📚 Ruling the box office

S. M. Hallow is the author of The Halls of the Dead, out this week from Harper Voyager. Below, Hallow recommends three queer historical gothic novels. The Wives of Herrick Hall by Julie Lew: In 1799, a disgraced young woman becomes the companion to a Lady in the isolated Herrick Hall. Lady Blake suffers from nightly visions of her impending death, and Herrick Hall is haunted by its previous mistresses. If you’ve longed for a sapphic take on Rebecca or Jane Eyre, and if you like ghosts, family secrets, curses, and forbidden love, this is perfect for your TBR. The White North Has Thy Bones by Dorian Ravenscroft: After returning to London from a dangerous arctic voyage in 1860, one of the five surviving sailors murders his family… but says it was not of his own free will. When he’s hanged, a journalist tracks down two of the other surviving sailors, one of whom is a psychic medium who claims the Arctic granted him otherworldly powers. If you like toxic gays, ghosts, and humans who make desperate choices in even more desperate situations, you can’t miss this book, out October 22. The Halls of the Dead by S. M. Hallow: In a magical version of 1849 London, a witch missing a piece of her ...