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Gothic Tales of Haunted Love by Hope Nicholson

Kept Warm For the Mountain by Jonathan Grisham

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Jamie is Currently Reading

Jamie is currently reading

Left to You

by Daniel J. Volpe (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading, 2024-boh-indie-brawl

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Jun 28, 2026 03:27PM

Jamie is currently reading

Gothic Tales of Haunted Love

by Hope Nicholson

bookshelves: netgalley, comics-and-graphic-novels, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in May 2018

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Jamie said: " When I first laid eyes on this collection I knew I had to read it. The cover is stunning and the idea of Gothic romance comics instantly caught my attention, being a fan of gothic literature in its various forms. It was a fast read and while I found When I first laid eyes on this collection I knew I had to read it. The cover is stunning and the idea of Gothic romance comics instantly caught my attention, being a fan of gothic literature in its various forms. It was a fast read and while I found a few spectacular comics in the collection I ended up feeling only lukewarm overall.

Gothic Tales of Haunted Love seeks to revitalize an aging genre of literature while paying homage to the short-lived gothic romance comics of the 1970s and 1980s. Despite a variety of tropes that have become standard in the genre I feel that there is a lot more nuanced compared to regular paranormal romance and this is what I think left me feeling a little underwhelmed. There were certainly a few finely crafted horror stories, such as Secrets in Silk and The Return, but did they feel all that gothic to me? Not really, no.

One of the key elements in gothic fiction is the setting, something missing in many of the stories. Many of the authors picked up on common themes of love but most ended up falling under one of two categories: a romance that turns into murder and romance with a ghost or other paranormal creature. The book further tried to update the genre by painting the stories with the diversity brush which, don’t get me wrong, I love diverse stories, but I feel like some key elements of the genre were sacrificed in an attempt to reinvent it.

Now there were some wonderful pieces that I felt did a lot of justice to the genre while seamlessly including a diverse cast of characters. The first story in the collection, Crush is easily one of the strongest entries that really captured the vintage gothic romance feel in both story and art style. The art was reminiscent of older comics, the setting and time period fits, the characters have motivations that are both understandable and questionable, and the story kept me enraptured from start to finish.

Fazenda do Sangue Azul was another notable story that stayed true to the gothic style but in a completely foreign setting with a touching queer romance, I was in awe of the beauty of the story and art. L’Heure Verte was short and sweet and brings the whimsical feelings from a classic paranormal romance but updates it for the modern era. One More Cup and Ouroboros were some of the more unique stories that I greatly enjoyed and are easy favorites.

Sadly with such a huge cast of contributors, it was inevitable that the quality of the stories and art varied greatly and it really diminished my enjoyment of the collection as a whole. It was really disjointed hopping from a stellar comic to several that were mediocre. Despite that, there are definitely quite a few comics to admire here and are worth the read for lovers of gothic romance or paranormal romance in general. ...more "

progress:

(page 146 of 225)
— May 12, 2018 08:26PM

Feb 11, 2022 08:28PM · see review

Jamie is currently reading

Kept Warm For the Mountain

by Jonathan Grisham (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jun 17, 2026 05:15PM

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Jamie’s Notes & Highlights

The Doll's House by Lisa Unger

10 highlights

Kids hate you when you screw up their lives and even when you don’t.

See Jamie’s 10 books with notes and highlights…

Jamie’s Quotes

“The reason magical girls exist is because they needed their power the most. In other words, before a magical girl awakens her powers, she’s the weakest person in the world.”
― Park Seolyeon, A Magical Girl Retires

18 likes

“The middle place. Not death. Not life. A limbo state of existence filled with the hours of turning the wheels. Eating to not feel hungry. Sleeping to not feel tired. Waking to not feel asleep. The middle place that exists between breaths, in that pause, that slight breathlessness before an exhale and an inhale. Between the crest and the valley. Where the path always meanders cliffside.”
― An Na

1 likes

“I see the cliff's edge drawing nearer. I must jump or I will fall.”
― An Na, The Place Between Breaths

1 likes

“There are many versions of a story. Many sides and lenses that can distort, change, illuminate what is seen and unseen. What is heard and unheard. What is felt and unfelt. In the end, truth is but a facet of a diamond, a spark of ray from the sun, a forget-me-not flower seen from the eyes of a bee. What lives and breathes as reality is a perception, so who is to say what is possible and impossible?”
― An Na, The Place Between Breaths

5 likes

“People tend to think they break up because they get tired of the person they've been with—that it's someone's decision, either yours or theirs. But this isn't really true. Periods in our lives end the way seasons change. That's all there is to it.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Hardboiled & Hard Luck

tags: breakups

1 likes

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