Get Your Ghoul On: 9 Great Works of Genre-Bending Gothic Fiction

Think Edward Scissorhands with dogs: A scientist alone in the colds of an isolated land, in a huge, dark estate, creates a breed of man-dogs. After he dies, the man-dogs live for a while in their home, but eventually find it necessary to come out of their hiding place and join the rest of civilization. Which has some people terrified and some people entranced.

This is a gothic fable about a restless young man who decides to take on a little responsibility and becomes the Undermajordomo, assisting the Majordomo of a remote, foreboding castle of a Baron. He meets crooks, aristocrats, and the love of his life, and has wild adventures.

This seems obvious because it has “gothic” in the title, but I included it anyway. It’s about a young woman who travels to a remote mansion to check on her just-married cousin, who sent her an alarming letter. Not only does the house turn out to be spooky, but so does her cousin’s husband’s family lore. And there’s a whole lot of trouble of a fungal kind!

Speaking of fungal, this is another gothic fable about a town that seemingly falls under a dark spell, which means a gruesome end for several citizens. This is such a weird little book, but it’s so great.

Four generations of Silver women live in the large family estate full of tunnels and hidden secrets. It’s now a bed and breakfast, but it doesn’t stop the house from casting some kind of spell over the inhabitants — and becoming increasingly hostile to outsiders. Home is where the heart is — and where they’ll have to stay if they want theirs to keep beating.

Edgar Allan Poe is often discussed when people talk about Gothic fiction. This is about a literature professor who sets out on a journey to the South Pole to confirm the reality of Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and solve one of literature’s greatest mysteries.

A missing children’s author, a secret society, a strange house…this book has all the makings of a grown-up gothic fairytale. What happened to the supposed tenth member of the Rabbit Back Literature Society, started by a renowned author, who herself is now missing? This book is so fun and weird and I have read it a few times and I am still not sure I entirely understand it, but I love it.

You knew I would include this one! Gothic horror in SPACE. Gideon the Ninth is swordswoman to Harrowhark, the necromancer. When Harrow brings Gideon to the First House to fight with her for a chance at immortality at the Emperor’s side, they wind up in a decrepit mansion full of ghosts, skeleton servants, and bone constructs. They will have to figure out the secrets of the house before it kills them.

We all live in a gothic submarine…Seriously, you have a submarine full of monks who attend church each day in a cathedral, a section of whom can sing like angels, and a menacing leader who stalks the halls in search of the answers to secrets. There’s even a section of the ship full of pale beings who stoke the fire of the submarine’s reactor. It’s underwater gothic fiction, for sure.