I was raised on a steady diet of gothic romance fiction—my mom and I can do a wicked impressions of the winds whistling down the Yorkshire moors and the waves crashing against the Cornish coast. Growing up, I read Frances Hodgson Burnett, the Brontë sisters and Daphne Du Maurier. Later, I discovered the works of Wilkie Collins, Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt (among others). I am a sucker for lonely, windswept landscapes, remote, mysterious mansions, smart, stubborn heroines, handsome, brooding heroes, family secrets, things that go bump in the night, ghosts… all the hallmarks of a good, Gothic tale. Lucky for me, this old fashioned genre has recently come back into vogue and many contemporary authors are putting their own stamp on it. Here’s an annotated list with some of my favorite classics and a sampling of some of my newer favorites. Settle in for a good story and get ready for some thrills, chills and just a little romance.