In the 1970s “gothic” fiction book covers featured a girl in a diaphanous gown running away from a castle/mansion at night — during a storm. Perhaps Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca is the most famous of the older gothic novels. In this classic story the “new” Mrs. de Winter cannot overcome the feeling that she’s not welcome at Manderley and nearly loses her life trying to discover how the first Mrs. de Winter died. Rebecca is still enjoyed by readers now, only with a new cover. The recently reanimated gothic novel is moody and creepy: a story in which a young woman is absorbed by something mysterious from the past that puts her in present danger. Usually a historic building of some sort is involved and often there’s a romance; the women are strong and assertive and the men are very careful not to overtly rescue them.
Susanna Kearsley is billed as both a romantic suspense and a historical fiction writer, though I prefer to think of her as one of a new breed of gothic storytellers. My current Kearsley favorite is The Winter Sea, a chilly tale set in present-day Scotland about a writer who rents a cottage near an old castle on the northeastern coast in hopes of finishing her book, which is set in the same area. She is beset by dreams about the people who lived in the castle during the Jacobite Rebellion and tension mounts as the dreams become more vivid, clouding her perception of the present. An equally atmospheric treatment of shared memory experiences plays out in The Island House by Posie Graeme-Evans. In 
northern Scotland, Freya Dane, an archaeology PhD candidate from Australia, hopes to solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance and death. He bequeathed the tiny island of Findnar to her and a cryptic letter hints at something buried there that only Freya can find. Her visions tell her he was right.
In The Distant Hours by Kate Morton, family secrets lure Edie Burchell to Milderhurst castle, where she hopes to discover what happened to her mother there during World War II. A mysterious letter has just arrived, 50 years late, that’s rather upset her mom. It is from one of the spinster sisters who still 
lives in what is now a very creepy castle complete with hidden passageways and the ambience of Miss Haversham’s cobwebbed bedroom. In A Place of Secrets by Rachel Hore, when Jude finds a dream job appraising an astronomer’s library, she also winds up sharing recurring dreams with her niece and a living nightmare inside a creepy old observatory.
Not quite romance, suspense, mystery, fantasy or horror but a genre blend, gothic novels are a great escape from the rigors of summer vacation!
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