Barrymore Tebbs' The Yellow Scarf

Isn't this a great cover? The author of The Yellow Scarf and cover artist, Barrymore Tebbs, did it. I love the script and how it sort of ties in with the story; I think it has an Eastern flavor. Once you read it, you'll understand. :)

Here's the blurb for Barrymore Tebbs' The Yellow Scarf:


1969. The Rolling Stones perform a free concert in London’s Hyde Park. Flying high on grass and LSD, Peter, Barnard, Bree, and Tristan rock along with nearly a quarter million people as The Stones make history. With them is Pandora, the once-famous fashion model whose downward spiral into addiction made international headlines, now clinging desperately to the belief that only a power greater than herself can restore her to sanity.

After the concert, these five friends decide to take a weekend jaunt to the country to visit Hampton Close, a crumbling old country house Peter recently inherited from his Great Uncle, Basil Townsend. A former protégé of Aleister Crowley, Basil Townsend was once one of Britain’s most notorious practitioners of the Black Arts.

But inside a locked room at Hampton Close, an ancient evil from a distant land lies festering in the warm, wet darkness, waiting…waiting…waiting…


And my review:


Plot: 5/5-- The novella starts off with a bang and an interesting cast of characters. Tebbs makes London in 1969 come alive. The story moves swiftly to its shudder inducing climax in old Uncle Basil's house. I read it in the afternoon, and I liked it, but I didn't feel frightened. That night... trying to sleep was a different story. It creeped me out, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. So, I didn't sleep too well. I'd call that a great horror story!


Characterization: 4/5-- I adored Peter, the hero of the story if there is one, who is described as a conservative fellow who is trying to shake it off. His friend Barnard is also a well drawn figure with an Afro--the quintessential ladies' man. I thought of Jimi Hendrix. Pandora is a pitiable young woman in recovery from drug addiction. And Bree is the type of not-so-intelligent type of girl you'd expect to find at a spooky old house where things to awry. Finally, there's Tristan, a young man who is at least bi-curious and is in a sort of love triangle with Bree and Barnard. Tebbs highlights the sexual mores of the time with this relationship.


Atmosphere/spooky elements: 5/5-- This story sneaks up on you. At first, it's all acid trips at the Rolling Stones' concert, and then it's sheer revulsion and terror. If you like a good story of the macabre linked to mythology, the occult, and the 1960s, this is your thing.


I'm leaving off romantic elements since this isn't a gothic romance. It is, however, a great psychological Gothic/horror novella. If you like houses with pasts, likable characters, Gothic atmosphere, and a good twist, you'll really enjoy it. 4.5+ stars. Don't miss it!


Here's the buy link at Amazon. For .99 or for borrowing free if you have Amazon Prime. Pick it up if you want to get scared.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Yellow-Scarf-ebook/dp/B007U5S9B0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1334894222&sr=1-1


**For the sake of full disclosure, I also edited The Yellow Scarf. Be on the lookout for Barrymore Tebbs' upcoming novel, The Haunting of Blackwood Hall. If you like Victoria Holt's work, I think you'll love it.


Find Barrymore on Facebook: Barrymore Tebbs


and at his blog which also reviews and discusses all things Gothic:
http://barrymoretebbs.blogspot.com/

Review: Evelyn Berckman's The Heir of Starvelings (a novel of innocence and evil)

This novel is an unusual one. I have one of its early covers, courtesy of Barrymore Tebbs:

Gorgeous, huh? And the painting behind the woman sort of goes along with the novel. A painting plays a major role in the plot. I had heard before that Berckman's gothics are worth reading. She is lauded as a hidden gem among gothic romance/romantic suspense novelists. Many say she never got her due. I tend to agree after reading The Heir of Starvelings.

I'm not sure how many gothic romances she wrote, but I ran across this one at a Friends of the Library sale and snagged it. My cover looks like this. I couldn't find another on the Internets. I really like the teeth:

A naive innocent, Davina Milne, winds up at the fabled Starvelings--a ramshackle out of the way estate--one day as she's wandering in the woods. The opening sequence is quite tragic and scary. What she finds there changes her life--a neglected young boy who's more than just a common urchin. He's a lord who has been neglected by the lecherous Lord Stanyon and other household members.

The novel is worth reading for the introductory materials alone. Berckman obviously had a great passion for history and its preservation, and Victorian Era history is the focus of this historical gothic/gothic romance.

Plot: 4/5--I enjoyed the novel. It also had a couple great twists. The story line stands out among the many Gothics I've read, and it haunts me when I think about it.

Characterization: 5/5--Davina is a great heroine--strong and bold. She knows her own mind, and she's full of integrity. It's nice to find a heroine who isn't of the TSTL (too stupid to live) variety. Lord Stanyon, William, and the other characters are so well drawn, they step off the page, and indeed, the story is supposed to be based upon a true one.

Atmosphere/creepy elements: 5/5-- This novel nails the closed, isolated and claustrophobic feeling that a good Gothic has. Starvelings is a nightmare, and it's peopled with pathetic human beings. The villain is also scary in his own special way as is his minion. The true fright of this novel is the reality of the way that some human beings are neglected and forgotten... and left to a living horror of an existence.

Romantic elements: 5/5-- I can't say too much about this, but I loved the two males in the novel. One is a lover who has died in the Crimean War, and the other is a young lawyer who woos Davina.

** 4+ stars. I recommend it. If you're looking for something different that has a happy but wistful ending, you'll love it.

Part II: Ways to Find New Gothic Romances

This is part two of a requested series. :) My next blog post will be a book review. I promise. I have a couple I have needed to get to for a while.

I think I covered using the subcategories on Amazon last time. This time around, let's talk about a few other tricks.

First, this one seems obvious, but it might not be. Just under the book information, if the book has sold any copies, Amazon adds a section of book covers/pages you can scroll through and click on. I've chosen Holt's Mistress of Mellyn in Book format as my example here. You can see the

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought 

section just under the book. If you scroll through those 11 pages, you are sure to find a new book or two to check out. I did! :)

You'll also notice on this page the section above the tags, a little more than halfway down the page: Customers also bought items by...
This section can be fun to click around in by author name or cover (for some authors listed). You never know: you might find a new author.

Now, on to using tags to find new books:

There might be an easier way to do this, I'm not sure. Here's how I do it:
1. Type in the name of a favorite author of gothic romance. I've chosen Victoria Holt for an example to stick with what I have above. Keep in mind that some of the older authors are tagged well under Books, so let's use Books for this search. I type her name into the search bar on amazon and pull down the Books tab to the left.
2. Once the list comes up, I pick one of her books I like and click on it. In this case, I've chosen Mistress of Mellyn
3.  Once the page comes up for that book, I scroll down to the bottom quarter of the page to the tags section. In this case, there are a few tags like gothic romance, jean plaidy, and cornwall. When I click on the gothic romance tag link, it pulls up several books in that genre (or that the author or readers claim are in that genre). You can add tags as well. Is there a book by one author that reminds you of the work of another author? Tag it with that author's name or agree with an existing tag. :) That will help readers find new authors and weed out tags that are unrelated to the product.

Interestingly, if you check out the tags for the Kindle version of this book, they are all related to the $9.99 price. Apparently, many readers of e-books think that's too much to pay for the digital version of this classic. Your thoughts?

How to Find More Gothic Romances... Part I

Wow. It's been too long since I last posted. Please forgive me. Life is hopping, but in a good way. :)

I wanted to start a little series on ways to find new gothic romances-- as in contemporary ones or novels/works that might be new to you.

I think starting with Amazon makes sense since they sell a lot of books and most people have Kindles as their e-readers (or maybe you're like me and you just use Kindle for PC!). I'm going to focus on e-books today, but many of the tips for hunting for Kindle editions will work for print, too.

I'm going to write about these as they come to me, so consider this part I. If this trick is a "duh" to you, please forgive. I'm assuming some readers might not be aware of these ways to find new books. If you have other ideas, leave them in the comments.

1. Look under Gothic Romance.
If you know a bit about Amazon, you probably realize that authors or publishers can categorize their books under two areas when they post them to Amazon. I tend to have most of mine put under gothic romance and whatever else is applicable. So, it's easy to go to the Amazon homepage and go to the search pull down. Click Kindle Store there. Then, type in Gothic Romance. One the list comes up, you'll notice that Relevance is next to the "Sort by" list on the upper right hand side. I leave it that way and scroll through. This gives me a list of the top 100 gothic romances. One of mine shows up at #34 today. ;)

When you glance through the list, you'll see a lot of vampire stuff and fantasy. I skip over much of that as I do some of the poorly edited/terribly blurbed ghost stories or gothic romances on there. I know as a writer that if the blurb/description of the book is not up to par (ie, only a line or so that doesn't adequately describe the story as a writer should be able to do or a blurb fraught with mistakes), the book will usually follow suit.

I usually find a gem or two that I'd like to check out in the .99-3.99 range. Here are two I found today.

This one isn't a novel, but it looks fascinating, and I'm going to snag it free:
The Tale of Terror: A Study of Gothic Romance

And this one looks promising for $2.51:
http://www.amazon.com/Nachtst%C3%BCrm-Castle-Gothic-Austen-ebook/dp/B002PK120K/ref=sr_1_10?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1330529211&sr=1-10

And a pricier one but pubbed with Dorchester recently:
The Ravencliff Bride

So, that's a start. If you want print, you can search for Books and gothic romance. To be on the safe side, I might hop over to Goodreads and check the reviews for that second one. I'd hesitate on buying it longer than I would taking the freebie. ;) The third one is a bit more than I like to pay for a Kindle edition, but your opinion might vary.

I'll cover something else of this nature in my next post since I'm running out of time this morning. Have you found any good reads using this method?

Review: Night of the Pentagram by Barrymore Tebbs

The first thing I noticed about Night of the Pentagram, an occult, gothic thriller by Barrymore Tebbs, is the eye catching cover. Blood mars a red Hollywood star with the heroine's name, Elizabeth York, on it. And what a title!

The novel is unique in that it tackles film and acting in the first scene. The heroine, Elizabeth York, is an actress who has had a horrid past. Her husband, Sven Lindstrom, was murdered in a gruesome act that haunts her. Readers are invited in to her memories of finding her husband when she is jarred back into the past on the set of the movie she is in.

Plot/Writing-- 4/5: Once the novel takes off in the first chapter, it doesn't stop. A cast of eclectic characters from the 60s make their way in to the novel and to La Casa Del Mar in a mix of murder, the occult, astrology, psychology, Satanism, mayhem, and... a black goat. I didn't guess who did the killing, and the occult part of the novel is very satisfying. The feeling of being in a film within a film also adds a dimension, and Tebbs sprinkles film industry lingo throughout the novel as the characters play out their roles in the macabre dance. Tebbs indulges in some telling with regard to setting and doesn't let readers inside Elizabeth York's head as much as I'd like, but overall, the writing is strong.

The gothic setting and feeling of psychological isolation comes in when Elizabeth checks in to the Abernathy Clinic and saturates the novel as the stakes rise.

Setting-- 5/5: I really like the setting of a sanatarium. It works well for gothic horror and psychological horror, or even for gothic romance. I especially like this description of La Casa Del Mar:

The house perched above them, a deformed child, unloved and abandoned, doomed to live out its days on a lonely cliff overlooking the sea.

Night of the Pentagram -  (Kindle Locations 302-303).

And the moment in history, late 1968, is tangible:

“What an awful year it’s been,” Elizabeth said, “The assassinations of Reverend King and Mr. Kennedy, the Pentagram Murders, the senseless suicide of such a beautiful young woman.”

Night of the Pentagram -  (Kindle Locations 405-406).

Charaterization-- 5/5: Tebbs has managed to name each character in a meaningful way. From Roland de Winter and the gothic resonance of that name to Jewel St. John, each name is a gem full of sly overtones. Another of my favorite things about Tebbs' writing is the zany characters and how real the time period feels. The characters love to smoke, wear gold chains, and take drug trips. After reading Night of the Pentagram, I'm inspired to write a throwback novel myself with lots of chain smoking. :) Here's a description of one of the characters, Bryce Avondale. I like Elizabeth's observations, too, about the nature of celebrity:

The man was tall and dark skinned with a head of curly black hair. Elizabeth thought he might be European. Elizabeth definitely found him attractive. She supposed she would be seeing a lot of attractive people here, both men and women. Celebrity was not known to be accommodating to the plain and ordinary. He wore a burgundy silk shirt that was unbuttoned at his chest revealing a sculpted physique and a virile abundance of chest hair which he accented with a number of sparkling gold chains. The flared pants that rode low on his hips were flattering as well, the dark pinstripe against off-white fabric lending the illusion that he was taller than he was.

Night of the Pentagram -  (Kindle Locations 323-327).

Spooky Elements-- 5/5: Night of the Pentagram would lend itself to the big screen quite easily. I could picture all the characters, and the creepy elements feel quite real. A pervasive note of doom hangs over Elizabeth York and the clinic. Tarot, ritual killings, murder, suicide, drugs, and a black goat add to the hallucinatory effect of the work. This one is shocking, fun, and spooky. I loved the ending as well; you'll never see it coming, and it will raise more questions.

If you're looking for something that will take you back to the 60s and give you a delightful shiver or two, check out Night of the Pentagram.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Gothicked in the New Year

It's a new year. Yeah, I know I'm a little late to the party, but as is popular at this time of year, I'd like to know what you want more of and what you want to see less of. Oh, while you think about that, here's a link to Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony (1 of 10).

Talk to me, lovers of secluded towers, madmen who cry out in the night, mouldering family vaults, and heroines in distress.

If you'd like to guest blog, let me know. If you want more contests and reviews, leave a comment. I started this blog over a year and a half ago, and my life has gotten crazier since then--in a good way. That has meant fewer posts and a shifting of gears for me, though, so I'd like to pinpoint what you want as things evolve here.

If you leave a comment here, I'll enter you into a random drawing for a fabulous prize-- either a free gothic romance e-book (I'll give you some choices if you win) or a couple print gothic romances by mail.

Your time and opinions and your readership mean a lot to me. So, tell me what's on your mind.

Deborah Lawrenson: The Lantern

I picked this new novel up when I read something about it being reminiscent of Rebecca. I'm actually not going to review it, but I did want to post about it since the author mentions that novel in the work and is obviously going for a contemporary, updated version... in some form.

When Eve meets the mysterious, handsome Dom, she is swept off her feet. They seclude themselves in the French countryside, but questions about his first wife's disappearance plague Eve. What really happened to his wife, and what secrets does the villa they live in hold?

I'd call The Lantern Gothic (lite), but I think it falls far short of DuMaurier territory. There are ghosts, and there is a husband who can't quite be trusted, but there is really nothing of the extreme menace and off kilter, creepy characters of Rebecca. The house is bland in many ways with not enough description for my tastes, and the prose is thick and literary. I wanted more spooky and less showy diction. But that's just me.

If you like novels set in France and high literature, I think you'll enjoy it-- and I do enjoy high literature, but I want my Gothics Gothic. I think I wasn't bowled over by it because it is a split plot (past and present) story, and it didn't have much suspense... at least not to me. Any thoughts? Have you read it? Here's more about the novel:

The Lantern