Each year I try to clear the list of books I meant to read and/or review. Some I read and didn’t get around to covering. Some I started and didn’t finish for various reasons. Some simply got lost in the shuffle. So I’m clearing the docket for the new year, without completely ignoring these worthy titles.
A spate of new gothic novels, with haunted shipwrecks, frightening hospitals, strange cliff homes and more…
In Georgian London, a widowed Hannah Cole is determined to keep her business afloat. She became sole owner of the confectioner’s shop in Piccadilly after her husband was found murdered. The story takes the reader to the underground rivers of London, pleasure gardens, a magistrate’s office before the days of a police force.
It’s a searingly hot summer in an unnamed year in the English countryside. And then people start hearing the howling, and someone claims to see something unnatural. Superstition and fear bake and crack in the summer sun as odd happenings continue.
Set in 1938 England, the story is steeped in the very particular interwar setting, with dozens of connotations. Crucially, it’s the year Rebecca was written (and set). Like the classic Du Maurier novel, this book focuses on a shabby manor house, a young woman who struggles to fit in, and a crumbling aristocracy intent on covering up dark secrets.