitter or send an email to sam@romancingthegothic.com
From April, meetings will be held at 7pm on Mondays and then 10am on Tuesdays (all times British time)
SIGN UP for individual author visits here
13th/14th April
This week, we’re doing a Romancing the Gothic first! Music! The talk is on British and Irish Ballads and I’ve picked out some of the ones the speaker will be talking about.
Each of the links below takes you to a page showing different versions of each ballad. I also recommend looking up and listening to different versions. I’ve made a playlist here but feel free to share recommendations for other versions!
The Unquiet Grave – read here
Tam Lin – read here (there are A LOT of versions, you don’t have to read them all!)
The Selkie of Sule Skerry – read here
The Cruel Sister – read here
Polly Vaughan – read it here (you have to scroll far down to get to the different versions)
20th/21st April
The undiscovered, occasionally almost uninhabited remote areas of the old European land of Croatia hold secrets only the bravest of women can find. The only question is, will they survive the discovery or be taken into darkness as the land demands?
Jela lives in complete, self-imposed isolation, but when a malevolent curse falls down on the neighbouring town of Lepoglava, she needs to—quite simply—follow the geese.
Bura lives in a remote village, hidden in the Velebit mountain range in the late 1950s, when she gets lost in the woods, which have suddenly gone unrecognizable.
Four friends visiting the Istrakon sci-fi convention in Pazin get into magical trouble when they drink something they shouldn’t have touched.
Luka and Kate believed they had a perfect plan to trick strict village rules. Years later, Ema and Laura go on a perfect vacation in Dalmatia… except that the powers lurking in the depths of the sea have other plans for them, and so does the village itself.
Augusta is caught in a fairy tale in the worst possible way—as a maiden sacrifice to the river dragon for the safety of her postapocalyptic village. But Lian, as it turns out, isn’t really a dragon and Augusta has something else to bargain with, other than her life—something much, much more dangerous.
27th/28th April
We’re starting off May with a talk on Shirley Jackson so we’re preparing by reading our first Shirley Jackson on the course! We’ve had a few lectures but never read anything except one or two stories in the ‘Scare a Day’ challenge. No more! It’s finally time.
Alone in the world, Eleanor is delighted to take up Dr Montague’s invitation to spend a summer in the mysterious Hill House. Joining them are Theodora, an artistic ‘sensitive’, and Luke, heir to the house. But what begins as a light-hearted experiment is swiftly proven to be a trip into their darkest nightmares, and an investigation that one of their number may not survive
4th/5th May
This month’s theme is supernatural women and we’re starting with something unusual…
For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she’s been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another molly is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction.
Molly knows every way to kill herself, but she also knows that as long as she survives she’ll be hunted. No matter how well she follows the rules, eventually the mollys will find her. Can Molly find a way to stop the tide of blood, or will she meet her end at the hand of a girl who looks just like her?
11th/12th May
This week’s book takes us to 19th century Sri Lanka
Being the daughter of the village Capuwa, or demon-priest, Amara is used to keeping mostly to herself. Influenced by the new religious practices brought in by the British Colonizers, the villagers who once respected her father’s craft have turned on the family. Yet, they all still seem to call on him whenever supernatural disturbances arise.
Now someone—or something—is viciously seizing upon men in the jungle. But instead of enlisting Amara’s father’s help, the villages have accused him of carrying out the attacks himself.
As she tries to clear her father’s name, Amara finds herself haunted by dreams that eerily predict the dark forces on her island. And she can’t shake the feeling that it’s all connected to the night she was recovering from a strange illness, and woke up, scared and confused, to hear her mother’s frantic cries: No one can find out what happened.
18th/19th May
This week’s talk will focus on women writing Egyptian horror so I thought we could read some 19th century short stories.
First up, the anonymously authored 1862 tale ‘The Mummy’s Curse’. Read it here
Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Lost in the Pyramid’. Read it here
Eva Henry’s ‘Curse of Vasartas’. Read it here
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Romancing the Gothic 