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I am passionate about the Vietnam War because my male relatives served and came back changed by the experience. I spent ten years as the editor of The Patton Saber, writing articles about the experience of World War II soldiers, but when I came across an idea for a novel about past life memories, I decided to focus on memories of the Vietnam War. What I love about this list is that it reflects many facets of the war, including soldiers, nurses, veterans, and the family members touched by those affected by war.
O’Brien’s depiction of American soldiers in Vietnam was vivid and moving. It gave me a deeper understanding of the soldier’s experience. His artful use of the metaphor of what they carried revealed not only the items on hand but also the psychological baggage each soldier dealt with.
The stories were haunting and made me a full witness to the complexity of war and the many ways it is experienced. It is artfully written, moving, complex, touching and unforgettable.
The million-copy bestseller, which is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
'The Things They Carried' is, on its surface, a sequence of award-winning stories about the madness of the Vietnam War; at the same time it has the cumulative power and unity of a novel, with recurring characters and interwoven strands of plot and theme.
But while Vietnam is central to 'The Things They Carried', it is not simply a book about war. It is also a book about the human heart - about the terrible weight of those things we carry through…
I’ve always had an interest in art, growing up a military brat and constantly moving, left me time to doodle and read. I spent the first part of my life as an art professor and artist. I began writing three years ago when my manuscript was chosen for RWA’s Ramp program in 2021. With my art, my interest leans more towards the bizarre and unexplained. I believe the romance stories I write follow suit, dark and gothic romance my primary interest, but always with spiritual and hopeful undertones. I also write some non-fiction for a local magazine where I live, The Greenville Stroll and on substack a newsletter for romance writers.
This book unleashed my interest in gothic literature, and soon after, I wrote my book.
I enjoy the way the narrative begins innocently and picks up momentum. Racing to the ending like a runaway train. I did something similar in my book with the pacing. Stetson's novella feels so much more prominent in scope than a novella. What makes this gothic is that it captures the deterioration of a woman into madness, in much the same way Edgar Allen Poe did with his male protagonist in The Raven.
You can read Stetson's novella for free. It's in the public domain.
The Yellow Wallpaper (original title: "The Yellow Wall-paper. A Story") is a 6,000-word short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's health, both physical and mental.
Presented in the first person, the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband (John) has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house, the couple moves into the upstairs nursery. As…
I’ve been a fanatic of horror, especially Gothic horror since I was about eight years old when I read all of Poe’s short stories. It’s the genre I read most often and the one I’m dedicated to writing about. For me, the most effective horror novels have a setting that is as rich and fully developed as any of the characters. You can battle vampires, zombies, and all of the other delightful monsters out there, but how do you battle what’s trapped in the walls around you? How do you fight a home that hates you? Or one that loves you too much to let you go? It’s endlessly fascinating.
This is a book as sprawling and twisting as the house in question. It’s one people love or hate, or love to hate, but for me, it was an immersive and chilling experience. The idea that a house can grow around you, that you can get trapped and lost within it, is horrifying and yet so attractive. This is one of those novels that gives you those “someone’s behind me” chills until you’re just one huge shivering mass.
The story and the way that the author tells the story is unsettling in every sense. You never know fully what’s coming. What’ll appear on the next page or the next corridor.
“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations,…
I have spent over twenty years over (fifteen in Texas) recommending crime fiction as a bookseller in a couple of prominent stores. Texas and its writers have always fascinated me. Now that I get to call myself one, I am connected more to the genre literature of my adopted state and have an insider's view as both writer and resident.
Still one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read from one of the great noir artists.
Thompson gets into the mind of Lou Ford, a psychotic killer who works as a sheriff’s deputy in a West Texas town. The book skillfully maneuvers through Ford dealing with his own crimes and the political maneuvering and blackmail plots in the town that build into an explosion.
This book showed me how turning down the volume in a story can be effective in a novel.
Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small Texas town, patient and thoughtful. Some people think he's a little slow and boring but that's the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his 'sickness'. It nearly got him put away when he was younger, but his adopted brother took the rap for that. But now the sickness that has been lying dormant for a while is about to surface again and the consequences are brutal and devastating. Tense and suspenseful, The Killer Inside Me is a brilliantly sustained masterpiece…
I can’t count the number of conversations where I’ve been asked to slow down, or take a breath, or talk in a straight line. My neurodivergent heroes are versions of me: me if I were an alien, or a dying old lady, or a zombie. Gus is the closest I’ve come yet to writing my true self. He’s just me. I want readers who identify with Gus to feel seen and accepted and those who don’t—to understand what it’s like to live like this. And, just maybe, to have a little fun along the way.
This book is a wonderful, fast-paced creep fest! I don’t read a lot of horror, but Frank’s quirkiness caught my attention and held it.
The way he reacts to bad news reveals something about himself. As the trouble comes nearer, the increasingly shocking reveals explain Frank’s quirkiness and make it clear that there’s a true psychopath on the loose. And he’s getting closer! I didn’t want to look away but I couldn’t help gulping now and then.
The polarizing literary debut by Scottish author Ian Banks, The Wasp Factory is the bizarre, imaginative, disturbing, and darkly comic look into the mind of a child psychopath.
Meet Frank Cauldhame. Just sixteen, and unconventional to say the least:
Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim.
That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again.…
I’ve always had an interest in art, growing up a military brat and constantly moving, left me time to doodle and read. I spent the first part of my life as an art professor and artist. I began writing three years ago when my manuscript was chosen for RWA’s Ramp program in 2021. With my art, my interest leans more towards the bizarre and unexplained. I believe the romance stories I write follow suit, dark and gothic romance my primary interest, but always with spiritual and hopeful undertones. I also write some non-fiction for a local magazine where I live, The Greenville Stroll and on substack a newsletter for romance writers.
Skye Warren is one of my favorite romance authors. HerEndgame Trilogygot me hooked on romance. However, I love Wanderlust even more.
It chronicles the story of a budding photographer who leaves her overbearing mother to work in another city. On her way there, a trucker kidnaps and holds her in the back of his truck as they cross the country. This book has a similar theme as my book and some of the others I've listed and deals with captivity and power.
I've read this book several times, once as a reader and then as a writer, analyzing how to transform a morally gray character or someone despicable into someone readers could care about. Turning hatred for an abductor into pity and wanting him to be with the heroine is no easy feat. I'm still impressed with her skill.
"I loved the story! I loved that it made me feel, that it turned me on, turned me off, made me pause and think, twisted my stomach into knots..." - Haydee's ReviewsCan love come from pain?Evie always dreamed of seeing the world, but her first night at a motel turns into a nightmare. Hunter is a rugged trucker willing to do anything to keep her--including kidnapping. As they cross the country in his rig, Evie plots her escape, but she may find what she's been looking for right beside her.Wanderlust is a full-length dark romance novel that explores captivity and…
I’ve always had an interest in art, growing up a military brat and constantly moving, left me time to doodle and read. I spent the first part of my life as an art professor and artist. I began writing three years ago when my manuscript was chosen for RWA’s Ramp program in 2021. With my art, my interest leans more towards the bizarre and unexplained. I believe the romance stories I write follow suit, dark and gothic romance my primary interest, but always with spiritual and hopeful undertones. I also write some non-fiction for a local magazine where I live, The Greenville Stroll and on substack a newsletter for romance writers.
Her books are often quite dark. They are usually disturbing, so for me, quite gothic.
In this one, the protagonist is a victim too, but he is also a man who kidnaps a girl to enslave her, so he can get close enough to seek revenge on the man who once victimized him. He didn't count on falling in love with her. A gripping story, but triggers throughout.
You'll either hate the book, hate me, or love it and love me for recommending the book, but you'll feel something guaranteed! Please read the triggers on the book before downloading. This is another book I can't forget. It made me think about the relationship the author created between the couple.
Times have changed, and even putting trigger warnings on your book is not enough to keep individuals from attacking your characters for their choices (or the author.) I hope to be…
Please heed all warnings. ****This is a series about captivity in a FICTIONAL and EROTICIZED setting. It contains very disturbing situations, dubious consent, strong language, and graphic violence.****
OVER 150,000 COPIES SOLD!
This edition of CAPTIVE IN THE DARK features a new cover that when combined with the other books in DARK DUET: Platinum Edition series makes a lovely addition to any bookshelf.
It is NO DIFFERENT in content from previous editions of the series.
CAPTIVE IN THE DARK (BOOK 1): Caleb is a man with a singular interest in revenge. Kidnapped as a young boy and sold into slavery…
I’ve always had an interest in art, growing up a military brat and constantly moving, left me time to doodle and read. I spent the first part of my life as an art professor and artist. I began writing three years ago when my manuscript was chosen for RWA’s Ramp program in 2021. With my art, my interest leans more towards the bizarre and unexplained. I believe the romance stories I write follow suit, dark and gothic romance my primary interest, but always with spiritual and hopeful undertones. I also write some non-fiction for a local magazine where I live, The Greenville Stroll and on substack a newsletter for romance writers.
This is what fairy tales would look like if they were gothic, so I love this book.
I read it a few years ago and fell in love with it. I purchased the print copy because I wanted the illustrations in front of me to look at too. Almost any story you read comes from a myth or a fairy tale if you deconstruct it, so reading this book keeps your brain tuned into this idea, but you don't need to be a writer to find delight in this book.
Once upon a time fairy tales weren't meant just for children, and neither is Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales. This stunning collection contains lyrical tales, bloody tales and hilariously funny and ripely bawdy stories from countries all around the world- from the Arctic to Asia - and no dippy princesses or soppy fairies. Instead, we have pretty maids and old crones; crafty women and bad girls; enchantresses and midwives; rascal aunts and odd sisters.
This fabulous celebration of strong minds, low cunning, black arts and dirty tricks could only have been collected by the unique and much-missed Angela Carter.…
I so love thrillers because they delve into that area of ourselves that can be ‘safely’ afraid and give you that adrenaline rush that nature taught us is fight or flight. Thrillers teach us lessons, too, about people and the psychology of the most dangerous ones in our society. Through reading into this genre, I learned a lot about life before I even lived it, and I learned to recognize the less wholesome traits that humanity can have. What’s fascinating to me most is exploring those dark sides of the human psyche in order to make comparisons on what is right or wrong with some people’s behavior.
This book was an incredible ride all the way through. We have two narrators, one who is clearly dubious and the other is a detective telling the story of how his wife died of a serious illness. The same wife mysteriously turns up at his station asking for him several years after her death.
That premise alone pulled me in, but Weaver has a particular writing style that just flows, and it’s beautiful writing, darkly rich, questioning everything, and a creepy serial killer in the mix. Just the sort of book I love to read!
I so love thrillers because they delve into that area of ourselves that can be ‘safely’ afraid and give you that adrenaline rush that nature taught us is fight or flight. Thrillers teach us lessons, too, about people and the psychology of the most dangerous ones in our society. Through reading into this genre, I learned a lot about life before I even lived it, and I learned to recognize the less wholesome traits that humanity can have. What’s fascinating to me most is exploring those dark sides of the human psyche in order to make comparisons on what is right or wrong with some people’s behavior.
Maxim Jakubowski is a staple in the crime, thriller, and writing world. Also known as an editor. But this book was a wonderful revelation. A female assassin–which I’m very partial to–and a somewhat perverse love story.
What I like about the main protagonist, Cornelia, is how different she is from anyone portrayed as ‘normal’ in the book. It does buy into my view that someone who is a killer can’t be wired the same way as someone who isn’t. There’s a bleak message in this book, which I’m not going to lie about and I love it. Dark, dark, and more dark. Brilliant!
In the neon-lit world of seduction and secrets, Cornelia, a mesmerizing stripper, finds herself pulled into a sinister web spun by the enigmatic organization known only as ‘The Bureau’. Recruited for her hidden talents, she becomes an unlikely assassin, caught between the dance floor and a life of deadly precision.
But Cornelia harbours a secret passion that sets her apart from the other killers – she has a penchant for rare books. With each mission she completes, Cornelia indulges her obsession, using her ill-gotten gains to amass a collection that becomes both her…
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