One for the Books: A little bit gothic

Do you like dark stories? Maybe a bit scary, a little paranormal? Or maybe with just a bit of magic? Try these novels.

For a really deep dive into dark gothic horror, read “Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil” by V.E. Schwab. I knew nothing about this book before I started it, and as a rule, I don’t like vampire tales and I don’t seek out sapphic love stories. So imagine my surprise when I realized I was reading a story about lesbian vampires! And it had me positively captivated — for a couple hundred pages, anyway. Alas, then it slowed down a bit; at more than 500 pages, it’s a bit too long for me.

The main characters are three women in different timelines: 1532 in Spain, 1827 in London, 2019 in Boston. We see how each woman becomes a vampire and how it changes her, making the reader wonder about the cost of immortality. The scenes set in the past (which I found the most interesting) reminded me of “Dracula” — dark, sexy and violent, with lots of blood. But these creatures don’t obey the Dracula-vampire rules!

Schwab is a master storyteller and an excellent writer. In describing one woman’s loss of focus, she writes, “She knows these things, but there are no memories to go with them, and the few she has are like tea bags used too many times, all the flavor fading till it’s just tinted water.” At one point, the beautiful widow who will attack Maria gives her a multi-leveled warning: “Careful. In nature, beauty is a warning. The pretty ones are poisonous.”

I particularly liked this exchange between Maria and the widow: The widow tells her, “‘I did have a husband. Once.’ … ‘How did he die?’ [asks Maria]. The widow’s smile widens. ‘Slowly.’” (shudder)

---

“The First Witch of Boston” by Andrea Catalano is an engaging read. It’s based on the true story of a woman executed for witchcraft in 1648. Maggie, a healer and midwife, is “exceptionally skilled at the healing arts” and has “the ability to dream dreams that would come to be.” She can intuitively diagnose medical problems and heal with “various herbs and tinctures.” But sometimes her patients die, which causes suspicion. Did she put a curse on them?

Maggie is outspoken at a time when women aren’t supposed to speak out, causing men of the town to ask, “Who does she think she is?” She and her husband, Thomas, had escaped London and come to the New World for the same reason — suspicion of witchcraft. They have a wonderful relationship, but he worries constantly that she’ll get herself into trouble again. Indeed, she does, and she’s put on trial.

This is a nice bit of historical fiction with likable, well-drawn characters. Even though it’s based on a true story with a tragic ending, it’s not too dark. Adult situations.

---

“The King’s Messenger” by Susanna Kearsley may be my favorite of these books. I particularly liked the characters and lost myself in the story, which takes place on a 1613 road trip to from London to Scotland and back.

Andrew Logan, “the big Scotsman,” is proud to be one of the messengers of King James. The king sends Andrew on a secret mission to arrest and bring back the man who may have killed the king’s son. He is to take along an old man who will chronicle everything the prisoner says, hoping for a confession. This man’s daughter, Phoebe, will also go along to care for her frail father. Phoebe hates Andrew (which will, of course, change before the book ends.)

The paranormal part shows up in the gift Andrew has inherited from his ancestors; he has “the Sight,” visions of what will happen. He doesn’t dare speak of it, he says. “My mother … had warned me I should hide it well, for while the Sight was commonplace among her people, elsewhere it was nothing but a danger to possess, viewed as the Devil’s work and witchcraft.” He explains further, “I had learned in life that what I Saw could never be avoided. Fortunate or foul, it was my destiny. What saved me was that I had been forewarned, that I was on my guard.”

Along with the travel adventure, there’s a good bit of action, as the little group has to evade troublemaking followers who will fight to rescue the prisoner. The book is OK for readers of any age.

---

“The Witches of Santo Stefano” by Wendy Webb is set in contemporary America and Italy, with flashbacks to an Italian village. Cassie is an investigative journalist. She also has precognition: “It was something I had felt often throughout my life. A sort of odd pinprick. My grandmother had called it chiaroveggenza, or ‘second sight.’”

While researching her family’s Italian ancestry, she’s alerted to a few discrepancies in what she’s always been told, and she finds a notation that her great-grandmother died “by witchcraft.” Looking for the truth, she travels to Italy, where she discovers her ancestors were beekeepers, healers and merchants. They also knew charms to ward off evil spirits, and some of them had special gifts. A woman tells her daughter, “People talk. I’ve seen how they look at you. … There is more magic swirling around you than there has been with any women in our family.” Cassie is excited about her discoveries, but it looks like she’s putting herself in danger.

This isn’t scary, and it’s an enjoyable read. It was fun to find out why there were discrepancies in the family’s history. I particularly liked some of the characters in the family tales and love stories set in the past, and I loved the wonderful ghostly animal friends.

---

“The Artist of Blackberry Grange” by Paulette Kennedy is a dark story set in a spooky old house in 1925. Sadie, just out of an unhealthy relationship and mourning the death of her mother, needs an escape from her misery. Hearing that her elderly great-aunt Marguerite has dementia and needs a round-the-clock caregiver, she decides to volunteer to look after her. She travels to Blackberry Grange, Marguerite’s home, which is “an overblown mansion with a rabbit warren of rooms and an abundance of gables, perched precariously on an Arkansas bluff.”

Her aunt seems to have trouble with reality. “These delusions come on quickly, without warning. They’re very real to her, and they’re dangerous,” says the nurse. But are they really delusions? Aunt Marguerite is an artist, but her lifelike paintings also have a special magical quality: When Sadie touches one, it draws her into the past and brings back a ghostly presence, a dangerous seducer who causes havoc and maybe even murder. As Sadie investigates the family history, she finds traumatic secrets as well as love stories. Can the past be changed?

This is a different kind of paranormal story with quite a bit of sexual content, mostly caused by a creepy sexual-predator ghostly presence. Ew. I didn’t like Sadie as much as I liked her aunt and some of the others, and I found a few of the past relationships confusing. But it was a good read.

---

Happy reading!