Joyce Carol Oates - A Bloodsmoor Romance

The Historian looks great; requested it from my library.

The Historian was fantaaaaastic.

Oohh, maybe Ghost Writer? I think the author's name is John Harwood. I remember really liking and being creeped out by that book.

Have you read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell?

Or Misfortune by Wesley Stace (better known by his stage name, John Wesley Harding)?

Or, to go back several (ok, many) years, The Quincunx, by, um, I forget who wrote it.

Or you could read some Wilkie Collins.

I was gonna say Jonathan strange.

I have not read Jonathan Strange, but at one point it was definitely on my "Oh, I should read that" list, so I'll add it back on.

More suggestions welcome!

I'm probably going to read The Lace Reader next, which may or may not be in the ballpark (it's shorter, of course, for one thing — 400 pages versus 720). I liked the very beginning enough to order it, but basically, I just don't feel I can not read a writer named "Brunonia Barry." Brunonia Barry! I gotta read her!

I'd try "The Ghost Writer," but it doesn't seem to be available as an ebook...

Patrick McGrath writes gothic novels - Asylum is on of my favorites. But I don't remember any of them being particularly long.

I recently bought the Historian and will move it further up my list, based on these recommendations!

I'm planning to restart Jonathan Strange during the long winter evenings - I got about a third of the way through and was enjoying it, but got side-tracked a few months ago.

You might like The Crimson Petal and the White - long, involved, cod-Victorian tale-spinning. I really enjoyed it, and it's one of the few books I intend to re-read.

Seconding BOP on The Quincunx; it's by Charles Palliser.

Negative recommendation here. Do not read The Lace Reader! Oh what a bad and stupid book. I actually hurled it at the wall about 3/4 of the way through, and regret every minute I spent on it. You are way, way too smart and careful a reader to like it.

Have you ever read Master and Commander? That is a heck of a book all by itself, plus it launches a fantastic series of fascinating books. (Some are read by one of the best readers ever, Patrick Tully, fyi.)

Also, I found an interesting link on LibraryThing on this very question. There are a lot of suggestions there . . . which I have not heard of myself and may try.

ooh, thanks for the negative recommendation, bearwife! Saved me! I haven't tried Aubrey/Maturin books yet, because at first glance, they don't seem to be my sort of thing, but you have tipped the scale. :)

I read "The Gargoyle," "The Shadow of the Wind," "Labyrinth," "The Thirteenth Tale," and "The Alienist," of the books mentioned in that Librarything thread. I liked "The Gargoyle," but a couple of years later don't really feel much remaining resonance from it, unlike The Historian. For whatever reason, I'm not as big of a fan of "The Shadow of the Wind" as most people are, but it was enjoyable. I hated "Labyrinth," and can't figure out why it is recommended all the time.

I loved "The Thirteenth Tale" (but it was so short... I wanted it to just keep going!), and keep waiting for Diane Setterfield to write something else, so I can pounce on it. I really liked "The Alienist," but it's nothing like the Historian.

I have not read "The Book of Air and Shadows," and have been wondering if I should.

I did think of "An Instance of the Fingerpost" as a long, clever (quite good!) epistolary novel, but it's not at all gothic... and something else seems nagging at the back of my mind, but won't come forward.

I absolutely adored The "Crimson Petal and the White", that altolinguistic mentions, btw, and definitely recommend it, but it doesn't have the sort of atmosphere that The Historian does. (I like it more, in fact, but its brooding and boding is of an entirely different sort.)

It's interesting, really, how few books do seem to make a natural bridge from The Historian.

Patrick McGrath writes gothic novels - Asylum is on of my favorites. But I don't remember any of them being particularly long.

I'll second McGrath. You're right, the books aren't long, but they... they feel long. Maybe I mean "they feel dense." I was rapt the entire time reading Asylum; someone in a coffeeshop asked me if I was okay, because I was whipping through the book with my mouth in an O. (Do not bother with the terrible movie, which was terrible. Did I mention: terrible.)

disclaimer: I did not like The Historian, so judge my reading recommendations accordingly.

I love y'all. I'll be checking out as many of these as I can.

It's interesting, really, how few books do seem to make a natural bridge from The Historian.

The ones that I lump with it (that I've already read) are Sarah Waters' Affinity and Michael Cox's The Meaning of Night and The Glass of Time.

And I've tried Master and Commander, and just couldn't get into it. My brain has a hard time keeping details unless they're vitally important to what's going on, and so all the ship descriptions and vocabulary kept me out of the story.

Ha! I was going to mention Affinity, even though I haven't read it yet, mostly based on Waters' style from "Fingersmith," and from the description of Affinity. I'll have to read the Cox books.

It's interesting, really, how few books do seem to make a natural bridge from The Historian.

Including, I am sorry to say, Kostova's second novel, The Swan Thieves. It isn't terrible, but it is dreadfully slow, and the explanation of the central mystery of the novel, and even its name, is both unsatisfying and very late in arriving.

Occhiblu, you might want to try Patrick Tull's audio version of Master and Commander, which got me hooked on the two main characters, Maturin and Aubrey -- I found what looks like a download page here. I cared a lot more about ships and vocabulary and all the other 19th century references once I got enmeshed in these very real characters and their lives.

Lots of books just went on my list, so thanks for starting the thread, occhiblu!

So I haven't started it yet (about to as soon as I get offline) but I just picked up the novel that "Let the Right One In" is based on.

(This also reminds me I need to update my Good Reads.)

That's one of my favorite books, JoanArkham!

Ooh ooh ooh Sarah Waters. Have you read The Little Stranger? Now that's pretty Gothic, though not Victorian. I also really enjoyed The Night Watch. Haven't read Affinity but that's going on my list as soon as I finish The Historian :)

No, I haven't read The Little Stranger; I actually hadn't heard of it until I went to find an Amazon link to Affinity. I think I've read all her others, so I've definitely added that one to the list.

Let the Right One In

I'm a few chapters in now, and it's really good. Very much a "page turner." Given the slow pacing of the movie (which I did like) I think I was expecting something different.