I am thrilled to be on the official blog tour for Tim Lebbon’s The Last Storm! Huge congratulations to Tim and the Titan Team. A big thank you to Titan Books, especially Eleanor and Lydia, for gifting me a proof copy and for inviting me to be on the tour! In addition to my review, I am also sharing an excerpt, kindly organised by Titan Books. Blurb With global warming out of control, large swathes of North America have been struck by famine and drought and are now known as the Desert. A young woman sets out across this dry, hostile landscape, gradually building an arcane apparatus she bel ..read more

I am thrilled to be on the official blog tour for Tim Lebbon’s The Last Storm! Huge congratulations to Tim and the Titan Team. A big thank you to Titan Books, especially Eleanor and Lydia, for gifting me a proof copy and for inviting me to be on the tour! In addition to my review, I am also sharing an excerpt, kindly organised by Titan Books. Blurb With global warming out of control, large swathes of North America have been struck by famine and drought and are now known as the Desert. A young woman sets out across this dry, hostile landscape, gradually building an arcane apparatus she bel ..read more

Good afternoon valued readers and spooky subscribers… I have some very exciting things coming soon to my website, and to my newsletter The Anatomy Shelf (read & subscribe for FREE). See below for confirmed articles, interviews, and reviews: Unfinished Business: Reading the Fragmentary Ghost Stories of William Gay Pick-up or send to Voicemail: Joe Hill’s The Black Phone Adaptation “For Horror, Death isn’t the End:” Lauren @gothicbookworm and Grady Hendrix sit down for an exclusive interview (website & The Anatomy Shelf for extra content) “Write what scares you:” Lauren @gothicboo ..read more

Due to a flurry of new subscribers (hello, and thank you!) I am re-blogging one of my favourite articles I have ever written, hope you enjoy! The Gothic Bookworm Good afternoon all! I am incredibly excited to be writing this article for my blog. As a life-long fan of The Simpsons, I am over the moon to have stumbled upon something so spooky, you may not sleep for weeks! The Simpsons: The Episode Behind the Horror About a month ago, I was having a break from my studies and sat down with a cup of tea, flicking through the TV channels. Low and behold, The Simpsons was on. The episode was ..read more

The Gothic Bookworm Hello everyone, Thank you to all those who voted on Twitter and Facebook for what I should do for my Halloween special- it came to a tie-breaker between Horror vs Gothic and Top 10 Gothic Artworks. Only one vote separated the votes and although Horror vs Gothic won, I was also looking forward to posting this too. So, here you go- my top 10 Victorian Gothic artworks! Now, there are lot of elements to Gothic art and fiction, most of which I have at some point discussed on my blog. So, there may be a few artworks that may not seem conventionally Gothic, but I feel they ..read more

Happy world Dracula day! On this day in 1897 (26th May) Dracula by Bram Stoker was first published! Hope you have a fangtastic day! I have put some links below to celebrate! CLICK HERE to read 10 facts you didn’t know about Bram Stoker CLICK HERE for vampire book recommendations CLICK HERE to read Stoker’s Gothic works ranked! CLICK HERE to read & download Dracula (and all of Stoker’s novels and stories) for FREE! Photo: by Lauren Gothicbookworm (2019 visit to Whtby ..read more

The Exile and the Mapmaker by Emma Musty, a review. “In his hand he held a crumpled map. He looked down at it, unaware of picking it up. Stretched across its south-westerly corner he read the words ‘Mountains of Kong’ and smiled to himself without truly understanding why.” I’m delighted to be on the official blog tour for The Exile and the Mapmaker by Emma Musty, organised by the wonderful team at Legend Press. Official blurb:  An important novel that is as compassionate as it is eye-opening, The Exile and the Mapmaker is a testament to the triumph of the human sp ..read more

Last year I was #gifted these gorgeous copies of British Weird & Women’s Weird 2 by the lovely people at @handheldpress. I cannot recommend these collections enough! I’ve spoken about them before but they’re just so wonderful I can’t help but share them again! British Weird, Selected Short Fiction (1893-1937) edited by James Machin is a brilliant collection of all things weird! Authors such as Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Eleanor Scott, Mary Butts and many more are included in this spooky collection of stories. Ghosts, nightmares, things that can’t be explained and more strange going ..read more

On November 4th 1922, Howard Carter and his financial backer found the stairway to the entrance of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings… It’s the anniversary of the stairway to Tutankhamun’s tomb being found by Howard Carter! Below are photographs of the stairway and the sealed tomb The Staircase to Tutankhamun’s TombThe Sealed Door to Tutankhamun’s Tomb “At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the most, strange animals ..read more

The ‘penny dreadful’ has been described as a “19th-century phenomenon” which took the art of publishing by storm. In a nut shell, a ‘penny dreadful’ was a story published in pamphlets piece by piece, each week, costing only a penny. They’re also known as penny blood, penny awful, and penny horrible. All in all, pretty dreadful! Due to the improvement of education and literacy skills in the 1800s, the penny dreadful became increasingly popular. But why so dreadful? Well, that’s because of what the stories contained. Typical penny dreadfuls consisted of stories of monsters, mysteries, and the su ..read more