A Delightful Dally in a New Genre

I have officially dipped my toe into a new genre: 'Gothic Romance'.

Know that this was a big step for me. I always used to envision creepy old houses and moldering estates whenever the word 'Gothic' was used. Or I'd think of some of my favorite architecture in Europe. Like this:

When put together with the word 'Romance', however, I summoned up a vision of something less edible; something like an emo-Twilight-Anne-Rice novel. Like this:










Now before you protest, I was corrected in my opinions on Anne Rice two years ago by the simple means of, who would have ever thought, actually reading a handful of her books--and loving them. It's about time I came to a correct vision of the Gothic Romance.

Lesson One: Don't make assumptions about genres unless you've already read something (and even better, several somethings) from that genre.

In this corner, weighing in at just under 300 pages and filling in for the genre of the Gothic Romance, stands Sea of Secrets by Amanda DeWees. Winner of the 2012 RONE award in mystery and a finalist in the 2013 Maggie Awards for Excellence in history, Sea of Secrets fits the bill even down to the very gothic cover, complete with moldering castle and dramatic heroine. Check and check. But what about the content? Well, that's where it all started for me...

I read a glowing review about this book just a couple of weeks ago. The review led to a link where I could read the first chapter, and the reviewer gushed over how DeWees had captured her imagination within the first five paragraphs, thus leading her to read the rest of the book in its entirety.

Ok, I thought. I'll bite. I just had to see what kind of five paragraphs had that sort of effect.

I read the first paragraph. Then the first page. I kept scrolling. By the time I hit the bottom of the excerpt, I blinked, had a moment of mental panic when I realized I wasn't getting any more, and then tapped the scroll-down button on my screen frantically, hoping I'd somehow overlooked the next scene. No such luck.

But...But! I want to know what happens!

Thus ensued a full-on, internal, creative tantrum. My muse shrank and suddenly became three years old. I had to know the rest of the story or my psyche would never let me forget it. Ever. It would become the kind of thing I woke up about thirty years down the road and regretted while I contemplated the turns I'd taken in life.

You think I'm exaggerating. But this really was the nanosecond response that occurred when I came to the end of that excerpt.

I got my hands on a copy of the book a few days later. I read it in a week.

Oriel Pembroke is our heroine: witty, smart, and charming within the first few sentences, she's the perfect guide through the dark mysteries and potential scandals that litter the pages of Sea of Secrets. Disinherited by her father after her brother's sudden and unexpected death, Oriel finds herself landed in the care of a family that has some potentially serious issues, including a brooding, handsome duke and a recently violent death. For all that, they're kind, generous, and loving people, making it seemingly impossible for them to be hiding anything in the cupboards other than the best port in the county.

Of course, I don't need to tell you that this does not to turn out to be the case. They do indeed have the best port in the cupboards. But other mysteries and conspiracies thrive between the pages, as well as a strong but twisting Shakespearean theme, and this Historical-Fiction Gothic-Romance kept me turning pages (and thinking about the story when I wasn't reading it) as nearly non-stop as I could manage.

Amanda DeWees has earned my hats-off as a writer and weaver of tales and has also changed forever my opinion on the Gothic-Romance.

Lesson Two: This is a dang good book.