Kemp, J. (2001) a glossary of Literary Gothic Terms. Web

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau 
(Del Rey Books)
I can’t get enough of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s playful takes on classic genres. In her latest, the Island of Doctor Moreau gets a Yucatan-set treatment, steeped in sultry atmospherics and set during the lead-up to the Mexican Revolution as the hacienda system begins to crumple. Carlota Moreau loves her scientist father, whose injections keep her alive; she loves her fur-covered playmates, whose ailments can be ascribed to their mishmash of human and animal genes; she even cares for the drunken plantation overseer who facilitates the gruesome experiments. But her character was raised to be pampered, not tested, and her loyalties will soon face a breaking point as the goals of her father, his patron, and those they torture pull Carlota in opposite directions.

Faye Snowden, A Killing Rain
(Flame Tree Press)
Faye Snowden has skillfully crafted a dark Southern Gothic procedural featuring a desperate heroine who can’t outrun her past. When former detective (and daughter of a notorious serial killer) Raven Burns moves home to small-town Louisiana, she wants to start over in life, yet again. After all, she reinvented herself as a cop after a childhood as a killer’s accomplice. But soon enough, a serial killer, a kidnapping, and two men on her trail interfere with Raven’s best laid intentions. Snowden knows her gothic tropes, and knows how to keep the conventions of the genre feeling fresh and relevant. I’m hoping Snowden and Chapman’s well-received novels this year herald a new wave of Southern Gothic fiction.
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Megan Shepherd, Malice House
(Hyperion)
Haven Marbury is broke, stuck cleaning out her recently deceased father’s home in a depressing seaside town and unable to move on from a bad relationship without sufficient funds. She thinks she’s found the answer to her money problems when she comes across an undiscovered manuscript of rather disturbing short stories by her father, whose literary star was such that a previously unpublished collection should bring untold riches. Haven’s an illustrator, so she decides to illustrate the stories. But unfortunately for her (and fortunately for readers) those illustrations may be a portal to another world where nightmares are real and only waiting to cross into this one…An excellent addition to the growing gothic revival.

Corvin Castle, Hunedoara, Transylvania, Romania by Simon Marsden, The Marsden Archive / Bridgeman Images