#24 of 31 Days of Halloween: Classic Gothic Horror

I've been on a classic literature journey for the past four or five years, reading all those books I've always meant to read and hadn't gotten around to yet and participating in a First Monday Classics Book Club to meet up with other readers like me who enjoy a book with a bit of heft and gravitas.

Alongside works like War and Peace and The Grapes of Wrath, we've also read some classic works of speculative fiction. The Island of Dr. Moreau, Jane Eyre, Rebecca, Frankenstein. On my own, I've gone back for Dracula, The Turn of the Screw, The Castle of Otranto, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and The Haunting of Hill House.

Some of these stories I've known and loved for a long time even though I had never read them, because the stories are that ingrained in popular culture, television, and movies. Others I had read, but many years ago. Some are like embracing a long lost old friend.

I like the quiet, slower nature of some of these stories. how the horror takes a while to manifest and leaves the characters (and the reader) with room to doubt that supernatural elements are really at play. That self-doubt got more than one character into a tricky spot.

The new writing project that is tapping on my shoulder right now is a gothic romance. I think I'm set to pen a good one with all these classic tales bumping around in my imagination.