Thursday, July 5, 2018

Things Learned While Looking Up Other Things: Gothic Edition (An Homage to Sydney J. Harris) By Julia Buckley

JENN McKINLAY: My gateway from the children's section of the library to the adult side was Victoria Holt, specifically Mistress of Mellyn. So, it was with great delight that I discovered a gothic  mystery series had burst upon the scene written by Julia Buckley. Here she is to tell us all about it!


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JULIA BUCKLEY: Back in the 1970s I used to read the Chicago Sun-Times, to which my family had a subscription. Since I was a kid, I tended to read the Funnies, the horoscopes, and the movie reviews first, but I did enjoy many of the columnists.
One of their greatest writers was a man named Sydney J. Harris, a great 20thCentury writer and thinker who studied philosophy at the University of Chicago while also getting his start, as a teenager, working for the Chicago Daily News. When that paper became defunct, Harris began writing for the Sun-Times.
At one point he wrote a column called “Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things.” These pieces were created long before the Internet, and Harris’s column alerted me to the idea of just how much information was out there. Generally these pieces were whimsical, but Harris, a philosopher at heart, had much to say about the human condition.
Although Sydney J. Harris died in 1986, his writing, particularly that column, has stayed with me. 

I’ve been doing some research into the Gothic tradition since my books, beginning with A Dark and Stormy Murder, are small and cozy homages to that tradition, especially to the great Gothic suspense writers of the post-war 20thCentury—people like Mary Stewart (on whom Camilla Graham is loosely based), Phyllis A. Whitney, Victoria Holt. But before those women spun their tales of magic and mystery, there were their Gothic forbears: Ann Radcliffe in the late 18thCentury; the Brontes and Mary Shelley in the 19thCentury, Daphne du Maurier in the early 20thCentury. There is much to say about the Gothic tradition, these writers in particular, writing in general.
So, inspired by Harris, I’m going to share some of the most interesting tidbits of information from some of my latest bits of research (and oh does the Internet make this easy! Harris searched through books).
·      Gothic fiction (aka Gothic horror) emerged from Gothic architecture. Many of the works of the early Gothics like Horace Walpole (the originator), and later Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, even Dickens with A Christmas Carol, set their works in buildings with Gothic elements. Gothic structure emerged from Gothic structures!



·      Most know that Poe, a master of the Gothic, wrote the first American detective story, creating an archetype for many works that followed. However, Poe also wrote science fiction! In his story “The Unparalled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall,” his main character took a balloon ride to the moon. 

·      The Bronte children were all highly creative: the sisters, Emily, Charlotte, and Anne, each wrote novels, and their brother, Branwell, was an artist. The deaths of many of their loved ones may well have contributed to the gloomy, Gothic tone of their writing. Three of them died around the age of 30, and Charlotte died at 38. The family’s home, the parsonage at Haworth, is now a museum in Yorkshire. 




·      Mary Stewart, before marrying the geologist Frederick Stewart, was Mary Rainbow. While I thought I had read all of her works (many times), I find two listed on Wikipedia that I have never heard of: The Castle of Danger(1981) and The Wind off the Small Isles(1968) I will be reading them both this summer.

·      Phyllis A. Whitney was born in Japan, and her middle name “Ayame,” means “iris” in Japanese. Whitney was well-traveled, but as a young married woman just beginning to write, she lived here in Chicago. She worked at bookstores and at the Chicago Public Library while she honed her craft. Later she became a book reviewer for the Chicago Sunand the Philadelphia Inquirer. Whitney lived to be 104 years old. She told the NYT: “I always told myself that when I get old I’ll reread all my books, but I never seem to get old.” She was seventy-nine at the time.

·     Eleanor Hibbert, according to Wikipedia, wrote as “Jean Plaidy for fictionalized history of European royalty; Victoria Holt for gothic romances, and Philippa Carr for a multi-generational family saga.” She wrote more than 200 books which sold more than 100 million copies worldwide and were translated into 20 languages. Hibbert was English but loved to escape cold English winters by taking cruises to warm places. She died on a cruise ship, at age 86, and was buried at sea somewhere between Greece and Egypt.

·     Daphne Du Maurier’s REBECCA (set in Cornwall, like most of her works), has never gone out of print. Du Maurier grew more reclusive as her fame grew. She did not like being called a “romantic novelist,” as she felt she her books did not fit into the genre. She lived in Cornwall for her whole life, for many years renting an estate called “Menabilly,” on which the famous Manderley is partially based.


·     Common criteria for Gothic fiction include a setting on a spooky estate or old castle; a theme of death or decay (Poe was a master of this); some element of the supernatural, perhaps involving curses or prophecies; overwrought emotion, especially in the heroine; a domineering male figure; romance; closed doors/secret passages; images of blood or the grotesque; an overall mood of gloom or horror—just to name a few! Some sites list up to 100 Gothic elements.

·     Sub-note: In my Gothic series, I make use of at least seven of those motifs! Perhaps you can find them.

I could go on and on with interesting Gothic details, and I wonder what Sydney J. Harris would make of the Internet age. Oh, and here’s one last “thing I learned” while looking up Harris himself:
·     Sydney J. Harris was on Richard Nixon’s enemies list.   J

What about you, Reds and readers, what did you learn while looking up something else?

 Here's a glimpse at the latest writer's apprentice mystery, featuring Lena London: 

Writer's apprentice Lena London is 
happily working on a new collaboration 
with her idol and bestselling suspense 
novelist and friend Camilla Graham, but 
her joy is short-lived when a dark cloud 
descends upon the quaint town of Blue 
Lake, Indiana...

Lena's best friend, Allison, is in a panic. On a walk in the woods by her home, Allison discovers the body of her mail carrier, an argumentative man who recently had a falling out with Allison's husband. Lena quickly realizes that Allison has nothing to worry about as the murder weapon points to a different suspect altogether: Lena's embattled boyfriend, Sam West.

Sam was cleared of his wife's murder when she was found alive, and now someone is trying to make him look guilty again. Surveillance video of a break-in at his house shows a shadowy figure trying to incriminate him by stealing the weapon from his desk. Lena and Camilla work on a suspect list, but a threatening note and a violent intrusion at Graham House prove that the devious killer has decided to write them into the plot.


Julia Buckley is a Chicago writer. She has two series with Berkley Prime Crime, along with a variety of mystery novels available on Kindle. Her newest release, DEATH IN DARK BLUE, is now available in bookstores and online.

Her hobbies are reading, writing, binge-watching tv series on Netflix, and hanging out with her husband, sons, four cats and one giant Labrador.

Visit Julia at her website, JuliaBuckley.com or her Facebook page, Julia Buckley Mystery Novels, or see her on Twitter @juliabucks. You can also explore her inspirations for Blue Lake on her Pinterest page, or follow her on Instagram at jellenbuckey. 


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76 comments:

  1. Researching stuff can definitely be a rabbit hole. Drawing a blank on any of those I've wandered down at the moment, although imdb can be deadly to me if I have something I need to do time wise.

    Looking forward to read this new book soon!

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    1. I agree, Mark! The Internet should be called The Land of Lost Time. And thanks for reading!

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  2. So much that I never knew about gothic traditions, Julia. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all comes together in “A Dark and Twisting Path” . . . .

    The internet is pretty amazing when it comes to introducing me to stuff about which I had absolutely no inkling . . . who knew that smoke detectors had expiration dates? Not me, but there it was in black and white, leaving me a bit perplexed and ultimately sending me out to buy a houseful of new smoke detectors . . . .

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    1. I didn't know about smoke detectors, Joan, but I did notice recently that dental floss has an expiration date. Why?

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    2. Yes, I've heard a lot about expiring smoke detectors and all I can think is that is how they get us to keep buying them. My house which isn't at all what you would call big, has 7 smoke detectors! And none of them has worked properly since day one.

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    3. Joan, I'm not sure I knew that either, though I know you're always supposed to "test" your smoke detectors. Which I haven't done in a while, now that I think of it. Thanks for the reminder!

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  3. I grew up reading Mary Stewart and teasing my sister about her love of Victoria Holt, so I have a lot of affection for the Gothic novel tradition. These mysteries sound like fun!

    I write the program notes for Dallas Winds' concerts, which takes a fair amount of research, since I'm not a musicologist. I learn tons of fun, weird stuff along the way. For instance, did you know that George Gershwin based the title for his "Rhapsody in Blue" on the painter James McNeill Whistler's habit of titling his paintings after musical works--"Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket," and "Arrangement in Grey and Black" (Whistler's Mother). While Gershwin was considered a jazz musician, composers in the audience for Rhapsody in Blue's premiere included Sergei Rachmaninoff (romantic), Igor Stravinsky (decidedly un-romantic), and John Philip Sousa. Talk about heavy-hitters in very different musical styles! Those four would never be found on one classical music program these days.

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    1. Wow! That is very interesting, and what a cool job you have. I learn all sorts of great tips from the announcers on our Classical station, WFMT.

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  4. Fascinating! I had no idea, Julia. Reading this reminded me of our trip to Scotland and the ruins of Whitby Abbey which inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula. Gothic architecture, of course.

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    1. Yes! Dracula, Frankenstein, lots of Gothic horror. And my son pointed out that Batman is very Gothic. When I looked back at the drawings, I saw that he was right.

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  5. I remember reading Phyllis Whitney years ago but I never knew they were considered gothic. What I remember most about her was her talking about all the different places she traveled for her research.
    He really had it right about learning something new while looking up other things. Probably the same way I find something I have been searching for only when I give up and look for something different.

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    1. And in a lot of cases, that "accidental" information ends up being helpful.

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  6. I grew up reading the gothics, too. I’m excited to read your books!

    I’ve learned so many things during the research phase, beginning with learning Italian, right on through to how to forestall a panic attack. Learning new things is half the fun!

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    1. I agree. And I could use that panic attack information!!

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  7. Daphne DuMaurier was one of my first adult reads. And I read every one of her books. One of the great trips of my life was several days in Cornwall. We stayed in a restored hunting lodge. So atmospheric.

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    1. She's great. My students actually have to read REBECCA over the summer, along with JANE EYRE.

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  8. congratulations on your latest release. I, too, graduated to the adult room at the library with Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, and Victoria Holt. Internet searches can be fast and easy (ingredients for tiramisu) or more difficult (a new and different plant-based poison).

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    1. Yes! The world's your oyster with the great web.

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  9. And Ruth Ware’s new Book The Death of Mrs Westaway is set at Mendabilly!
    Plus: my father was the music critic at the Chicago Daily News —and Sidney J Harris was his hero!
    Small world. Xxx Hurray for your new book!
    ( and yes, the Internet is ridiculous. I can look up and realize I’ve been in there an hour, discovered all kinds of cool stuff, and gotten absolutely nothing done. )

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  10. Research has always been a case of “Oh, look over there! Shiny!” for me. Somehow all threads of randomness and happenstance weave together and make the story better. Thanks for popping in Julia! Can’t wait to read A Dark and Twisting Path!

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  11. Hi Julia! Fun post. When researching LSU football star Billy Cannon (later a convicted felon who spent 5 years in prison, but was still elected to the College Football Hall of Fame), I discovered that the Heisman Trophy used to be awarded by a public official. In 1959, Billy Cannon was presented the Heisman by Vice President Richard Nixon. Irony, huh?

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    1. Wow! Yes, little ironies like that are just what Harris liked to write about.

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  12. Oh, Gothics! How many many did I indulge in through my misspent youth? Some I loved, some I simply rolled my eyes at... Along the lines of "You're going to be a governess for a troubled child in a dark and isolated manor house/castle/ex-abbey, with a brooding embittered father? What could possibly go wrong?"

    Mary Stewart...absolutely the best ever. I think only Nine Coaches Waiting technically qualifies as a Gothic, (vulnerable child heir, castle in furrin parts, brooding, embittered employers....) while the rest are good old romantic suspense.

    Camilla Graham, eh, Julia? I think I can spot both her namesakes. :^). I must get my hands on her adventures. Congratulations on the latest release.

    p.s. https://marystewartreading.wordpress.com/

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    1. Hi, Susan! I think several Mary Stewart books have at least elements of the Gothic. Remember Thunder on the Right, with the dark old convent and the terrifying, monster-like nun? And a similar dark, hulking house in This Rough Magic. She liked her creepy dwellings. :)

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  13. Mistress of Mellyn was my introduction to gothics too! Mom got Readers Digest Condensed Books and one boring day I picked up one and there it was. I read all the full length books after that! I was in the 6th grade and had a new tangent to go off on. Actually it was kind of cool that Mom and I read the same romantic suspense. Besides Holt, Stewart, and Whitney we read Helen McInnes. Yes, I know. Not gothic. Looking forward to reading your books, Julia!

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    1. Oh my gosh, Readers Digest Condensed Books! What a world of pleasure they brought to us! And yes, I loved MacInnes. I feel she was underrated, and I wonder why one of her books hasn't been made into a movie a la Bourne Identity.

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    2. MacInnes is very underrated. There's a project for a movie producer!

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  14. I am so grateful I grew up when I did, able to read the fabulous classic gothics. Along with the authors already mentioned, M.M. Kay's "Death in...." stand alones were lovely. I re-read them in one summer when I was 21. I was the stage manager of a cabaret-type show in a 100+ year old brewery in Virginia City, Montana. I had to have the place open in the afternoons for tourists wandering by but it was slightly off the path so I rarely got visitors. It was a really rainy, dark few weeks in the beginning. Reading them, listening to my boombox (I was into classical music for a bit then)... it was magical. For a newer author of gothic, Simone St. James also does good stand alones set around WWI.

    Internet searching ... I can spend hours following my curiosity one after the other like a beagle on scent winding up in a different county.

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    1. PK, I read all of MM Kaye's books, and when I finished the Death In books I read THE FAR PAVILIONS. Wonderful. I especially liked her prefaces to the mysteries, in which she explained how the place she was writing about really no longer existed.

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  15. A kindred spirit! Loved the gothics growing up and still do. Thinking of that 'touch of supernatural' in Mary Stewart's 'Touch Not the Cat.' Another author not mentioned yet is Jane Aiken Hodge and I think Madeleine Brent would fit this group of authors as well. Will have to check out your series, Julia! I wonder, could the heroine be endangered by a falling tower of books from her TBR-pile, and be rescued by a darkly handsome, brooding character? :P

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    1. My series is cozy, so it's sort of watered-down Gothic, but it still pays tribute in several ways. It's sort of my fantasy of "What if I were young again and got to meet Mary Stewart?" :)

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    2. Flora, for a book with a heroine after your own heart, check out Susan Elizabeth Phillips' book, "Heroes Are My Weakness." Fun romantic suspense with ironic Gothic overtones.

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    3. Gigi, thanks for the recommendation--I am going to need a second job to pay for my habit--er, my books!

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  16. Welcome to Jungle Reds, Julia! I found your book and read it! Love this post about different authors. I remember Victoria Holt also wrote historical novels as Jean Plaidy. Because I knew they were fictionalized historical novels about royalty, I asked my history professor if Henry the 8th really had a sister who married the King of Scotland. In the very dry book that we had to read for that particular history class, that book never mentioned Margaret who married James Douglas! I read the Jean Plaidy book to help me read that dry history book. My professor said, yes, Margaret was Henry VIII's sister and told us more about her. I never mentioned the Jean Plaidy book in class, though.

    Thank you for a great post!
    Diana

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    1. My mom loved the Jean Plaidy books, while I was more of a Victoria Holt person. She had a personality for all of us. My mother, my sister and I all just passed those Gothic books around, and we were constantly at the library. Our favorite Holt was ON THE NIGHT OF THE SEVENTH MOON.

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    2. My mom also loved: Georgette Heyer, Dorothy Eden, Ngaio Marsh, Ellis Peters, Jane Aiken Hodge, Joan Aiken. She also loved The Clan of the Cave Bear and The Name of the Rose.

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    3. Thanks!

      I was not interested in The Clan of the Cave Bear until recently. Just discovered Georgette Heyer, though I read Barbara Cartland novels.

      Diana

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  17. Julia, hi! My first very important question: are there really German shepherds in Death in Dark Blue?? I must go buy it asap. Maybe I will read it aloud to my two GSDs:-)

    I'm such a victim of the research rabbit hole, and also a huge fan of Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, and Phyllis Whitney. You've given us so much fun stuff I didn't know. Mary Rainbow??? Did anyone else also read Elizabeth Peters writing as Barbara Michaels? There were quite a few gothic-y stories, and although I don't remember the titles, they were as entertaining as Peters was in any of her names or genres. I adored her Vicky Bliss novels.

    Someday we need to have a "Favorite Mary Stewart novel" post! I think mine would be My Brother Michael but it would be a hard choice.

    And, Hank, I read The Death of Mrs. Westaway, which I thought was huge fun, but didn't realize the house was Mendabilly!

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    1. Deborah, there are German Shepherds in ALL of the books! Camilla has two of them, and they even have Gothic names--Heathcliff and Rochester. Oh, and if your dogs want to listen, they are all on Audible. :) Yes, my mom read all the Barbara Michaels stuff--for some reason as a kid I feared they'd be too scary for me.

      My favorite MS novel is a toss-up between Madam, Will You Talk, Nine Coaches Waiting and This Rough Magic.

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    2. Ahhhh, Vicky Bliss! I love those books. And everything else by Elizabeth/Barbara. I'm with you about Madam Will You Talk and Nine Coaches Waiting, Julia. Two favorites. Jane Aiken Hodge and Georgette Heyer never get old for me, either.

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  18. I recently read a little publicized book called THE VANISHING by Sophia Tobin. About as perfect a recreation of the Bronte's I have found in recent reading.

    I was a huge fan of this series debut by Julia. I need to catch up, clearly.

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    1. I will have to check that out! I'll share that info with my students, too. And thank you for reading!

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  19. Who remembers Velda Johnston? She had some great novels in the Stewart/Holt/Whitney style.

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    1. Gosh! Velda Johnston! I read everything she wrote, and I loved them. Definitely a forgotten gem of a writer.

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    2. Yes, and somehow she didn't seem to get the attention she deserved.

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  20. Hi Julia, I love the idea that gothic architecture was the inspiration for gothic mysteries! Do you know if there are other genres that have a comparable origin story? Congratulations on the new book!


    Debs, I don't think I've ever read a Mary Stewart novel. Sounds like I need to start with "My Brother Michael."

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    1. Ingrid, I would love to read them again. They are all standalones, so you can't go wrong starting with any of them. Both My Brother Michael and This Rough Magic are set in Greece, and there is just something so compelling about the settings.

      And I've just discovered all the Mary Stewart's have been rereleased on Kindle!

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    2. Correction--This Rough Magic is set in Provence. Now I have to figure out which is the other novel set in Greece. (Maybe in my imagination...)

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    3. Deborah, you were sort of right the first time--This Rough Magic is set on the Greek isle of Corfu. Maybe Thunder on the Right was set in Provence? My Brother Michael is one of my favorites--I re-read Airs Above the Ground last year--I find all of her novels stand the test of time for me.

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    4. Yes, you're correct, Flora. The blurb on Amazon for This Rough Magic said Provence, so I thought I must have been wrong. I should trust my memory!

      All the books are now available on Kindle for between $2 and $4. I bought them all! The cover art on Kindle is gorgeous!!

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    5. Okay, once we start talking Mary Stewart, I have to keep jumping in. Yup, three books set in Greece: My Brother Michael, This Rough Magic (my favourite) and The Moon-Spinners (my almost favourite).

      A post dedicated entirely to Mary Stewart would be super-welcome.

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    6. Yes,this right here. I was not a big Gothis fan but loved Mary Stewart and especially loved the 3 set in Greece. This Rough Magic has been a permanent part of my collection for more decades than I'm admitting. When we went to Delphi a few years ago, I re-read My Brother Michael. WoW! and I made my husband read it too. He didn't want to but he was wowed after awhile too. BTW loved this post and look forward to reading your books.

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    7. No, but the Gothic tradition seems to have descended from one book--Horace Walpole's THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO.

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  21. IMDb is definitely a rabbit hole! I've lost track of the number of times I go to look up who a particular actor/actress is, and I find a zillion other things he/she has been in, which leads me to...

    I went on a Victoria Holt binge one rainy summer. I wonder if the weather is what drew me to Gothic.

    Mary/Liz

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    1. She might have been the most Gothic of them all. So many castles and estates, and so much wonderful intrigue. As I recall, she could write pages and pages of dialogue without any tags.

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  22. My comments got lost. GRRRRRRR! I will summarize. Jenn, I am so thrilled to hear that Mistress of Mellyn was your gateway to adult reading, too. It was mine and holds a special place in my heart and reading life.

    Julia, I can't believe I haven't read A Dark and Stormy Murder yet and started this series. I will be ordering it today. I am constantly getting sidetracked into hopping from looking up one thing to another. It's one of the aspects I enjoy most about reading, researching unfamiliar or less familiar subjects.

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    1. Kathy, I exist under the radar. :) Thanks for checking it out!

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  23. Also cut my adult reading teeth on Stewart, Holt and Whitney (and did recently reread a few of the Stewarts that have been rendered into ebook format. I still have practically shredded paperback copies of those by Elsie Lee (whose work, regretfully, has yet to be introduced to ebook sales) and the romantic suspense/Gothic efforts of Anne McCaffrey (The Kilternan Legacy is a special favorite.)

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    1. Elsie Lee's gothics were wonderful, easily as good as those by Holt and Whitney(for me, Stewart was the best pure writer of gothics). Lee(apa Elsie Cromwell) deserved more recognition than she got, as I believe only a very few of her later books were first published as hardbacks and that was at about the time she turned to writing some excellent Regencies at the end of her career. And Anne McCaffrey's romantic suspense is very good too.

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    2. I agree that Stewart was the best.

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  24. The title by Mary Stewart, "The Castle of Danger", is apparently a YA version of "Nine Coaches Waiting", including reading comprehension questions.

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  25. I am out in the country visiting my dad, who just moved to a very lovely retirement community, so I'll be offline for a few hours, but will check back in later. Thanks for all these great comments!

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  26. I read most of those mentioned except the Brontes. Mary Stewart was my favorite, maybe because her heroines were more independent. My parents and I read a lot of historical fiction including Jean Plaidy. Schools should teach history more like The Crown, The Tudors or The Borgias. History is like one big soap opera at times!

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  27. I loved and read every book by Ngaio Marsh as well as all of those by Phyllis Whitney, Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, and especially Daphne DuMaurier. I too am in the middle of reading Ruth Ware’s The Death of Mrs. Westaway. From the first lines about the magpies & even the red fox, it has such a sense of familiarity. I didn’t realize until I read your discussion today that maybe it’s because I was “coming home” to this wonderful company of female Gothic writers. Thank you so much.

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    1. I had not heard of this book--I will check it out!!

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    2. Yes, check it out. Both Hank & Deborah mention it too.

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  28. Besides the Brontes, I have read very few of the books here cited. I guess I did read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. However, I did read The Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart, when I was an adult. (In junior high school, before I was really old enough to know what a "bastard" was, I played Mordred in our school's production of Camelot.)
    Like the universe, the internet is a dark and wonderful thing. When I find something new that I am convinced the world should know about, I post it on my Facebook feed. Sometimes, a few of my friends will read them and let me know with a "like". But the great reward is when Facebook reminds me of these posts from year to year, and I have no recollection of them at all. It's like reading them all for the first time.
    Before the internet, I did not do too much researching. I was a poor student. However, on the track of an old family legend, I sought to find an image of a Daily News front page, which supposedly had a picture of my mother on the front page. The public libraries in New York City had the New York Times on microfilm but not the Daily News. Then I learned that the New York Times itself had microfilm rolls of all the Daily News pages. So this would have been in the mid-70s and I was off to the Times. First I had to find the context of the incident in these large volumes that were the precursor to something like Lexis Nexis. Then I looked at the microfilm of the Times to find the exact date for the story. I had been wrong on the date by about a year. Then I found the image and satisfied my curiosity. One unexpected thing I found on perhaps page 6 of the News was a picture of Ronald Reagan selling Van Heusen dress shirts.

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    1. What a great story! I loved the Merlin trilogy! I still remember being amazed by a scene in which Merlin describes not the birth, but the CONCEPTION of Arthur, after an affair he himself has helped to arrange. And he sees some sort of amazing shooting star in the sky and knows that Arthur will be a reality.

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  29. Barbara Mertz, writing as Elizabeth Peters, before she turned to the Amelia Peabody mystery series, wrote some very good gothics - "The Jackal's Head", "The Camelot Caper", etc. Her books written as Barbara Michaels could also be classed as gothics, with a strong supernatural element. And one of the best gothics I ever read is by Katherine Wigmore Eyre: "The Lute and the Glove". Published in 1955, it's worth seeking out.

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    1. I remember my mom watching a horror movie called "Ammie, Come Home." I think she said it was based on a Barbara Michaels book.

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    2. Yes, here it is. https://www.amazon.com/Ammie-Come-Home-Barbara-Michaels/dp/0060745053

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