Scan barcode
A review by tears_into_wine
Gothic Tales of Haunted Love by Hope Nicholson, S.M. Beiko
4.0
Actual rating: 3,5 stars
Content warnings
Let's be honest, I didn't take notes on potential content warnings for this one. Please be aware that some (actually most, I think) of these stories deal with topics like death and violence and some are pretty graphic and/or emotionally intense. If anyone is interested, you can ask me, though! I'll have a look at the chapters again if someone needs a specific warning or something.
Disclaimer
I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.
My opinion
I really enjoyed this collection of short comic stories, even though comics are usually not my preferred genre. I picked it up for the awesome combination of gothic romance and diversity -- and I was not disappointed. The stories are racially diverse and feature several queer characters and relationships. It was nice seeing a new take on the gothic romance genre with more diverse characters, and mostly it was very well done in my opinion.
I loved the artwork itself in most of these stories, some very unusual drawing styles caught my eye, some more traditional styles were also featured and nicely done.
I personally would have loved the stories to be just a bit longer and more "complete", since some of them felt kind of rushed and incomplete to me, though I understand that short stories in an anthology cannot exceed a certain lenght.
My favorites in this anthology were "Secrets in the Silk" (focussing on female emancipation in Taiwan and a ghoste wife's wonderful revenge to her awful husband), "Minefield" (which I absolutely loved -- I mean, dorky, sweet ghost boyfriend??? HELLO -- even though it's mostly in Vietnamese which I don't understand), "L'heute verte" (aka queer black woman having a nice, flirty, classic paranormal moment), and "Fazenda do Sangue Azul" (aka a Black queer communist guy falling in love with a ghost guy).
All in all, I'd definitely recommend taking a look at this lovely collection if you're a) into comics, b) looking for diverse stories and/or c) a fan or gothic and paranormal love stories, tragic and kind-of-fluffy ones alike!
Content warnings
Let's be honest, I didn't take notes on potential content warnings for this one. Please be aware that some (actually most, I think) of these stories deal with topics like death and violence and some are pretty graphic and/or emotionally intense. If anyone is interested, you can ask me, though! I'll have a look at the chapters again if someone needs a specific warning or something.
Disclaimer
I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.
My opinion
I really enjoyed this collection of short comic stories, even though comics are usually not my preferred genre. I picked it up for the awesome combination of gothic romance and diversity -- and I was not disappointed. The stories are racially diverse and feature several queer characters and relationships. It was nice seeing a new take on the gothic romance genre with more diverse characters, and mostly it was very well done in my opinion.
I loved the artwork itself in most of these stories, some very unusual drawing styles caught my eye, some more traditional styles were also featured and nicely done.
I personally would have loved the stories to be just a bit longer and more "complete", since some of them felt kind of rushed and incomplete to me, though I understand that short stories in an anthology cannot exceed a certain lenght.
My favorites in this anthology were "Secrets in the Silk" (focussing on female emancipation in Taiwan and a ghoste wife's wonderful revenge to her awful husband), "Minefield" (which I absolutely loved -- I mean, dorky, sweet ghost boyfriend??? HELLO -- even though it's mostly in Vietnamese which I don't understand), "L'heute verte" (aka queer black woman having a nice, flirty, classic paranormal moment), and "Fazenda do Sangue Azul" (aka a Black queer communist guy falling in love with a ghost guy).
All in all, I'd definitely recommend taking a look at this lovely collection if you're a) into comics, b) looking for diverse stories and/or c) a fan or gothic and paranormal love stories, tragic and kind-of-fluffy ones alike!