A Sicilian Romance

by Ann Radcliffe

Published: 1790

Link: https://librivox.org/a-sicilian-romance-by-ann-radcliffe/

Listening Time: 7 hours 21 minutes


Emilia and Julia are two sisters who live in a remote castle on the island of Sicily, Italy. They are raised by their governess Madam de Menon because their dad already has an older son and doesn't want to give them the time of day. He's off partying in the city with their brother, and their new stepmom, Madame de Vellorno (who is kind of a cougar).

One day Julia and Emilia's dad announces he's coming back and he's bringing a party with him! The girls get really excited because they don't get much of a chance to hang around a lot of people. It kind of feels like Anna in Frozen to me (except they don't sing).

I was totally expecting their brother to be a spoiled jerk but he's not. He's actually really nice and he brought his really cute friend with him! Julia and her brother's bff fall in love and from this point it feels like Julia becomes the primary character in the story. Well, this causes a problem for two reasons: 1) Dad already has another man picked out for Julia, and 2) Stepmom is being all creepy and making unwanted advances towards Julia's intended. Both of them will do almost anything to keep the two apart.

The story has a lot of twists and turns. At one point I stopped reading because it looked like a character (who I liked) died. But when I went back to the story there were even more twists to it. There are a lot of dark secrets in this family but it actually ends pretty happy. :D

I really enjoyed the twists with the girl's governess, she's kind of like the Professor Lupin in the movie version of "The Prisoner of Azkaban": where at first you think he's just a mentor character, but he's also an important link to the past and helps them uncover a bit of a mystery if you pay attention to what s/he's saying.

I think the biggest failing in this book is there isn't as much dialogue as I'd like. I really enjoy how Mrs Radcliff crafts conversation in some of her later stories and there isn't so much of that here. However, it is one of Mrs Radcliffe's first books and she does have A LOT of intrigue and suspense in the story, and I can see how this style developed in her later stories.


This is the end of my Gothic Literary Adventures of 2015.


It's been mostly a solitary adventure. For me it felt like this:

(So I'm glad I got to share some of the #feelings I've been carrying around all year:) )

Next year my reading adventures are to include children's stories: some of which I've read before (Like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), others will be a new experience (The Alice in Wonderland series)

I'll also will continue my book vs. movie adventures:

Next will be "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (LOVED the book, We'll see how the 1996 version holds up!).

If you like to read, I invite you to friend or follow me on goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1952119-ebster-davis

If you're not familiar with the site, it's kind of like a social network where you update what books you're reading and what you think of them as you reading. I update there regularly, and I think it's a really fun way to connect with other readers and find new books to read. 

Thanks for sharing this adventure with me! I wish you happiness and peace as we enter the holiday season :D

The Castle Wolfenbach

By Eliza Parsons

Published: 1793

Theme: Courage

To be honest, I haven't been able to finish this one yet, I'm just under half-way thorough. It's in the public domain and there is a copy of it on the internet. It's free, but it's not on librivox yet so I have to physically read it and that's been a challenge for me this past year (although I have been getting better).

Here's the story so far:

It's about a young noblewoman named Matilda Weimar, she's on the run with her elderly manservant and gets taken in by generous persons of lower social class than herself (a few of whom happen to live in an old abandoned castle...which I think is really cool!). Matilda explores the castle and discovers some of the mysteries left by the previous inhabitants; the Wolfenbaches. She also get's comfortable enough to divulge some of her own mysterious past to her new friends.

After a while, Matilda's new friends help her find a job as a companion and friend to a noblewoman who is their distant relative. Life is looking like it's getting better and then a figure from Matilda's past shows up and

he's a pretty destructive, creepy guy.  

The impression I had of early-gothic female characters is that they're really wimpy, there's a whole infograph about how much they faint or swoon, but so far I'm not finding that. They're pretty brave, sometimes even more so than their male companions.

Matilda's got her Alfred Pennyworth looking after her, but he's not gonna go to the creepy upstairs of the castle. Matilda does because she's got this little inkling that maaaaybbe the house isn't really haunted. She's really proactive in her life, too. When her guardian starts getting creepy and confusing, she doesn't keep quiet and passive until the situation hits a crisis point, she and Alfred takes action.

I also really like that, when two women get together in this story, they don't talk about boys...they talk about other girls! This story is over 200 years old and it passes the bechdel test. I feel like Catherine Moreland had better female literary role-models than I did...


I'm hoping all of the "Horrid Novels" in the public domain eventually become available as audiobooks. I actually bought a headset and started reading this one aloud, but I don't quite like the sound of my voice so I'm not sure if I'll finish it.

By Ann Radcliffe 

Published: 1797

Link: https://librivox.org/the-italian-by-ann-radcliffe/

Listening Time: 18 hours 47 minutes

Theme: karma

This story is also by Ann Radcliffe and I felt like she did such a good job with the character development for the heroes in "The Mysteries of Udolpho" that I had high expectations for this one. In this one, though, she takes all of her character development and gives it to the villain. The main characters feel like something out of a romantic comedy: their motives are simplistic, they want to be together and some mysterious entity is trying to keep them apart.

Monk Schedoni has a backstory, and tragedy and angst! And he's eeeevvvvilll. Just read the part where he's convincing a certain main characters mom that it's perfectly OK to kill an Innocent girl. (He almost convinced me!). The twist with his character was pretty remarkable, I'd say it's the best thing about this story.

Unfortunately he's the only thing remotely "Goth-y" in this book. Like I mentioned earlier, everyone else feels like they're living in a rom-com and I think that could have worked towards this story's advantage:

• Vivaldi trying to convince Ellena he loves her (even though her face has been covered with a veil the whole time they've ever been around each other)
• Vivaldi trying to convince Ellena's foster-parentals that he's totes not a creepy stalker (even though he follows her home repeatedly)
• Vivaldi being in turn creepily stalked by an unknown person
• Wacky-side characters who just can't get to the point

But I feel she spent so much time trying to make them funny, she forgot to make them likable.

I feel like this is just one of those stories that you read for the villain. Those aren't always bad types of stories, but at the time I read this I felt like the concept is overdone. Yes, we know sometimes people are marginalized and/or misunderstood...NO it's NOT Ok to kill people!!

There is one really powerful point Mrs Radcliffe makes at the end through the lives of Ellena's "real parents" and how they, unknowing that she's their daughter, help or harm her by the types of lives they lead; the good and bad they do affects her (which in turn affects them). What goes around comes around kind of thing.





I'm currently seeing Vivaldi like this:

I don't think I've ever seen anyone who looks exactly like Schedoni, but he'd be like an older Phantom of The Opera, but with a beard.