Monday, November 29, 2010

Gothic Love



Yes, I love to read and write gothics. Do you think of them as spooky stories? I do. Of course they’re also more than that. A gothic may come close to horror, but never really is because there’s always a happy ending. Nor is it just a romantic suspense story because darker elements are always present. And almost all gothics are paranormal in some way. Modern gothics also differ from the earlier ones as far as sex goes--they can be as sensual as the author wants to make them. Earlier ones were filled with sexual yearning, but consummation was missing. (Though that’s not true of Rebecca because the hero and heroine are married even if we don’t see any consummated sex between them.)
Modern gothics differ in other ways from earlier ones, too, in that the heroine is rarely, if ever, a shy virgin. Neither, as a rule, is she too stupid to live. No more midnight ventures down a dark hall in a spooky old mansion with a wavering candle the only illumination and usually clad only in her virginal white nightgown. All gone today.
The hero does not have to be the stereotypical tortured and brooding loner, either--many times a widower suspected of killing his wife. He can be whoever an author decides is right for the story.
Many of us gothic writers have loved gothic books over the years, but have not found many gothics available today. A few years ago, because we loved the genre so much, we founded a gothic group as a RWA chapter. Last year, I and other members of the Gothic Romance Writers decided to create the Shadowed Hearts series to make readers more aware of gothic books and authors. We found a home for the series at Red Rose Publishing.
So now the Gothic Writers has a great gothic series running at RRP. Five books are out now, with the sixth coming soon:

SHADOWED HEARTS SERIES

Null and Void by Jane Toombs
The Haunting At Hastings Hall by Allison Knight
Dangerous Hearts by Mary Montague Sikes
Heart Of The Night by Karen McCullough
Veil Over Crystal Lake by Cierra James
Haunted Serenade by Anna Taylor Swerington (coming soon)

And six more yet to come!

These books and those yet to come are all very different, Most are contemporary but some are historical. Yet are all gothic in different ways. How do I know? Hey, I’ve read them all.

Check us out at www.redrosepublishing.com Click on Anthologies/Series, then on Shadowed Hearts and the six gothic book covers available now will come up.

(Watch for my next NN Midnight post on December 15 where I try to dissect why both readers and authors love were-creatures.)
Jane

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