7 more Lush and Atmospheric Books

It’s no secret I love lush and atmospheric books with a gothic bent. I can’t get enough.

Here are more lush, moody, gothic, and atmospheric books for your TBR pile. Note, some of these books were published in 2019 or 2020, but they’re new to me.

Long ago Miren O’Malley’s family prospered due to a deal struck with the mer: safety for their ships in return for a child of each generation.

But for many years the family have been unable to keep their side of the bargain and have fallen into decline. Miren’s grandmother is determined to restore their glory, even at the price of Miren’s freedom.

A spellbinding tale of dark family secrets, magic and witches, and creatures of myth and the sea; of strong women and the men who seek to control them.

Sometimes a fox is not a fox, and a man is not what he seems.

When Lachlan, the golden Prince of Faeries, is transformed into a fox and banished from the forest on the eve of his mother’s funeral, the last creature he expects to seek help from is a human. 

But Sorcha Darrow is not so easily enchanted by the wily faerie. Only after discovering her father means to marry her to a wealthy Londoner does she decide to help him, seeking the power of a being even Lachlan is wary of: a kelpie. In finding one Sorcha hopes that she may just avoid her own dire fate in the process.

With Sorcha’s dreams being their only true form of communication, Lachlan has to race against time to break his curse and take his place as king before he’s doomed to live as a fox forever. 

Sometimes a villain is not a villain, and first impressions have to change…

When the disgraced kelpie of Loch Lomond, Murdoch, discovers a new threat to his homeland, he finds a loophole in his banishment to show up at Sorcha Darrow’s door. Despite initial misgivings about Murdoch’s plea for help, Sorcha quickly agrees to help the creature out of guilt for what she did to him two years ago in the faerie realm.

Lachlan, now the King of the Seelie Court, is less than happy about the kelpie’s reappearance by Sorcha’s side. Fuelled by jealousy and possessiveness he considers once more finding out his mortal paramour’s full name in order to take her away from Murdoch forever. 

But trouble is brewing between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts…

Sometimes protecting those we love means working with those we hate.

Seven years ago Sorcha saved the life of Lachlan, Crown Prince of the Seelie Court, and became the object of affection for the kelpie, Murdoch, who sought to best him and destroy the court from within.

Five years ago she saved them both from the wrath of the Unseelie king by giving up half her life.

Now it’s time to pay up.

The last thing Sorcha wanted was an immortal life, but now she may not have a choice in the matter. 

Once upon a time, a demon who desired earthly domination fathered an army of dark daughters to help him corrupt humanity . . .

As children, Goldie, Liyana, Scarlet, and Bea dreamed of a strange otherworld: a nightscape of mists and fog, perpetually falling leaves and hungry ivy, lit by an unwavering moon. Here, in this shadowland of Everwhere, the four girls, half-sisters connected by blood and magic, began to nurture their elemental powers together. But at thirteen, the sisters were ripped from Everwhere and separated.

To realize their full potential, the blood sisters must return to the land of their childhood dreams. But Everwhere can only be accessed through certain gates at 3:33 A.M. on the night of a new moon…On their eighteenth birthday, they will be subjected to a gladiatorial fight with their father’s soldiers. If they survive, they will face their father who will let them live only if they turn dark…

Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined.

Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading, and worshipping as they choose. By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough.

With gripping, immersive details and exquisite prose, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the previously unheard voices of two women of very different status and means. She evokes a vivid, ominous Plymouth, populated by famous and unknown characters alike, each with conflicting desires and questionable behavior.

A reimagining of Dracula’s voyage to England, filled with Gothic imagery and queer desire.

It’s an ordinary assignment, nothing more. The cargo? Fifty boxes filled with Transylvanian soil. The route? From Varna to Whitby. The Demeter has made many trips like this. The captain has handled dozens of crews.

He dreams familiar dreams: to taste the salt on the skin of his men, to run his hands across their chests. He longs for the warmth of a lover he cannot have, fantasizes about flesh and frenzied embraces. All this he’s done before, it’s routine, a constant, like the tides.

Yet there’s something different, something wrong. There are odd nightmares, unsettling omens and fear. For there is something in the air, something in the night, someone stalking the ship.

6 thoughts on “7 more Lush and Atmospheric Books

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