Lovely, aren’t they…needlework, including embroidery? These delicate and homebound arts have long lived at the edges of Gothic fiction — crafts of patience, beauty, and gentility. Sometimes, though, they engender murderous rage.

Long before horror was a genre and Gothic fiction found its academic footing, a particular kind of story didn’t scream; it shivered. Rather than relying on jump scares or excessive gore, these stories crept in slowly—through candlelight, fog, nightmares, a shocking face in the mirror. These were shudder novels.

In literature, characters sometimes read books that serve as more than mere props; books can profoundly influence their decisions, beliefs, and transformations. These embedded texts act as mirrors, windows, or even catalysts within the narrative, offering readers insights into the characters’ psyches and the thematic undercurrents of the story.

Classics endure because they speak to fundamental human experiences, but they were also shaped by the cultural expectations of their time. Many traditional narratives assume fixed gender roles—men as creators, seekers, and decision-makers, women as muses, victims, or caretakers. When we switch these roles, the dynamics of power, agency, and perception shift in deeply revealing ways.

The halls of Gothic literature echo with haunted women—but rarely with mothers. 

Look closely at the genre’s most iconic texts: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Monk, Wuthering Heights, The Turn of the Screw, and Jane Eyre. Mothers are strikingly absent, dead, or dangerously symbolic. Their absence is a shadow that shapes the Gothic world.

In Gothic literature, weather is never just weather. It’s atmosphere, emotion, foreshadowing, and often a form of judgment. A sudden storm doesn’t merely inconvenience the characters—it reveals the chaos brewing inside them. Fog conceals more than the landscape; it hides truths and dangers. Soul-numbing cold can induce strange disassociations.

Sex in Gothic literature is rarely erotic. It is transgressive. A fever dream. A haunting. A punishment. It does not romanticize the bedroom—it drags it into the crypt.

There’s something deeply satisfying about writing a story set in a time before computers, phones, tablets, and television. A world where written messages travel by hand, news spreads by word of mouth, and deep quietude is as present as sound. Without the constant hum of technology, the pace of life shifts, and storytelling must follow suit.

What do the American Revolution and Gothic literature have in common? Both are defined by upheaval, destruction, and the weight of the past haunting the present. Gothic stories thrive in dark landscapes, psychological torment, and the consequences of ambition—elements that also shaped the Revolutionary War.

I wanted to create something engaging to accompany my book—tactile, visually compelling, and immersive. So, I designed a set of collectible book cards, each a tiny portal into the world of Mademoiselle Frankenstein.

There’s something in the air. After years of Frankenstein adaptations that have modernized, technologized, and reshaped Mary Shelley’s creation, the story is reflecting back to its origins. Guillermo del Toro’s highly anticipated Frankenstein film is set to arrive this year, the same year as my novel Mademoiselle Frankenstein. They share something crucial: a return to the classical, Gothic spirit of the original.

Animals in Gothic literature are often unsettling presences. From Poe’s sinister black cat to the hounds of Baskerville, they frequently serve as omens, manifestations of supernatural forces, or extensions of human guilt and madness. Yet in Mademoiselle Frankenstein, my approach to animals is different—they are named, distinct, and, for the most part, good and innocent characters. Why do Gothic animals so often inspire fear, and why have I chosen to subvert that expectation in my work?

When I set out to write Mademoiselle Frankenstein, I wasn’t just telling a new story—I was constructing it within the precise framework of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There was lots of math involved! The number of chapters, the number of pages, and even the number of words per chapter all, for the most part, mirror Shelley’s original.

Retelling a Gothic novel isn’t just about changing names and settings. It’s about capturing the genre’s essence—its obsession with the past, its entanglement with death, its suffocating sense of inevitability—and filtering it through a new lens.

Gothic literature is often defined by its settings—crumbling buildings, storm-lashed landscapes, and scary corridors. But more than a genre, Gothic is a state of mind. It’s a way of seeing the world, shaped by a heightened awareness of the past’s grip on the present and the inescapability of fate.