Happy Memorial Day! If you’re like me, you grew up on Scholastic book magazines: that time of the school year when the teacher passed out that beloved newspaper-like magazine chalk full of tiny photos and descriptions of books for young readers. I took it home and poured over every option, selecting all of my favorites. Since then, the summer season has evoked in me a feeling of lazy days lying beside a lake with a bag of fireballs and a pile of books. In that spirit, here are ten books for your 2023 summer Gothic reading list. Happy reading!
Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin
I read this book recently. If you’ll recall, it’s also on my 2023 vampire book list (as is My Soul to Keep, below). Thus, it’s fresh in my mind.
Set on the Mississippi river in the mid-1800s, the novel follows the story of riverboat captain Abner Marsh who makes a deal with a strange, nocturnal visitor and soon finds himself in the middle of a struggle for power between rival vampires – one who would destroy humanity; the other who claims to have found a way for them to live in harmony.
Bag of Bones by Stephen King
I love recommending this one – partly because it’s good, but largely because I doubt that even most Stephen King fans have read it.
In the wake of his wife’s untimely death, novelist Mike Noonan takes up residence at his beloved lakeside home in western Maine. There he stumbles upon a young widow whose wealthy father-in-law will do anything to take away her only child, his granddaughter. Filled with unforeseeable twists and turns, this story is two tales in one – both of them chronicling the sufferings of the disadvantaged at the hands of those in power.
The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
This is a YA Gothic tale of the brides of Dracula. On the eve of their divining, the day when they will discover their fate, seventeen-year-old Romany twin sisters Lillai (“Lil”) and Kizzy are kidnapped and enslaved by a cruel Boyar. In the castle, far from their home, Lil works in the kitchens alongside another girl who tells her of a terrible Dragon. One who would take the girls for his own.
“A feminist origin story of sisterhood, fate and survival certain to bewitch teenage readers and beyond” – Observer
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
Ahh…Summer of Night. This one is a bit of a cheat. It’s not really Gothic. But it is horror, my favorite horror story – a genre many of us also love – and it’s a fantastic summer read!
In the summer of 1960 in small-town Illinois, five twelve-year-old boys enter into long summer days of exploring, riding bikes and hanging out in their secret fort. But from the old school an ancient evil rises. As horrifying events overtake the once-peaceful town, the boys set out to wage war against this dark entity before it destroys them all.
My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
Set in Miami, Jessica thinks she has found everything she wanted in her husband, David. But when people around her begin to die, she discovers that he is part of an Ethiopian sect and is over 400 years old.
When his sect demands that he return to Ethiopia, David decides to go to forbidden lengths to keep his wife and children. Jessica finds herself trapped “between the desperation of immortals who want to rob her of her life and a husband who wants to rob her of her soul.” (Amazon)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
And then there’s this one: my favorite Gothic story of all time. The novella has a very summertime feeling about it. But more importantly, it tells the tale of Merricat and her sister Constance after the death of the rest of their family.
As the village pits itself against the girls, blaming them for the deaths, their cousin Charles moves in and attempts to take the house and the girls’ possessions from them. This is a story in which Jackson shows us how a community can act against the outsider and what that individual must do to defend herself.
The Toll by Cherie Priest
This story blends Southern Gothic and Horror.
“Titus and Melanie Bell set out for their honeymoon cabin in the Okefenokee Swamp. But shortly before they reach their destination, the road narrows into a rickety bridge with old stone pilings, with room for only one car.
Much later, Titus wakes up lying in the middle of the road, no bridge in sight. Melanie is missing. When he calls the police, they tell him there is no such bridge on Route 177 …” (Amazon)
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
In Bradbury’s characteristic style, every element of this book is both gripping and meaningful. It’s the week before Halloween in Green Town, Illinois when a strange carnival rolls into town during the night.
Two young boys – Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway – along with Will’s father Charles, discover that this carnival and its sinister ringleader, Mr. Dark, will force them and the townspeople to face the one thing that comes for us all and which they fear most: death.
Though it’s set in the fall, the carnival atmosphere of this one gives it a definite summertime feel.
Daughters of the Lake by Wendy Webb
“After the end of her marriage, Kate Granger has retreated to her parents’ home on Lake Superior to pull herself together―only to discover the body of a murdered woman washed into the shallows. Tucked in the folds of the woman’s curiously vintage gown is an infant, as cold and at peace as its mother. No one can identify the woman. Except for Kate. She’s seen her before. In her dreams…
As the drowned woman reaches out from the grave, Kate reaches back. They must come together, if only in dreams, to right the sinister wrongs of the past.” (Amazon)
In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey
In the wake of their daughter’s death, Charles and Erin Hayden leave America to start anew in the English countryside. They take up residence at Hollow House, the house Erin inherited from her ancestor, the writer of a strange Victorian fairy tale.
But the house and its surrounding forest do nothing to put the past to rest. Instead, the two find themselves haunted “by echoes of the stories in the house’s library, by sightings of their daughter, and by something else, as old and dark as the forest around them. A compelling and atmospheric gothic thriller, In the Night Wood reveals the chilling power of myth and memory.” (Amazon)
