08-05-2008, 06:28 PM
I would have to say I am a closet gothic reader. I'm a guy in my late 40s, I read voraciously, everywhere I go I have a paperback with me, but I wouldn't be caught dead in public with a classic Golden Era gothic! The majority of my reading these days is hard core police procedurals and psychological thrillers, but usually about once a year I re-read a classic by Mary Stewart or Barbara Michaels. Mary Stewart is by far the better writer and storyteller, but Barbara Michaels is one of the few who had bona fide supernatural elements in her stories. I have a number of Victoria Holt novels but don't enjoy reading them because, to me, they are not Gothics, but historical novels with a bit of suspense.