You can imagine my reaction, then, when I got a copy of Sara Foster's Beneath the Shadows (which you will be able to read starting June 5th!) Beneath the Shadows wasn't a parody, it wasn't an ironic reimagining - it was the genuine article, a classic gothic updated to a believably modern tale. It was not surprising when I discovered Sara was already a bestseller in her adopted homeland, Australia.
Is there a cold wind creaking the ancient oaks outside? Do you hear a mysterious howling out on the moor? Pour yourself a pot of tea and let Sara tell you how it all began...
I didn’t set out to write a gothic
novel. The seed for Beneath the Shadows was my vivid imagining of a
vulnerable woman called Grace, who is utterly alone, undone by the
mysterious circumstances of her husband’s disappearance, and
trapped by her own fears and uncertainties. Only as I began sketching
out the details of the story did it become clear it was a gothic
suspense. By that time, many of the elements were already present: a
woman in distress, threatened by her surroundings; dark symbols and
disturbing local legends; and a touch of romance.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. My
favourite writers as a teenager were the Brontes and Daphne du
Maurier, who could pull me into their spine-tingling stories of love
and loss so completely that I would sometimes be part of them in my
dreams. Du Maurier’s classic Rebecca even wound its way into
Beneath the Shadows. My character Grace reads it and is absorbed,
just as I was, while her external life occasionally touches on or
parallels the second Mrs de Winter’s.
For a truly gothic story, you need a
fabulous, foreboding setting. My knowledge of the North Yorkshire
moors was a gift given by my in-laws, whose cottage is not dissimilar
to Hawthorn Cottage in Beneath the Shadows. They introduced me to
this stark and beautiful landscape, and by the time I had learned
many of the old stories and symbols, I had an abundance of material I
could use. The hardest part was deciding what to leave out.
However, despite these traditional
gothic allusions, Beneath the Shadows is also intended to be a
thoroughly modern tale of a woman ensnared in shifting circumstances.
Grace is caught between the past and the future; the city and the
country; modern and traditional life; the safety of the familiar and
the courage required to face the unknown. On top of it all, she must
confront supernatural as well as psychological explanations of
everything taking place around her. In gothic literature, the
fortunes of female protagonists can be varied, and the stories I love
most are not only concerned with thrills, but also highlight the
determination of these women in extremis. These heroines might be
pushed to the edge by fear and intimidation, but they also find ways
to confront and move past their fears, however insurmountable, to
ultimately set themselves free.
Intrigued? You can find out more about Sara Foster and her books at her website. You can also read her blog, follow her on Twitter as @SaraJFoster and friend her on Facebook. Sara also writes for Holiday Goddess, one of the most popular woman-oriented travel sites on the web. All you pack-a-bag-and-go gals need to check it out!
