Gothic Romance x Genre Romance: Two Takes on the Same Pairing

So, as I’m working on my current manuscript, a Louisiana Gothic novel tentatively titled The Casquette Rose, it’s come to my attention that I’ve done something similar before… in Carmilla’s Ghost, my second novel in The Adventures of Sam Hain. And what is it that I’ve done? Write Louisiana Gothic in both? No. What I’ve done is take the structure and movement of a traditional (18th/19th Century) Gothic Romance (which is what they were called then) and set it over the structure and movement of a contemporary genre romance.

Why did I do that? Two reasons: parallel structure and tension. The contemporary understanding of Romance as a genre came from the 18th Century Gothic novels. Those, however, tended to be creepy, slow-burn dreadful mysteries where some great sin was uncovered that would eventually end in some form of tragedy: damnation, death, loss, insanity, etc. Contemporary romances use a lot of the same beats and movement, albeit in a lighter form (dark romance excepted), with a plot that moves toward a love-filled Happily Ever After.

And that recognition struck a chord within my blackened soul. This could be a good source of tension in a book. The main characters seem to be a really great couple, they work together, but then a creeping sensation grows within the reader’s mind… but if they continue on this path, they’ll get together but one or both will be destroyed in the process.

Doomed love is horror.

Now, in Carmilla’s Ghost, I provided a Winter Holiday/Christmas, second-chance, sapphic, paranormal romance set in an isolated castle in the Austrian Alps where a murder mystery threatened the couple (Sam Hain and Carmilla) from rekindling their former romance and threatening either one or both of their lives.

As a note, I wrote three versions of this novel, and in two versions Sam and Carmilla did not rekindle their romance. Only in one version, which ended up being the version published, they did. So, in this instance, the struggle between the Gothic and the romantic ended with the romantic winning.

In The Casquette Rose, the tone is far darker than in Carmilla’s Ghost. Yet, the couple is just as loving and tender with each other. And yet there are darker forces at play as well as the tragedy of a moral absolutist in a world filled with shades of gray. I won’t say much more about this novel, as I’m currently drafting it, but I will say should there be a happily ever after, it will be one where the “happily” is heavily qualified by circumstance. Or it could be a romantic tragedy where goodness falls to circumstance…

But I will talk more of The Casquette Rose (or whatever the final title becomes) later.

-Robin