Adam McOmber

"Memories are like that, aren't they? ....They trip along. Like a reflection over water. Always threatening to disappear."

Memories and desires...If we come to think about it, the connection between these two notions is so powerful and ever-present. Desires may be created by memories of actions and people from our past. They may be caused by unfulfilled wishes, cravings, the thirst for the unattainable, for the one thing or the one person we cannot have. Few things are more personal than memories and desires. Few stories are more powerful than this darkly fascinating collection.

First of all, don't let the title trick you. This book has nothing to do with romance or erotica (genres that I admittedly have zero experience with). These are stories about hidden terrors, sins of the past that caused tragedy. About repressed sexuality and the need to discover the origins of human desires. Every story is an allegory, full of references to myths, to historical characters, to Biblical legends. The atmosphere is dark, haunting and as Gothic as it can get.

Lakes with waters that hide monsters, quaint villages abandoned by progress, buried in time. Marie Antoinette is haunting the garden of her beloved Petit Trianon, undead aristocrats are lurking in dimly lit streets in London, Paris, Vienna. Sodom and Gomorrah tell a story of an accursed past, alchemists, veterans of a devastating war, tragic mothers, haunted children, desperate lovers narrate their stories.

This is a book whose cover speaks for itself. A collection where Paracelsus, Versailles, the Celtic Rites of spring, King Arthur sleeping in his cave, Freud and Jung come together to form one of the darkest psychological reads that will ever grace your shelves. This is Gothic Fiction in one of its finest moments. You don't want to miss it...
… (meer)

Interesting book, gothic fantasy with a serving of the philosophiical battle between evolution, creation, or goddess, so true to its time setting.

Who is Jane Silverlake? Where did Nathan Ashe go? What did Ariston Day do to him, and what does Day have planned? What is happening at Stoke Morrow and the Heath? With names like that, the reader gets a sense of all the original gothics rolled into one but also knows that the story is its own unique telling. Good writing and a page turner, but definitely expect a complete new twist on the genre. And, it lingers. I keep wondering what it all means, if anything, which is how I like an author to leave it.

As a side note, I enjoyed listening to original music from the TV series Dowton Abbey while reading. Gave it just the dark melancholic but fast paced sense that was needed.… (meer)