When you think of the Gothic genre, you probably picture ominous weather, crumbling manor houses, and women fleeing in flowy nightgowns, candelabras clutched in their trembling hands. But Gothic isn’t simply a dark and stormy aesthetic. Like so many things in art—and life—it’s about power. Who has it, and what they’ll do to hold onto it. Who doesn’t, and what they’ll do to acquire it.
That, perhaps, is why Gothic themes work surprisingly well in so many types of stories. When I first came up with the idea to retell Gothic classic Wuthering Heights with elite figure skaters, I—in true Gothic heroine fashion—thought I was losing my mind. The idea seemed unhinged at first, but Emily Brontë’s themes of oppressive power structures, class differences, and family secrets mapped seamlessly onto the glamorous, scandalous skating world. And so my glittery and Gothic novel The Favorites was born.
Here are nine more books that pair the Gothic with the glam:
Rouge by Mona Awad
Instead of a forboding mansion on a windswept cliff, Rouge beckons the reader to an exclusive, luxurious spa **called La Maison de Méduse. Attempting to pick up the pieces after her mother’s mysterious death, Awad’s heroine Belle follows “the way of the roses” to La Maison—but once there, she’s faced with the ultimate Gothic conundrum: does she even want to escape the clutches of the dark powers that ensnare her? Every page of this novel is infused with Gothic atmosphere and dark fairy tale imagery that makes it a haunting, gorgeous delight.
We Love the Nightlife by Rachel Koller Croft
Femme vampires at Studio 54, need I say more?
Okay, fine: Koller Croft’s sophomore novel follows American party girl Amber as she meets alluring vampire Nicola in London’s 70s disco scene. Nicola turns Amber into a bloodsucker too so the party can last forever—but by the time they’re trying to open their own swanky nightclub in the present day, Amber’s had enough and is determined to ditch her eternal frenemy. Come to We Love the Nightlife for the disco-fabulous fashions, stay for the bloodthirstiest friendship breakup story you’ll ever read.
Kismet by Amina Ahktar
Hoping for healing and enlightenment, New Yorker Ronnie Khan follows socialite wellness guru Marley to Sedona. But soon a series of murders disturbs the woo-woo desert community, proving that no amount of clean living can cover up dirty secrets. Ahktar, who lives in Arizona, mines the stark landscape for all sorts of Gothic spine-tingling; turns out the desert is perfect for wellness retreats and corpse disposal! Kismet is also partially narrated by a chorus of talking ravens, and you can’t get much more goth than that.
Snake Oil by Kelsey Rae Dimberg
Dimberg also uses Gothic themes to skewer the wellness industry, in this case following three women at a wellness startup called Radical: CEO Rhoda, true believer Dani, and disgruntled underling Cecelia. A Silicon Valley high rise is Snake Oil’s high-tech stand-in for a haunted mansion, and Radical’s secretive laboratory The Well may as well be the forbidden wing where the heroine is told never to venture (every Gothic estate needs one, after all). The author wrote part of the book a nearly-abandoned WeWork during the pandemic, and she drew on that experience to give her glossy tech company plenty of spooky Gothic appeal.
You Can Trust Me by Wendy Heard
You Can Trust Me is another thriller that expertly fuses Gothic themes with modern technology. Savvy con women Summer and Leo aren’t your typical Gothic heroines, but they find themselves in a very Gothic situation after Leo disappears in the company of a shady tech billionaire, and Summer has to con her way onto the guy’s private island to find her. Turns out a tropical paradise outfitted with every high-tech amenity can be just as isolating and terrifying as any shadowy estate. And once again, we’ve got a “forbidden wing” in the form of a laboratory: the billionaire’s top-secret lab on the far side of the island, where Summer suspects he’s engaging in more than just cutting-edge science.
You’re Invited by Amanda Jayatissa
Jayatissa’s debut My Sweet Girl was full of Wuthering Heights references, and her sophomore thriller You’re Invited seems to take a few cues from Jane Eyre. We’ve got interrupted nuptials, ex-lover drama, wedding attire set ablaze—Bertha Mason (the true heroine of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, if you ask me) would love this one. As main character Amaya returns to her childhood home of Sri Lanka on a mission to stop the impending marriage of her former best friend and her ex-boyfriend, Jayatissa uses the lavish setting to make some very Gothic points about the darkness at the heart of all that wealth and luxury.
The Dollhouse Academy by Margarita Montimore
David Lynch meets Disney in this thoroughly original dark academia novel, featuring a school for teen stars that’s hiding a mass grave of dark secrets underneath its polished exterior. We follow Ivy, a veteran actress who’s been at the titular academy for 18 years, plus Ramona and Grace, two up-and-coming ingenues eager to follow in Ivy’s footsteps. The Dollhouse Academy’s denizens will do anything for success—including subjecting themselves to constant surveillance and strange experiments. Montimore proves that sometimes the shiny, happy, and perky can be even more disturbing than obvious evil.
Made for You by Jenna Satterthwaite
Made for You stars “synthetic woman” (aka super-advanced android) Julia, who becomes the first of her kind to compete on a Bachelor-esque TV show. Julia wins the heart of reality television dreamboat Josh, but a little over a year into their happily-ever-after, he goes missing—and Julia is the prime suspect. This novel asks that classic Gothic romance question: am I in love, or in danger? But Satterthwaite updates the trope with a fun, feminist twist. As Julia tries to figure out what really happened to Josh, she’s forced to ask herself another question: have I been the true danger all along?
Vantage Point by Sara Sligar
Vantage Point delves into the ultimate Gothic horror of our modern age: being a woman on the internet. The Wielands are an old-money political dynasty with a remote family estate on a New England island. They’re wealthy, glamorous—and possibly cursed. After golden boy brother Teddy announces a Senate run, compromising videos of his black sheep sister Clara are leaked online, starting a maelstrom of scandal. But Clara insists the videos aren’t real. Sligar subverts old-school Gothic tropes about hysterical women and ancestral sins in this timely novel about the technological terrors we’re facing in the age of artificial intelligence. Reading it will leave you wondering what the Gothic might have in store for us next.
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