Gothikana

by RuNyx

There is also a mysterious morally gray hero who will frustrate you to no end because his point of view is sparse, and my intent is for you to feel the same as the protagonist does toward him—confused, frustrated, suspicious, and lustful.

Black. It was the absence of color, the keeper of dark, the abyss of unknowns. It was her hair, her mama’s clothes, the vast sky all around them. She loved black.

She just didn’t like people. Corvina didn’t like people either, but then most people in town weren’t very likable.

Books had become her refuge, especially books with men—humans, shapeshifters, or aliens—who fell in love hard and claimed their women, body and soul. Those were her favorite.

“You might be a luring siren but I’m no ordinary sailor. I’m a mad pirate and I’m trying to resist your call. If I land on your shores, I will plunder and take away everything worth having. Be very careful giving me those eyes.”

“This is lust,” she whispered, trying to validate it, excuse it. “No, Corvina.” The side of his lips twitched. “I’ve known lust. This is something worse. This is a barbaric need to possess, to eliminate, to own. This is madness.”

“If this is madness,” she whispered almost against his lips, “drown me in it.”

I have crossed oceans of time to find you. —Bram Stoker’s Dracula

“You can’t handle my secrets, Mr. Deverell,” she told him with a toneless laugh. “You have no idea what I can handle, Miss Clemm.

She’d always wanted to belong, to be loved, to be cherished by someone despite every piece of baggage she came with. The sheer degree of that desire made something hollow inside her chest gnaw and ache. She wanted to stay right there, letting him hold her safe.

“I’m scared one day Verenmore will have more ghosts than people. I just hope we don’t end up as one of them.”

“You play so beautifully,” she mused out loud, in a slight daze. “Even your demons must sing.”

“But how is this possible? Roses don’t live that long.” The man shrugged his large shoulders. “How is anything possible at Verenmore? Some things are just never explained here.”

Corvina wrapped her brown woolen shawl around herself, still dressed as she’d been during the day.

I really don't know, or right much care why the author insists on describing everything she wears. We get it, she's a bit like Wednesday Adaams..move on!

not after the mirror incident. “Can you hear me?”

How many times are you going to bring this up and say THE. EXACT. SAME. THING?

“I’m in your head, in your blood, in your very veins. I’ve claimed you before anything else ever could. Your body, your heart, your mind, your fucking soul, it’s all mine. Your hunger is mine to feed, your madness is mine to tame. Do you feel that?”

“It means that while I’m not a good man, not by any stretch of the imagination, I’m not the evil haunting this place. I’m the evil hunting for it.”

“I would’ve kissed you bathed in blood, Corvina. If I had a chance to kiss you while a thousand ghosts rose from their graves, I would have kissed you. Don’t doubt that.”

his possession of her was complete, and if they were to ever part ways, he would haunt her for eternity.

Darkness was comfortable, and even exciting, especially when it led her to him.

“You’re taking all of my firsts, Mr. Deverell,” she whispered quietly as a confession. His arm tightened. “I will take all your lasts, too, Miss Clemm. Mark my words.”

Had he killed his grandfather?

Yes, duh

Even my evil, beastly form in your dream didn’t share. Your mind knows well enough I never would.”

“If something like that happens, you tell me. If you need help, you tell me. If you need comfort, you tell me. Whatever it takes. I get to be the only madness inside you, you understand?”

I will never be a good man. But you don’t need a good man, do you? You need a devil to fight your demons because you don’t want to fight them alone. You’re self-sufficient but you don’t want to be. You want that beast on the throne who would take charge for you, the beast who could fuck you raw in a room full of people gone mad and still make you feel safe. Am I wrong?”

“This will last until the day the roses on my grave stop sharing roots with the roses on yours,” he declared. “I will have you even in death, little witch. I am your beast. I am your madness. And you, you’re my afterlife.”

“You think it’ll finally stop the disappearances during the Black Ball?” “We’ll know in a month, won’t we?”

Mmmk Nancy Drew

Sometimes, he played his music banishing his demons and she read her romances acknowledging her angels.

I'm sorry, what?

She wanted him to be proud of her as she was of him, wanted him to look at her and see a talented, passionate girl and not the hot mess she mostly was.

Proud of him for what? Talking to her like a normal relationship? Ugh this book is frustrating

The windows were covered with glass, possibly to keep the elements from making their way into the room.

Well yes that is the purpose of a window. So stupid. The author Is trying too hard to be poetic.

He tucked her in tight, rooting her in place, anchoring her, protecting her from things neither of them understood or knew about. Corvina buried her nose in his chest, wrapping her arms around him, taking in the comfort he gave, a comfort she had been unfamiliar with until him, her frame tucking perfectly with his.

From what she had gathered, most kids stayed back, which was both sad and not.

This sentence is just so weird to read and falls so flat.

“From the decomposition, I’d estimate she died anywhere in the last five years, up to the last few months,” he spoke, his eyes scanning the body. “She?” Corvina mumbled, trying to get her eyes to stay on the burned body long enough to observe.

That's a pretty large window of time. Prettyyyy sure at five years it is not going to be in the condition described here.

I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other. —Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

the girl with the soul of the moon—blemished, darkened, ephemeral—finally finding a man with the soul of the night to shine with.