All right, welcome back everyone to the Guide to Gothics here on the Book Graveyard.

If you're on the YouTube channel, if you're listening to it on a podcast, you're listening to it on The Paperback Warrior with me.

As as usual, he set aside a little bit of time.

He got this new job.

He's working as a nanny about thirty miles out of town, the spooky old House.

Eric from The Paperback.

Warrior, Hello, Hello, Hello, welcome to another exciting addition of Guy to Gothics.

I'm teaming up with Nick here, and man, this has been a great little series.

I think we've done what like four maybe five of these.

Yeah, this is episode four.

I know I've been enjoying it also.

Yeah, we're getting a lot of feedback on these things, and people seem to dig these gothic books because no one else is talking about them.

Nick, Yeah, yeah, I noticed that.

I think I went to go look for for anything any You know, you really don't see many reviews.

See there's a couple of Instagram accounts, but they just post pictures of the books and that's cool.

Yeah, yeah, they cover arts everything with these gothics.

But you and I like to delve.

We like to dig into the contents.

What's between those covers.

It's fun, No, it is, it is, and it's surprisingly not romantic.

No, no, they're more Uh, as we discovered over the last stuff.

Four of these that we've read, there are more mysteries, central mysteries with most of the for the most part of really good storytelling.

It's intriguing.

I agree, Yeah, it would be.

I think the Gothic Suspense is the best title for it.

Yeah.

Yeah, But to be.

Fair, we haven't grabbed any that said Gothic romance on the cover.

Oh no, we haven't have weey no, because.

I you know, I think that they do differentiate between themselves.

Yeah, I don't know.

This one doesn't say it just says gothic.

Oh yeah.

By the way, this is what we're talking about today, that Dorothy Daniels The Tormented.

Look that beautiful.

Cover, Eric, that's nice.

I really like that.

Do you know who painted it?

No, it was painted by Vic Presio.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he does good stuff.

I've seen some of his, uh, his book covers, and he probably did some Men's Adventure Men's Action Venture magazine art too, I would imagine.

Oh yeah, Men's Speaking of men's adventure magazines, did you see what?

Did you see what came in the mail?

Oh?

Yeah, I heard about this.

I heard about that magazine.

The new issue of Men's Adventure Quarterly is out.

Yeah, it just came out hot off the presses.

I got my copy as well over the weekend.

Nice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It has a guest contributor.

Do you know who it is, Eric Terrence Mayhew, Yes, it is Terrence.

Terrence is one of them.

We love Terrence.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I was able to, uh to contribute to this Man magazine quite a bit.

Actually, I wrote most of the introductions for each of these avintage stories, and then I also got to contribute a pretty robust article on fem fatale, the femme fatale tropes in literature.

So I did a little ten book spotlight on fem fatales and the sort of the how to and the murders and all that fun stuff.

How the mystery came together with the female seductress murderer kind of thing.

But it was a lot of fun.

I worked on it quite a bit.

I probably spent it was probably a month of writing introductions.

And those introductions they're not a far cry from what I do at Paperwreck.

We were on the podcast with digging into an author's alive, their lives, their career, how the books or how their stories were published, what books they published, things like that.

So each one of those little stories is like a little miniature paperback weear podcast feature on that author, and you know, their their footprints in literature.

Dude, that sounds awesome.

Yeah, I haven't.

I just got it in the mail last night, so I haven't even had a chance to to really flip through it.

Yeah, it's it's really cool, and I really appreciated Bill Cunningham uh for for collaborating with me on it, and of course Bob Dice for asking me, and he's the editor.

It's his baby and relatives, Bill's baby.

I was happy to contribute, and I'm working with him now on the Ron Lesser Volume three book.

It's a coffee table book.

If you've seen the first two, it's a lot of images and things like that, but this volume three is a little bit different because it's gonna dig a little bit more into the authors that wrote paperbacks.

The first two was.

More like movies, a little bit of pop culture and and magazines and books and things like that.

But this is more geared to paperback series titles like S O.

B s and and like Buck Cannon Westerns and things like that.

So I was asked to contribute introductions and commentary on the series titles and the authors that wrote them.

So it should be a lot of fun.

It's gonna come out I think early next year.

Oh yeah, that's that sounds great.

Those those first two books were wonderful.

The first one is the cover for the Robert Dietrich series, right, the E Howard Hunt.

It is, Yeah, from the Steve Minley Private Eye series.

Yeah, yeah, this this book.

I'm really excited about it.

In fact, I just over the last month or two, I guess I wrote the article on Jack Higgins for that book, and I've also wrote an article on the Buckhannon Westerns on William Ard and then the transition over to Brian Garfield and then the other guy that took over that series.

I can't think it's his name right now, but but yeah, it's a lot of fun.

I'm I'm contributing to it now, still writing stuff, and as soon as my busy season at work gets done here about early December, I'm going to return to that project and writes some more and you've.

Been killing it.

You got to you gotta leave some time man for our gothic.

Book, right yeah, yeah, yeah?

Uh, how are we going to get this gothic book?

Gal?

All that manly stuff.

Well, what consumed my my month of November so far has been my John Shirley interview.

Because John Shirley, you know, legendary writers, wrote just about everything, and I really wanted to talk with him about a lot of different things.

And if you're a fan of men's action adventure from the eighties, he wrote The Traveler and he wrote The Specialist, and so I really wanted to dig into those titles.

And one of the things that I wanted to ask him, and you'll you can follow it on the interview, it's on paperback Warrior as a podcast in audio or in video.

But I wanted to ask him why he never wrote any mac Bolan books, or why he didn't write Nick Carter Killmaster books, because he was right there in the eighties writing tons and tons of books and tons of titles.

But I was like, why didn't you ever write a mac Bolan or a kill Master?

So his response kind of surprised me.

So you can check it out in the interview.

I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah, you released it in the middle of the night.

Yeah.

Always.

I always pick up and there's a Paperback Warrior episode.

Yeah, eight hours old already.

Yeah.

Well, you know my idea behind that is if you put it in the middle of the night, when people wake up and they grab their phone to check their text messages, the first thing they're going to see is the notifications on their screen, and there it is.

There you go, You're back where your notification.

It's just my way to sprinkle in joy in the morning.

That's night.

It brings joy to my life.

That's right, It's great.

That's yeah.

I love it.

I look forward to it.

I got a lot of work to do, and I'm gonna listen to it while I'm doing work today after this recording.

Awesome, sounds great.

All right, So you want to uh, let's let's get into this book here.

This is Dorothy Daniels The Tormented.

Yes, Dorothy Daniels was a huge she's a huge name of the of the Gothic suspense era.

Yeah, sixties, seventies.

Yeah, she's she was a pretty heavy hitter when it comes to Gothics.

I spoke briefly about Dorothy Daniels on Paperback Where Your podcast, episode number seventy eight, which I did back in with Tom back in twenty twenty one.

On that feature we did we did well on that episode.

We did a feature on Norman Daniels, a prolific writer that turned out hundreds and hundreds of like pulp stories.

He came up with characters and things like that.

But he also wrote tons and tons of paperbacks, series title standalone books across a lot of genres.

But Norman Daniels married Dorothy.

I can't remember what her maiden name was, but he married Dorothy in nineteen thirty one when.

He was twenty six.

And Dorothy she had been writing romance short stories that incorporated like medical stuff.

And nurse fiction.

But her agent suggested that she should transit into the red hot market of gothic novels, and so she did.

She wrote her first one, which was called Shadow Glenn.

It was published in nineteen sixty five, and then man she went on a tear.

She wrote tons of these things like Dark Island, The Stone House, Ghost Song House on Circus Hill, the House of Many Doors, which I feel like we just have to read.

Yeah, you get the idea.

But from nineteen sixty five through nineteen seventy five, think about that, a ten year period of time, she had collected sales figures of over ten million copies, and she wrote.

In that ten year period of times, she wrote one hundred and fifty novels, including a three book series based on the old TV show Strange Paradise.

So, Nick, something I mentioned on that podcast episode, it just it fascinates me, is the picture Norman and Dorothy Daniels in their house for all those years, just clanging away on the typewriter.

And they collaborated on some books.

They also wrote like TV scripts together as well.

But Dorothy would she would type up Norman's manuscripts because he I think he hand wrote his manuscripts, so she would type them up, edit them.

And my guess is that they both probably played a huge part of writing each other's books in terms of like editing, sparkling ideas, and checking their faults on the books.

But think about this for a second, like, think about this, here's the scene at the Daniels house.

Like I don't know, let's say like nineteen sixty eight, they have breakfast, then they go to their corners of their house and they just start banging out stories on their typewriter.

And then at lunch they converge and they talk about their morning.

And you know, Norman's probably like, I spent you know, two hours getting this team of commandos.

Behind enemy lines.

They can blow up this Nazi train, but I can't figure out how to get them to the train without you know, without coming with an idea that that would give them the location of the train.

And She's probably like, well, just put a spy in, their female spy and he falls in love with her, and she ends up giving up the information because she loves them.

And then she'll tell him.

About her castle and her ball that she's got coming up in the castle and how to come up.

With a poisoning.

It's just amazing to me.

It does, Yeah, especially because they were successful.

So not only do they have this like dream life where the bouncing ideas off of each other.

Yeah, but yeah, I mean yeah, I mean she's writing one hundred fifty books in ten years and he probably wrote the same.

And there was what was he writing in the sixties and seventies.

Oh man, he wrote action adventure.

Uh.

He wrote World War two tons of World War two books.

He would write with standalone World War Two novels, action adventure.

He wrote TV tie ins, He wrote a movie at novelizations.

I don't know if you wrote sci fi.

He wrote his own.

He wrote some of his own gothics.

And there's there's rumors out there that he wrote some of these gothic novels under Dorothy Daniels.

And yeah, and but he wrote a ton of stuff, man, I mean.

Yeah, I reviewed one of her books, hold On, let Me Go Grab.

It because doing that I was just thinking this up.

So Norman Daniels wrote, He wrote crime noir, He wrote sleeves.

Uh.

He wrote military fiction, as I mentioned, military fiction, romance, the TV Talian novels like like The Rat Patrol for example.

And he also wrote television scripts.

He penned scripts for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Sugarfoot Cult forty five, Zane Gray Theater for Theater General Electric Theater.

And then Norman Daniels was also writing westerns as well.

And he also wrote espionage because he had the Man from Eight series and he wrote see I Think I had.

He wrote two books starring a Cia agent named Bruce Barron.

And.

Oh yeah, I think I got some of his espionage books.

He also wrote a series of police procedural novels starring Kelly Carvel.

Yeah so anyway all over the place, just you name it, he wrote it.

Yeah, yeah, that's so.

Yeah, when I was doing the So this is the one that I read before the Maya Temple.

Oh yeah, yeah yeah Dorothy Daniels.

Yeah, which she goes to Mexico.

If you look, if i'll put the cover up there, but there is a temple and the temple has one light on.

Yeah, it has to write that's hilarious.

This was so, this was amazing.

I was an instant Dorothy Daniels fan.

After the Maya Temple.

Well, I wrote, I read one of hers.

I want to post it here if I could find it.

But yeah, image of a ghost, and I didn't like it as much.

No, no, it wasn't as good.

Well, this Maya Temple was very pulpy.

I mean it was like it was pure, almost like Indiana Jones Gothic.

Oh interesting, okay, yeah it was.

It was cool and it had like they dosed her somebody doses her with with LSD or something and she's like tripping, tripping in this hotel room.

It is hilarious.

Wow.

So you read one Dorothy Daniels.

I read one Dorothy Daniels.

So this is our second Dorothy Daniels experience.

M hmm.

Hopefully it's Hopefully it's a good one.

Yeah, yeah, I mean was it?

Did you read it?

Or was it a good one?

I was teasing her, Yeah, I was teasing.

So you want to kick it off the chapter one?

What do you want to do?

So?

Yeah, The Tormented By Dorothy Daniels's first public in nineteen sixty nine.

This beautiful cover that I have here is from nineteen seventy four.

Oh y, yeah, I'll put the other covers up there, the first and the second.

Yeah, I think this is the superior cover.

I don't know if you looked at the other ones.

But yeah, behind me is is the first one.

I think the first cover not as good.

I think there's one where she's like, there's like a ghost in a graveyard.

That one was pretty cool too.

Yeah.

Yeah all right.

So yeah, our star our start of the show this go around is Sharon Aldrich.

Yeah, she was a young lady.

She grew up on a plantation, estate.

There was eleven miles out from the city of New Orleans.

So the year, the year is eighteen eighty two.

That was I was kind of surprised by that, that it was we went back a little ways.

Yeah, yeah, I And honestly, I don't like Gothics from that time period.

I like mic ethics to be modern.

I like them to have, you know, cars and stuff.

But you know, you picked this book, so that's where I went with him.

Else I wouldn't.

I wouldn't go with a stage coach era.

Well, it doesn't say that it's from stage coach era on it.

I was surprised.

But to be honest, they're not going anywhere.

They don't need the car.

No, they don't the villa.

Yeah yeah, other than just maybe a couple of mentions of horses or something, that really isn't anything to really suggest that this is eighteen hundreds.

Yeah, so she is.

Yeah, the year's eighteen eighty two.

Sharon's mother becomes deathly ill.

Her father sinks the all the family wealth trying to save mom.

Yeah.

Mom unfortunately doesn't make it, and then you know, just like just like what happened with Johnny Cash.

Yes, the dad dies from a broken heart.

Yeah, ex hostly, yeah, not too long after, and then it all just falls apart.

The estate falls apart, plantation falls apart.

I think that at this time Sharon's only seventeen.

I did the math.

It doesn't tell you, but yeah, I did the math.

So I think she's seventeen and she has to sell the estate to pay back the bank.

So the bank's taking most of the money from this estate.

And she has a little, her meager inheritance, and she moves to the big city of New Orleans.

Yeah, yeah, and she gets enrolled into the I think I had it written down here.

It's like a finishing school.

Miss Claiborne's finishing school for her education, and she ends up studying really to be a teacher, which back then they call it a governess.

When you're at home teaching school.

She's going to be a or a governess.

Oh yeah, way to educate me there, Eric, I didn't realize that.

I thought just another word for nanny.

No, she's a governess.

Yeah.

Governess is as a popular thing in Gothics, but you also see it in the movies, like I don't know if you ever saw The Innocence, it's a black and white movie based off of Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

Yeah, she's she's a governess.

She goes and lives at the mansion with these kids.

And that's a great movie.

We should review that movie on here.

Sometimes this is a little after thing.

Yeah, it's a great movie.

Have you ever read Turn of the Screw?

I have it?

I have it.

Though, we should review that.

Perhaps we should review that next, because that is a that's a gothic.

It is, it's gothic.

Is a gothic horror, gothic suspense.

It's just straight up gothic.

I would say gothic.

It's debatable.

It could be gothic horror, it could be gothic suspense.

There is supernatural in it.

There's a supernatural.

Okay, well yes, and no, don't spoil.

It already yet.

Well, speaking of supernatural, this is why we chill is this book because we've been talking about trying to find the supernatural gothic and this one touted supernatural.

It looked like it was gonna happen.

Yeah it did.

Yeah, we're not there yet.

We're not there yet.

And Sharon isn't at the at the mansion yet.

Well, she's at the train station.

She's she's answered a letter from from this guy named Craig who's requested a governess, and so she submitted her resume just like we all do nowadays.

You submit your resume hope you get the job.

So she sees that there's a request for this governess job and the governess is going to be taking care of this man, this man's daughter named Cassie.

So she submits her resume and as the book begins on the first page, she's been accepted.

And she hasn't even met the family or anything.

She just got word of her resume was accepted and she's got the job.

So she arrives by train at the train station right outside of town, and she's kind of anxious because she doesn't the family.

She doesn't know anything about them.

She just knows she's going to go there and get a brief interview and then probably just go straight to work.

But there she ends up meeting as servant of her childhood home named Marshall, and Marshall caes her and because Sharon and she's like Marshall, and she now realizes that for meeting Marshall that she's going to be returning to her childhood home, the Pillars, which is what it was called.

Oh yeah the Pillars.

I France mentioned that, Yeah, she's going to be working at her childhood home, which is kind of a tough thing to do really.

Yeah, it would be.

And she's instantly like, oh no, I'm not doing this.

Yeah, and then Marshall convinces her like, you've got to come meet this girl.

She needs you.

Yeah, And I think that really sets up the whole reason of why why she stays through all this turmoil that she's about to go through.

Yeah, because you think about it, She's returning to her childhood home where her mother died, her father died, the house got sold off.

I mean, imagine growing up in this full plantation and then losing everything and then they're like, hey, we want you to come here and and act as a as an a police this house that you no longer own or live in.

So but so anyway, so she so, yeah, she she gets on the on the on the ride there with Marsha when he takes her to the house, and what happens.

What happens We meet the family the Boma.

Yes, yeah, so we got we got the dad Craig.

Yeah, he's a.

He's a gentleman.

He's a southern gentleman.

Yeah, very professionally loves his daughter and he's very excited that Sharon is there to help out.

And then we got then then we got Emily, his wife.

She does not love the daughter.

No, she does not love Craig.

Craig, she doesn't really like people or like being alive.

I guess I don't know.

She doesn't.

Yeah, you're right.

She doesn't love herself.

Yeah, she doesn't love Craig.

She doesn't love Cassie.

She doesn't love herself, but she does love her her sister, Emily.

I know.

Her sister is Sarah.

Sarah, that's right, Yeah, Emily is is who we're talking about.

Yeah, Sarah Sarah.

If you thought, yeah, if you thought, you met Emily and you're like, oh damn, this is terrible, and they're like, well, check this out.

Here's Sarah one of the most absolutely miserable people ever.

Yeah, she's absolutely a terror.

And yeah, she's awful.

And then there's also sporadically going in and out of the house is Craig's brother.

His name is Bart and they and they say at the beginning I think in the first chapter that he's a gambler.

Yeah, a lot of.

So we don't.

We don't.

She doesn't meet bart yet, she just knows of him.

Yeah.

And then of course there's the daughter of Cassie, who's very was she excited at first?

I know, she like instantly is like, yeah, Cassie isn't all that excited about Sharon's arrival because and she explains later on, I don't know if you many tell that part now or not, but so she when Sharon goes up and she meets the family, she goes up to get introduced to Cassie and they spend a little time together, and Cassie explains that anyway, we already had two teachers but they quit because of the ghosts, and Sharon's like, oh, that's just you just have a crazy, make believe imagination, like you know, there's no such thing.

And she's like, no, there were two people here before you that had the same job, and they've all been ran out of the house because of the ghost.

And then Cassie says that the ghost touches her sometimes and that you can't actually see the ghost, but she's there.

And then.

Sharon tells Cassie that there's some childhood books up in the attic.

She asked if she's ever been up there to check out the attic, and Cassie says no, And Sharon's like, hey, there's a lot of my childhood looks up there in a drawer, and I'll go with them for you.

So she goes up to the attic and when she's in the attic, she hears this female voice call her name, and you know, and to set the atmosphere of this place, this place has seventeen rooms, nick five bathrooms.

It's got two drawing rooms.

It's got a library, a conservatory, a ballroom, dining room, breakfast room, kitchen.

It's a charming abode.

It's the house from Clue.

Right.

Yes, well it's your typical, you know, huge, huge, wealthy family house.

It's your typical murder mystery house.

Murder mystery house.

Yeah, it's perfect.

Now.

Then there's also.

Some talk, I guess in I think this first chapter, there's some talk about a girl named Janelle who was apparently attacked by dogs.

But we don't know the whole story yet, but this plays a huge part in the book.

Yeah, Cassie mentions it that her.

What would it be her cousin, her aunt, because it's the niece of the mom and the sister.

I guess it would be her first cousin.

Yeah.

So she was nineteen year old woman that was living there when they first bought the house, and she was killed by wild dogs.

Torn apart, Yeah, torn apart by the dogs.

They let you know that it was brutal and wild dogs.

Yeah.

And then there are some people in the house that that Sharon remembers and knows, like, for example, Floe Crawford, who is the she's the cook, she's the servant, she's kind of the head of the servants at the house.

And Flow and Sharon knew each other from the previous Sharon's previous life there, so it Flows the nice lady.

She's sort of the ally here, so she's kind of she's kind of cool.

E.

I don't know how far you want me to go with this.

You've got notes that I do.

But well, well, first we got after hearing this story from Cassie.

You know, Sharon doesn't really believe it, but she did hear those.

Yeah, she did hear her name being called, and she goes out into the the family cemetery where her parents are out in the lawn.

Yes, which technically she still owns.

Yes, it was part of the deal that she this is really her cemetery.

So out there is mom and dad, and then surprised they also buried Janelle there, which they weren't supposed to.

Yeah.

Yeah, Sharon explains to them, Hey, look in the in the settlement, she was heir to the grape the grave site, so she has a say so one who gets buried there, And they buried Janelle there without telling her, So that's why they had to tell her kind of about the situation.

Else they're just like, hey, f off, we're not telling anything.

But it's like, hey, I gotta note, I gotta know why this strange one is buried there.

Yeah.

While she's out there, she hears her name again.

Yes, but it's not it's not threatening, it's just you know.

Yes, I'll say.

When she comes back inside, she has a long conversation with Craig and he does the unexpected.

He actually confirms mm hmm, Okay, yeah there is a ghost, and.

Yeah there is a ghost, and yes, Janelle was ripped apart by wild dogs.

And by the way, you aren't just selected for your talent and skill and your resume.

We picture for a reason.

Yeah, we know who you are.

We think it's your mom that's tormenting us, the ghost of your mom.

So if we bring you here, maybe the ghost will go away.

Yeah.

And Sharon's like, I'm just leaving, like I don't want to have any part of this, Like you're absolutely insane.

All of you are insane.

But then you know, but because she's hearing her name spoken by a ghost, She's like, Okay, but wait, maybe I should stay.

Yeah for mom.

I gotta stay for mom, And I gotta stay for this, for this little girl because her mom sucks.

Yeah.

And this whole time through these first two chapters, Sarah and Emily are ghastly like they're just the worst humans Towards Sharon.

They degrade her and kind of make fun of her, poke at her.

They tell her that she's not wanted, she's definitely not supposed to be around Cassie or Craig, like they hate her, like with a passion.

Yeah, they blame her for the ghosts, even though the the ghost was around before came back.

Yes, so it's not just you know, these ghostly whispers, which would be fine.

If there was just ghostly whispers, that's no big deal.

But there's all out attacks, there's screaming ghosts.

Now while Sharon and the family are sitting around talking about it.

Yeah, coincidence, vases get thrown across the room like stuff gets smashed.

It gets crazy.

Yeah, it gets escalated from like the first twenty minutes of Poltergeist to like the middle half of poulter Ghost.

So I have a question for you here is what did you think of this, this first encounter with the violent ghosts.

Yeah, because the things that are being picked up and thrown kind of kind of led me to believe that maybe there is a ghost because there's going to be a lot of mechanical stuff that's going to be happening in eighteen ninety or whatever to make things fly off like that.

I mean, you would have to have a lot of explanation.

Like I'm thinking, oh, well, it's probably one of the sisters behind a wall or something with a rope and they're making I was like, there's no way that's gonna fly.

This must be a ghost, like it literally ghost throwing stuff.

Yeah, then it led me to believe, like maybe instead of a ghosts.

Maybe it was a telekinetic power that one of the people in the house had.

What did you think?

I thought that the whisper ghost was real, and I thought that the other one was a setup because we still haven't met what was his name, Bart?

Yeah, Bart, Yeah, we still haven't met Bart yet.

Now this stuff is going crazy while he's not there, So there's someone missing, and I don't know, just stuff.

Usually ghosts are more subtle, yeah, or at least, like you said, this is the beginning of poultry Geist and then the end like there was no between, there was no build up, and I was like, this is just too crazy.

This has gotta be a human being.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking.

And and then as chapter three things it's classic Gothic suspense gaslighting because Sarah comes upstairs and she's like, Sharon, we're so sorry.

We've behaved awful.

We really do appreciate you being here, and we really want you to stay.

Please stay, We'll be better now.

It's a classic gaslighting, and Sharon's like, I don't know, like this is all just so weird.

And then later in that chapter, Sharon and Craig have a sort of a heart and heart conversation, and then we learn, well, I should say during the ghost attack, Sharon notices that Craig goes to comfort Sarah, but Sarah like slides all the way to the other side of the couch and.

Won't go near him.

Emily his wife, Emily, Yeah, I keep saying, Sarah.

It gets It's confusing because they don't name Emily for a little while, she was missus Beaumont.

Yeah.

Yeah, So Craig goes to his wife and she slides all the way down the couch to get away from him, Like she don't even be touched by him.

So he tells her in chapter three like, hey, Emily and I don't have a good relationship.

Emily does, really, you know it doesn't.

We just don't have a good relationship because because Sharon's like, what's up?

You know, why?

Why?

Why didn't Why is she acting like that?

And then in chapter three she also meets Bart.

Yeah, she's uh.

She comes out of her room and he like tacks her, Like right, what is that was such a weird?

Yeah, he was just like hovering in the hallway just waiting for her to come out.

I thought he like put his hand over her mouth.

And was like he did quiet, Yeah, don't tell anyone, I'm here.

Yeah, it was weird.

Yeah, I don't know really why he did that, but yeah, but she.

Is like, ah, you jerk.

And then he's like we want you want some coffee and she's like okay.

Sure likes him because he's really charming.

He's a he's a gambler, playboy, good looking.

He is like a younger version of Craig the Dad.

Yeah he is.

So there we have kind of like we have all the players, we have the setup, so we have so now we have our mystery, like what you know, why is this really a ghost?

Why is Emily and Sarah like that?

Why aren't they the way they are?

Why doesn't Emily care about her own daughter?

Yeah?

I was like, what's going on there?

Maybe it had something to do with the dead girl and the cemetery or something, right, you know, is there a love triangle that gone gone bad?

Yeah?

Well it seems like there's a lot of bad people in the house in a way because Flow that morning.

The next morning, she warns Sharon that Bart is a bad person, like he's a scoundrel.

She tells him he's a dirty scoundrel.

Yeah, and to stay away from him.

So and then Sharon's like, wait a minute, So Sarah's a bad person, Emily's a bad person.

Bart's apparently a bad person.

Like there's it's starting to show through that Craig is like really the shining light here, Craig, Craig and Cassie are great.

Yeah, and she wants to leave, but she stays for one her mom.

If her mom is really upset, she wants to put her at ease.

And then and then Cassie the daughter.

She can't just leave this poor girl with these horrible people.

Right, Yeah.

And then Sharon and and Craig have another heart's a heart conversation, but it's more of like a deep discussion about Cassie and all the things that are happening there with the ghost.

And I could tell, like just from their conversation that they have a mutual respect for each other, Like Craig really respects Sharon, and she really respects him as a dad, And even though he's having a bad relationship with his wife, she still respects him as a husband.

She could see that he's trying to run a business and trying to run a family, and he's got a lot on his plate.

Yeah, not to mention having a stupid ghost hanging around all right the cook.

Do you remember what was the cook's saying, Flo Flow?

So Flow is like, oh, yeah, there's ghosts here, she tells Sharon, and then she's like, but they don't.

The ghost stuff doesn't happen after everyone goes to bed, and I was like, okay, well, then you're setting it up to to where it's not a ghost, right, So it's a little disappointed.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you make a good point there.

And you know, once again, I'm gonna bring up Scooby Doo.

I know you like to point out that I bring up Scooby Doo, but it is it's legit, Like it feels like an episode of Scooby Doo where someone's got to costume bon and they're trying to scare people away, yeah, from the house for some monetary purpose, like they want to buy the land or yeah.

Yeah, it was kind of like maybe Bart is teaming up with somebody to do that, and oh, I guess we should mention I don't know if you want to mention it here or not, but about Sarah and her fascination with Bart.

Oh yeah that.

Yeah, man, she's in love with Bart.

Yeah yeah, she is, like badly, and he wants nothing to do with her.

No, who would.

He doesn't like her, he doesn't like her at all, And she's like obsessed with Bart.

She wants him badly.

Yeah yeah, so's she already didn't like Sharon.

And the second that Bart shows even the tiniest little attention to Sharon, she's even worse.

Now.

Yeah, she's let me go get another gallon of gas and throw it on this fire.

But then we get to the nighttime and Sharon decides.

After there her discussion with Craig about things happening and kind of getting a little bit of new respect for him, Sharon goes for a walk at night, which this is typically in Gothic suspense.

This is where something major is going to happen, like the character is going to get run over by a horse or or attempted to get run over by a horse, or falls down a well or something sinister.

But she just goes for a walk and she ends up meeting Craig outside and they talk some more and they discuss Bart's idea.

Bart has this idea of getting to the heart of the matter, and how's Bart want to get to the heart of the matter.

What does he want to bring in?

He wants to bring in a medium.

Yeah, but it's his.

Friend, Yeah, guy named John, John Mackie Mackie.

Yeah, and he's mentioned it before before Sharon showed up, but no one was into it, especially Emily and Sarah.

Yeah.

And then yeah, like Sharon and Craig talk a little bit more about that, but like, hey, you know, Bart's got this idea about this medium and they talk about it and I can't just remember it.

Do they decide that they're going to pursue the medium based on their conversation?

I don't remember.

I think it was brought up.

And then the stuff with the ghost on the stairs happens.

Yeah, yeah, Well, well, when they come back from the from the walk, they end up going back to the house together, even though they didn't leave together, Like Craig was just out walking by himself.

Then he just met Sharon who just happen to be walking by herself.

But when they come back to the house, Sarah's there, and Sarah's like, oh, I see what's happening.

You're both out on a midnight walk together.

She's like, I'll be sure to go tell Emily about this.

Yeah, And Craig's like, don't even bother, I'll go tell her right now, right just to get you out out of the picture on this rumor that you're going to propose, I'll just tell her right now.

I hate Sarah so much.

Yeah, kick her out of the house, Craig, what are you thinking?

Well, then you get to that part where you're talking about, because that night, I think Sharon hears like some screaming or something and she goes out the hallway.

Yeah, it's a there's a vase that's smashed downstairs, and then she goes Yeah, she goes out of her room and she's going down the stairs and there's a ghostly.

Mist, yeah, gray mist.

And and there you have a little another little gendre trope of the attack on the main character.

So there's a trap for Sharon on the stairs.

There is, but it's not the ghost like you would think it would be.

The ghost seems to be protecting her.

Yes, So they find so the family comes out, like Craig's out, Sarah's out, there's everyone kind of witnesses this ghost and everything.

And then there is little stones laid laid on the stairs.

Yeah, there's a trap.

For her, Yeah, for her to fall down the stairs and to get her out of the picture.

But the ghost kind of like keeps her from falling.

The ghost saves.

Her, which now says, Okay, maybe it is her.

Mother, right, maybe it is And yeah, maybe they the mom does want these people out of here.

She's sick of them.

It's like a beutle juice.

They're just really annoying people.

They just want them out of their house.

Yeah, and then we go back to more gas lighting because now Emily goes back up to Sharon after that whole incident and everything's going crazy, and she goes back to her and apologizes, please stay.

Now there's another attack though, there's they go downstairs to discuss.

The miss Yeah, and while.

They're sitting around and they're like, they describe the rocks, and Bart's like, all those are the rocks that I put around the jail's Janelle's grave, So why would they be out here on the stairs.

Yeah, that's right.

And you think it's random, but it's not.

It's not random.

It's not random.

And then uh, while they're discussing it, then there's another Uh, storm of ghosts and stuff gets smashed and and the ghost specifically targets Sarah.

Yeah, they're in her big mouth.

Yeah, shut up.

She won't leave everyone alone, and they like throws a chair or something at her.

Yes.

So at this point I was thinking that it may be Cassie's telekinetic power causing this.

Oh, that's what I was thinking.

Well, she's like, she's the one that's causing problems.

I want her to be gone, but I was wasn't sure.

And then you get the Then you get the gas lighting from Emily being Sharon Sharon to stay, and then Bart announces to the family that John Mackey, the medium, is going to be coming.

Yeah.

They're finally like, okay, it's time.

Yeah, I am to get my good buddy the medium in here.

Yeah.

Then chapter seven is the aforementioned medium seance.

Yeah.

Yes, and it's straight out of like a nineteen fifties movie.

Yeah, unseen yep.

The ghost is basically the ghost says in the seance.

The ghost says Sharon, Sharon, there's danger.

Oh, I'm trying to help my dear, my dear, and that's it.

That's all.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was good.

But Sharon immediately recognizes the voice as her mother's.

Yeah, that's my mom my, mommy.

Yeah.

I gotta say that some of this was like it's really obvious.

I was kind of bummed on the I was like excited that there was ghosts, but then it was just so.

Friendly, right, Yeah, it's a very friendly ghost.

Yeah.

It's kind of was ruining the spooky atmosphere.

And then I still thought that the the stuff being thrown was somehow a real person.

And yeah, like you said, is it Bart trying to take over because he's a gambler, he's probably in debt.

Yeah, so maybe he got together with this guy and they're going to try and scare him and somehow he's gonna get it or that's that's kind of what I thought was going on.

Yeah, because the ghostly stuff is just too ridiculous, Like when there's the ghost is screaming and it sounds like they're screaming Sharon.

Yeah, but it's so crazy that it's like I think it's Sharon.

Yeah, and the other ghost does stay Sharon.

Right.

So yeah, the medium, he's terrified, he's like nothing ever, nothing like that ever happened to me before.

And he runs out into the into the night.

He's out of there.

Yeah, yeah, he's gone.

And then I have here.

Chapter eight, Bart goes and talks to Sharon and he does the you know the kiss.

No, that's Craig.

Craig and an outburst kisses.

Sharon takes off to his library.

Bart talks Shannon into going in and telling Craig that it's all good, which she agrees with and does, and then everything is okay.

And then the next morning is when Bart tells Sharon, Hey, Craig's falling in love with you.

Yes, and let's plan a ball.

Let's have a ball.

Yeah, yeah, How are we going to fix all these problems that are going going on?

More people to the problem.

We need some joy in this house, that's the problem.

We're gotta have a giant ball there's a giant ballroom.

We're not even using it.

No, you get in there, dust it pull the the white sheets off of everything.

Nick, here's what they're doing.

They're gonna have a dance off.

That's what it is.

They're gonna solve every conversation with a dance off.

They're honestly, that would be amazing because at this point, I'm like, something different needs to happen because I'm kind of losing losing it here, right, yeah, because it's just the same thing up and number where it's like nice ghosts scary ghosts.

Yeah, and then there's not enough unfolding, right and you know, at least bring the dogs back in.

What's up with those those killer dogs?

And they do?

We get more, We get some killer dogs.

It kind of kicks it into gear here a little bit around ball time.

We definitely get some more dogs.

We're doubt about it.

So Sharon is like, oh, this is when she gets poisoned.

She's uh, she eats a cookie from the kitchen.

She goes upstairs and she's eating the cookie and she's like takes eats half of it and she goes, I don't feel good and throws or whatever.

Yeah, poison cookie.

Yeah.

We're like, okay, another human thing that's happened, like the stones on the stairs, like the stays on the stairs, is another human interaction that's caused this possible trap.

Right, So yeah, so now we have there's well she doesn't this kills me because she doesn't know that it's a poison cookie, which comes right, obviously, you were fine, you ate the cookie and then now you're throwing up yes.

Cookie.

And then a couple of nights later, she has some ham.

There's some ham left outside of her door, and she's like, oh, she left ham for me.

Yes, flow left ham for me, a plate of ham.

And but she's not hungry.

So she hears barking outside.

She sees the wild dogs running through the yard and she's like, I know what will make them go away.

I'm going to feed them this ham out in the door, and the dogs eat the ham.

And then the next day she goes for a walk and there's dead dogs littered throughout the estate.

Yeah, you know what could have killed these dogs?

Eric?

And then you realize that the food was.

Then yeah, So then she's like, oh it was it was poison.

She goes down to the plantation, I think to talk to Craig and she finds meat laying around.

Someone's feeding the dogs to keep them around.

And then she realizes that, you know what, Hey, maybe Janelle, maybe it wasn't random that she was killed.

Maybe someone murdered her.

They set her up to be eaten by wild dogs.

Yes, correct, And then we have a ball.

And then we have a ball.

Yeah.

In that instant with the poison attempt, Sharon, she does call out to the ghost.

She's like, help me.

Here with this, after I'm almost been murdered by poison.

But she does call out to her mom, which she thinks is the ghost.

She calls up to her mom, but she doesn't hear anything back.

It's just no response, all right.

So we're just gonna let you know right now that we're gonna spoil the ending of this book.

If you're planning on reading The Tormented, then stop watching now.

Maybe skip ahead.

I'll put the time stamps or whatever.

Yeah, because this ending is just too cherry not to talk about.

Eric.

Yeah, it was a dip into some pretty crazy waters.

So we got the ball.

There's a huge fight before the ball, but we we ball on.

So we're at the ball, they dance with each other angrily.

Sharon is like, you know what, I've had it.

I'm out of here.

She goes upstairs to go pack and to get the hell out of there, and who shows up at the door.

But it's Sarah and she's got a gun.

He's got a gun trained on Sharon.

Yeah, and she's not letting her out alive.

She's gonna march Sharon out the front door to be eaten by those wild dogs, which I was really hoping for us, man, I hope somebody is eaten by wild dogs.

And Emily comes in and is like, no, Sarah, we're not doing this, We're not killing Sharon.

And Sarah has cracks now and she admits that she was the one who killed Janelle because she loves Bart so he's getting Janelle out of the way.

And then after she admits it, then ghost Janelle shows up and attacks Sarah, and Sarah freaks out and runs outside, and Emily follows, and Sarah runs and jumps into the bayou why not and Sarah and Emily runs in after her to try to save her, and.

What happens They both drowned.

The Yeah, it was kind of like all this stuff that's happened in the house, with all the ghost stuff.

I mean, I get that this was a pretty big revelation or whatever, but to just run out and jump into a lake, this seemed kind of cop out.

I don't know, it's go jump in a lake.

It's yeah, what should we do with how should we end this?

They both go jump in a lake, And not only that, but a year later, Sharon and Craig get married.

Yeah, and they've got Cassie is basically their daughter and the marital daughter.

And the happy ending.

Yeah.

It takes me back to the beginning of this.

Conversation when we were talking about the Daniels sitting at lunch.

I mean, does Dorothy go, how do I kill off these two bad people in this house?

Damn'm jumping a lake, pass.

Me the sugar, you know or whatever, jumping a little Yeah, maybe I can do that this afternoon.

I'll work on It's like, yeah, the wild dogs is definitely Norman was put in some more wild dogs.

Yeah.

I think the wild dogs do burst into the house again.

I think the door gets open and wild dogs run in, and then Sarah runs out of the house.

I remember, but something like I know the dogs are there, and she runs and jumps into the Yeah, into the bayou.

Man.

I thought it was kind of cool at the end when they hear the noises outside or whatever, and someone goes and opens the door and those dogs are there and they're coming in, and then they start shooting.

I think they used a shotgun or something and shoots two dogs at least Oh, yeah, yeah, killing.

I was like that was kind of.

It was kind of ominous that they heard the knocking outside and they're like, now confronting this evil I guess in a way, and they end up shooting those.

Dogs, right.

Yeah.

At the same time, though, I almost had throughout this book with all the talks of the dogs outside and stuff, it kind of reminded me a little bit of Sherlock Holmes Hound of Baskerville with the dog talk, you know, because they were like the hound, the hound did this, the hound did that.

Oh yeah, I.

Can't go out at night on the moors because the hound.

It kind of reminded me a little bit of that too interesting.

I was just I was watching that last night actually coincidentally, the Basel Bone, the Basil raft Bone version.

Yeah, I hear he's the best Sherlock Holmes, I think so.

Yeah, but I don't know, I haven't watched a lot of it.

I don't know much about Sherlock Holmes.

Yeah.

So yeah.

The ending, the ending is that are the are the ghosts real?

Eric?

Were they real?

Yeah?

Most definitely?

Yeah, They're real, Yeah, most definitely.

And I yeah, I think it was just as I saw it.

It was the the mom ghost was the nice one the angry ghost was Janelle.

Yeah, the attempts on her life as far as the rocks and the poison were sarah mm hmm.

It was all pretty I don't know, pretty face value there.

It was the mystery kind of fell fell apart after the medium, I think I was like, Okay, I got it now.

Yeah, So before we bring on our little tests here to determine if this was a gothic Uh, did you enjoy the book?

What were your Did you enjoy the book overall?

I did until the part where I said that something needs to change.

I was like okay, and I was also disappointed because I wanted it it.

Yeah, it had ghosts, but I mean was it creepy at all?

Were the ghosts parts creepy?

It's just the parts where it was like the violent poultry geist was just so over the top that I was like, this is too much.

This isn't this isn't ghostly anymore.

It doesn't have that feel to it.

So it was kind of a difficulty in that aspect.

Yeah.

In her book, Images of a Ghost is kind of the same thing.

There's a there's a spirit that keeps haunting the house.

There's a ghost and they're like they're trying to determine if it's real or not.

It wasn't real in that book.

It was all like a I don't know, projector or something.

But it was kind of silly.

But this book, the only scary part for me really was this at the very beginning, when she's in the attic looking for those books and she hears the voice.

I was like, oh.

I was like, and I think I sent you a text and said, oh, I'm on like page fifteen.

This is kind of creepy.

But that was it.

Then it kind of went away.

The idea of the menacing dogs outside sort of had like a you know, a nineteen seventies early eighties, you know, when animals attack, feel like the pack or something like that.

So I kind of I kind of like that part of it.

But like you said, I started to get bored with this book.

I read it in about two days, but I started getting bored after the recycled chapters.

You know, something happens, they talk about it, there's gas lighting, back to square one, have breakfast start over again, some great, some stupid thing happens.

It started getting really repetitive.

Yeah, there was no resolution along the way.

There was nothing happening.

It was just saying back and forth and back and forth.

Yeah, and it was kind of throwing like there was just so much shade on Sarah right at the beginning that it's not like it was built up to be, Oh, she's the villain, surprised, Like yeah, of course from the first sentence, the moment you meet her, you're like, yeah, she's the villain.

She's terrible.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know for me.

You know, if I was rating this like zero to five, I would say, like maybe two point seventy five.

Maybe it's just slightly above average.

Yeah, but I mean it's still just going through the motions for the most part.

Yeah, And if she was going through the motion, if the author was going through the motions like this, I could see her turning out one hundred fifty books in ten years, because there really is a whole lot.

Of substance here.

Yeah, there's a lot of recycled things for a majority of the of the book.

And you know, and it kind of something you and I talked about before we even started this courted interview was like your modern TV shows like you see on like Amazon and Netflix and Hulu where they have like twelve episodes and they're all like forty nine minutes each.

Man you get into like episode three, five, seven, nine, whatever, it's just boring nonsense.

There's just people talking in a room and then going to another room to talk.

Nothing actually happens.

So it's always been my theory is like on those shows, they come up with a beginning and they come up with an end, and they're like, just fill in the rest because we only had about two hours of story here.

It's what it is.

Yeah, because I don't make movies, don't make money anymore like they used to, so they just stretched it out into like the whole season.

Season.

It probably would have been a great movie if you wouldn't have stretched it out into these twelve hour long episodes.

Yeah, I've watched so many of them that I posted on my own Facebook recently.

I was like, I'm just done.

I don't want to watch any more of this garbage.

No, I don't care how great the trailer looks, and I don't care or how great the first episode is.

You know, by episode three is just gonna be dialogue, nonsense, nonsense for forty five minutes, and you're gonna get four minutes of actual Hey, we're gonna propel the story now with these four minutes.

Yes, I'm not into it.

I agree, thanks for tuning into grumpy old guys.

Yes, gosh, yeah, well man, I so agree with you.

I have such a hard time and my wife always wants to watch check out dor stuff.

Shes like, well what about this?

And like you said, it's like by the third episode, I'm like, okay, Like even if they nail, even if they're like this is good, Like the Stranger Things that first season was awesome, they did it, but after that, like the stories that, I don't know, it's over.

Man.

Yeah.

Now we got another season coming out, which it looks almost kind.

Of post apocalyptic.

I don't know.

I don't know what to make of it.

I'm not sure for all watch it or not.

I don't even know.

I think I only made it to like two maybe two a half seasons.

Yeah, there's nothing really all that original about any of it.

Yeah, upside down, it's just another just a parallel dimension like you see in all these Marvel movies, you know, alternate dimension.

And to be fair here we have the same complaints about this book that was written in nineteen what I say sixty four.

That is Yeah, It's just I think when you're just cranking out so many of these things that it just kind of gets a little watered down.

And yeah, and what are you gonna do with it?

I mean, does it deliver in the aspects of for the Gothic fans, I mean, yeah, kind of, but it has the they had to be getting getting tired of it getting a little stale.

I know, if you compare this to the shadow guest that the first one we did, remember the Hillary Woe one, Oh yeah, yah, yeah, Well, it has the ghostly things that happen.

It's while he's upstairs.

Yeah, and it's just a couple of noises downstairs and he runs down.

There's nothing there.

See someone out out in the field, maybe a shadow goes out there, there's nothing there that is creepy.

That was great.

That was great ghosts atmosphere, even though it wasn't didn't turn out to be a ghost.

I thought that that had what I was looking for as far as supernatural ghostly, and I just thought that this kind of ruined it by going full full create full poltergeist.

Yeah.

Oh, I think the difference is, you know, you look at something like Hillary Wall.

He's a master storyteller.

He studied his craft and he didn't write a lot of books.

I mean he wrote he I mean he wrote a lot of books, but he didn't write like these, you know, one hundred and fifty books.

And what he did write, I think he spent a lot of time with and I think from what I researched with him on my podcast was he would study detective stuff and he would study police procedurals and he would he would.

He would fine tune the storytelling.

Where you have someone like Dorothy Daniels, and really Norman Daniels gets the same kind of criticism.

He was a guy who wrote for quantity.

He was writing to pay the mortgage.

They both were, and they didn't spend a lot of time on their craft.

It was just a lot of people would consider Norman Daniels to be like C grade literature.

But you know, you and I like C grade literature, Yes we like it.

But when we when we say, hey, Norman Daniels wrote The Man from Ape and then you say, well, compare that to Donald Hamilton who wrote Matt Helm Well, This Night and dayly different things.

You know, Norman daniels Is is very pedestrian, and you know, uh, Donald Hamilton.

Is is a spot on like he's he's got a he's got a great.

Uh talent, So he kind of kind of look at that that way when you look at somebody like like the one we were going to do a couple of weeks ago, Like Michael Aavaloni when he's writing his Dead Win in Noon.

Like that guy, even though he wrote a lot of garbage, I mean when he was on, when he was really on and when it was really passionate about something he could write, and he wrote really well, and with his Gothics from what I've read, are really really good.

So I think I think we're running into like the pedestrian level Gothic, which I think William Ross is very pedestrian.

And we haven't really read him together, but I've read a lot of his books and it's very pedestrian.

But it's enjoyable.

Yeah, it's a popcorn movie basically.

Yeah, I think it was with so many books.

I mean, they're not all going to be the right stand out, but you know when they do hit that charm.

I mean that one the Maya Temple, you know, Maya Temple is charming as hell, like original great.

I mean, it's from the same era that she was writing.

She just you know, what are you gonna do?

Hit a whole mine, every every app bat Yeah.

I mean, I would recommend this book to readers.

I think you're enjoying it.

I think it's a great way to It's like lesson to her pages.

You're not going to spend weeks in this book.

You can read a couple of days and and it's a good escapism.

Who doesn't want to go to the big seventeen room mansion for a couple of nights?

Yeah, in the bayou, wild dogs outside, Yeah, apparitions.

Yeah, So do you want to put it to the test.

Let's put it to the Gothic litmus test.

Ignore all those other gothic podcasts and their means of determining gothicness.

Yeah, all those guys.

This is the number one.

We invented.

It the only one that matters Gothic litmus test.

So we got cover art.

Do we have a woman running from a house?

I guess we'll go off of mine?

Is that all right?

But what's yours?

Does yours have a woman running from a house?

Yeah, there's a light on.

Oh man, I don't know, so which what do we go?

What do we go for?

Here?

I mean it looks like she's kind of running yours is running, so you know she's sitting in a chair.

Maybe she's about to get up and start running.

Kind of does look like that?

Yeah, I would say yeah, because I mean there's the light on back there.

And with this, with this one, it looks like she's in motion.

Yeah.

And that is the first I think that's the first edition to we'll give it to us.

And it does say paperback library Gothic by the way, because we were wonder if it's a Gothic suspense, but.

Oh yeah, yeah, mine says Mine just says gothic.

It's it's a Warner Warner Books.

And by the way, mine's right.

My book is right off of Uh.

I ain't ashamed.

My book is right off archive dot org.

Just downloaded that pdf right off there.

That's cool.

There's a I just saw a ghostly hand open your door back there.

Yeah, that's that is That is the nice Sarah.

That's my wife Sarah.

She's nice, not like the means Sarah Eric.

Yeah, and I I tell her about all the gothic books.

That well, I pretty much tell her about all the books I read.

And I told her about the gothic book, this gothic book, and she figured it out.

Like I was halfway through it.

I was like, tell me how this book ends, and she always figures it out.

She knew.

She knew that Sarah and Emily were headed down to the bayou.

Yes, She's like, they're they're in like some kind of plot.

They've done something bad and they're going to continue to do something bad because they're behind it.

I was like, well, kind of sort, I guess.

But yeah, yeah, all right.

So we got yours has one light on, right, yeah, one light.

Mine has candles, but there's three of them.

We'll give it to you.

We'll give it to you the original, that's right.

And then we got our themes.

We got a stranger in a strange land.

Oh, this one's hard.

That's not the case in this one.

She's not in a strange land.

No, she's not.

She's very aware, very familiar.

Is there gas lighting?

Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, plenty of that.

We got a handsome man with questionable motives.

Yeah, because we got but Craig is like he has he doesn't have questionable motives.

No, big bad Bart does though, and he's a handsome guy.

He's a man with a slow hand.

Didn't you say that joke last time I did.

I'm gonna I'm gonna insert slow hand in every episode.

I'm gonna be like Seinfeld with Superman.

It's gonna be in every episode.

Slid in there, all.

Right, I'll try to point it out next time.

Do we have romance?

I thought so.

I felt that the little little bit of chemistry between Sharon and Craig.

I thought you could cut it.

With a knife.

That was romantic.

I didn't think there was romance at all.

M M.

That's okay, we can I think we can probably score it as no romance and probably still gonna win.

Here.

We'll split it, We'll split it.

Was there mystery, Yeah, plenty of that, plenty of mystery and suspense, hints of the supernatural.

Yeah.

So then we have the job where do we I have literally nurse type job written down?

Governess governess, governess for sure.

And then we got the isolated setting yep, and not yeah.

Not only is it like eleven miles out from the big easy, they're kind of trapped with the whole dog thing going on, even though they're not trapped.

You kind of get that in the back of your mind.

Yeah, no doubt said, don't go out, don't go outside the dogs.

And then we have the the atmosphere.

Does it have got gothic atmosph fear?

Hmm, that's a good question.

Well, I mean he does.

The author does take the time to describe the seventeen rooms and all those things to give us a big, cavernous place to explore.

There is the cemetery scene.

I think there's a few there's a few scenes that are more gothic, but most of it is like just daytime.

Yeah, talking about things, I mean the part where the dogs are running and she looks out her window at night, the part where it's in the middle of the night and she's going down the stairs.

That is that's really that's very gothic.

Yeah, I think it had some atmosphere, the addict scene in particular.

Yeah, yeah, I think I think that works.

All right, we'll give it some one, two, three, four, ten.

I thought I had eleven questions, but we got ten this time.

Are you sure poisonous did have poison and his cookies wasn't.

On there on the goyic.

Did the book contain poisonous cookies?

Poisonous cookies?

We could add one aspect from every book that we read, probably should emergency bathroom bathroom stop.

Yeah, yeah, no bathroom, no bathroom stuff other.

Than yours, like like and Diamond's editors should have done yes, right, No, no, that was my favorite part of that book.

Who we getting Yeah, yeah, that was a real highlight of the year.

Honestly, So this does past the litmus test to got ten out of twelve.

I don't know something like that.

I think you I said it had less romance than you did.

I gave it a zero for romance.

You said, yes, yeah, so your score is a little higher in the Gothic litmus boss cookies check.

I wrote it down.

I'll add it to the list.

Yeah, yeah, I think that we officially recommend The Tormented by Dorothy Daniels.

Yeah, I can do that in good faith.

I think it would be a good place for someone who wants to know what the genre is like to.

Maybe maybe we thought it was a little boring because we've read a few of them now, yeah, maybe we're a little let down for that.

But if you read this first you'd be like, oh, I get it now, I get what this is about.

For our next book.

I don't know turn it are we doing?

Are we doing?

We're doing Gothic suspense or Gothic romance, but we're not doing just straight up gothic.

So I don't know if the Turn of the Screw would really fit.

Does it fit any of the tropes?

Yeah, yeah it does.

You've got a big house, you've got a governess coming to uh a strange land to take care of kids.

You've got hints of the supernatural.

I don't think there's any romance at all.

There's zero.

I don't think there's any gat well, no, I don't think there's gas lighting because most because most of the book is is going to be her and these two, these twins.

That's that's like the parents are just gone.

They're leaving her in charge of their their twins while they're gone.

So she's in this big house with.

These two kids.

Yeah, there's hints of ghosts similar to this, where the kids are like, I think the ghosts have ran off the other teachers and the parents are like, it's just because the kids are tormenting the the governess.

But then the Governess is like, wait a minute, there are things happening here that hear bizarre.

Yeah, let's do it.

I mean, plus I already own it, so bonus.

Yeah, there you go.

If you look at the tour version of it, there's a tour paperback that's got a girl running from a ghost.

Oh nice, but she's very gothic romance looking.

There's a couple other book covers that kind.

Of have the same thing.

But it would be cool to do the book and then also the movie The Innocence, which is based.

Off of it, The Innocence.

Yeah, but I don't know where we would get The Innocence.

How old is it?

It's probably on YouTube.

It's a black and white movie.

It's nineteen sixty one.

The Innocence, Yeah it is.

It is on YouTube four K enhanced.

Is it free?

It's free.

I'm watching it right now.

Yeah, it's free.

Nice.

This guy says it's the best ghost story ever committed to film, hands down.

The foreboding atmosphere and it practically drips off the screen.

I'm in Yeah, I'm just look at that screenshot.

There.

There you go.

How gothic is that?

That's cool?

Yeah, let's do it.

They're calling it a Gothic psychological horror, but I don't know it's I think it fits this.

We'll probably do that for January, since holiday season December.

People don't really man, I really care too much about our gothic talking December.

I don't know what that's when people go crazy for Gothics.

During the holiday season.

Well, it's definitely not in the middle of summer.

No, we can try it.

Yeah, you can try it, all right.

So, yeah, we're gonna call it there.

Uh be on the lookout for our next episode, Turn of the Screw.

Henry James.

I think Henry James.

Yeah, he wrote wrote that I don't know literature.

Yeah, Henry Jane.

All right, there we go.

We're gonna be doing that one.

And thanks everyone for sticking around.

Thanks everyone for tuning in.

We love doing these and we love that people are watching them.

It's very exciting, exactly.

Yeah, thanks for watching, appreciate it, Thanks for listening.

If you're listening to on Paperback Worry podcast, thanks for tuning in to another conversation with Dick the book Graveyard.

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