Smashbomb

"Why do the lives of writers seem so… train-wrecky? Mary Flannery O’Connor was no exception. She survived the back-to-back snake pits of the Iowa Writers Workshop and the Yaddo colony only to find herself trapped at home with her strong-willed mother and crippling lupus. The life of this Southern Gothic belle makes the somber existence of Emily Dickinson look like a barrel full of monkeys."

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A Sicilian Romance

Ann Radcliffe

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Book

In A Sicilian Romance (1790) Ann Radcliffe began to forge the unique mixture of the psychology of...

Witchfire

6.0 (3 Ratings) Rate It

Video Game

Witchfire takes place in a gritty, dark world, full of monsters and zombies running rampant as you...

ClareR (5726 KP) rated Melmoth: A Novel in Books

Nov 2, 2018

Melmoth: A Novel

Sarah Perry | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry

7.0

(3 Ratings)

Book Rating

A gothic, spellbinding novel.

A dark, gothic story, of a woman living an austere life in Prague, set in winter - which makes it all the more foreboding!
Melmoth is omnipresent throughout the novel. Helen, the main character, seems to have something in her past that she is punishing herself for. She makes sure that she has no enjoyment in her life: from food to clothes, to friendships. She does have some friends, though: Thea and Karel.
Karel finds some documents about Melmoth the Wanderer, and so an obsession begins.
For a dark, depressing novel, there is a lot of hope in it too. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It got to the stage where I was sure I could see a dark shadow in my peripheral vision - could it be Melmoth looking for company in her lonely wanderings?
This is a compelling read - once started, I really didn't want to stop. I enjoyed the historical detail in Karel's documents too.
Another great story from Sarah Perry.