Will I ever tire of books about books? (Answer: no.) This one was great fun, and was a pleasant reminder of my favourite course during my English Lit undergrad, on the Female Gothic. It's a very brief overview, but I found the selections interesting, and I've added several new books to my to-read list. The more modern selections had some strange omissions (no Hotel World by Ali Smith? No Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel? No Amelia Gray or Camilla Grudova?) and focused on some lightweight YA authors when it would have made more sense to focus on literary authors who are writing great and unusual books while also really engaging with the topics mentioned. But still, I really enjoyed it, and would have happily read it at twice the length.

This was a gorgeous little book to flip through. I'm all about my fellow women who create and love horror. Thank you for this book.

This book has been created with the idea of bringing together all the dark queens of literature.
I am completely clueless when it comes to genres of horror, gothic fiction, paranormal literature, ghost stories, and haunted environment and I wanted to learn about the most important/famous examples of these genres and it seemed a great starting point reading this book although it focuses only on women, which I believe is a good thing, since, behind most pseudonyms used in literature, there is a woman trying to hide her real identity as a writer.
This unique collection of female authors, who have written unconventional stories, and their most prominent works and masterpieces are listed under special categories such as ghost stories, haunted homes, vampires, horror and speculative fiction. It is great to read their life journey and how it shaped the way they write about such unusual topics.
Female authors are often expected to be creative in romantic love stories and the examples in this book display the shocking fact that women can be as intense and unconventional as men when it comes to supernatural phenomena, suspense and horror, ghost stories and haunted houses, gore, and murder, violence, and erotism and paranormal activities. However, it is not easy to be accepted in society and publish your works since you're supposed to be all elegant and fragile as a woman(!). These brave women push the boundaries of society and dance beautifully around gender roles.
A great read for the lovers of the related literature and even though I do not really fancy the genre, I have enjoyed it and learned a lot. The only downside is my TBR list has skyrocketed.

It’s been years since I took a deep dive into early gothic and speculative fiction, so I thought this would be a nice refresher. Kroger and Anderson have written a *readable* and engaging piece of non-fiction that delves into all the kick-ass women who wrote sci-fi, paranormal, and speculative fiction from the 17th c. on. Many of them wrote using male pseudonyms, but others started their own goddamned publishing houses just for women!

While I especially enjoyed the chapters on the early writers in the field, I also found many new authors to explore who wrote for the pulps, or who wrote under male pseudonyms. This book had me scouring my bookshelves for English and Victorian ghost story and short story collections to see if I actually had some of the stories referenced. I now have a stack of ghost story books all set for a summer reading project and am thinking about putting together a reading challenge for my library system using the authors referenced here.

This one’s a winner, folks!

There is something very intriguing about this book. It is a combination encyclopedia, reference text, and reader's advisory. If you want to learn more about some classic women gothic/horror/science fiction writers or need some new books to read then this is a great guide!

Personally, I also love books where you can pick it up and turn to any given page for just a tidbit of information instead of being stuck reading from start to finish. It will certainly find a place on my shelves.

This was a fun read. It was a nice quick and easy flow read. I enjoyed the timeline of writers and their influence and impact they had in the Gothic Horror genre. It was interesting to see how each writer not only opened up new stories and ideas in the genre but how their impact started a wave of new ideas of writing and capturing the audience. I really enjoyed how the recommended reading list. It gave me an ah-ha moment or I didn't think about that title as something similar. I love the idea that it was not just about the writers but their creations and "monsters", and the lasting impact they had.

I was enamored with this text. To give some context to my emotional response: book orders for next semester are due Monday at my university and I am trying to rework my course theme so that I can use it in the upcoming Fall. I thought the pacing was incredible for this kind of text; in the beginning, when the authors were mainly providing a background of the creation of the Gothic novel, the sections were very short and digestible for students who might not be as interested in biographical info. It gave us, the reader, a very fully painted idea without droning on too much. As the text went on and began to look more deeply at the way monsters and other spooky things evolved, the sections seemed to go into more depth in a way that really kept my interest. As a Carter fan, in particular, I loved section seven. I also loved how the text really allowed a greater appreciation for the intertexuality in horror. Great Text!

A fun, light read about Mary Shelley and her contemporary women writers in the genre of horror/ sci-fi. I knew a lot about Shelly but definitely learned a few things about the other authors. This book is well put together and a great starting place for finding out more about some lesser known female writers. Recommended.

This book is a lot of fun. Everyone know about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Now get to know Shelley's work better and learn about her contemporaries in gothic horror and the women that succeeding them. It is a nice format, giving a biography of each author and then some literary criticism and reading recommendations.