Exclusive interview with author Laura Andersen discussing her new Gothic novel with castle murder mysteries separated by a hundred years
By Gabrielle Pantera
“I worshiped Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt,” says The Darkling Bride author Laura Andersen. “I was a huge reader of gothic suspense in my teens. And, I have continued to love the genre conventions of isolated manors, dark secrets, hints of the ghostly, and the curious outsider who drags everything into the light.”
Deeprath Castle in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland has been the home of the Gallagher family for seven hundred years. In 1880, gothic author Evan Chase goes to Ireland and winds up at Deeprath. There he falls in love with the daughter of the house, Lady Jenny Gallagher. When she dies unexpectedly she leaves behind her husband and child. Evan had been a well-known writer but he never wrote again after her death. That is where the legend of the Darkling Bride and the haunting of the castle starts.
In 2015, cold case detective Sibéal McKenna wants to know who killed the current Viscount’s parents. He and his sister Kyra were children when their parents both died. Their father died in the library. Their mother fell from the bride tower of the castle. Their deaths were violent and the case was never solved.
Both Aidan and his sister avoid the family castle. Aidan has decided to donate it to the National Trust. Bit he has to go back for the first time since his parents’ deaths.
Concerned for the family books and papers in the family archives, his aunt hires Carragh Ryan, scholar and book lover, to inventory the historic library. Aidan and other members of the family are a bit eccentric, making her job more difficult. Carragh wants to find out what happened to Evan Chase’s missing Victorian manuscript. She gets caught up in haunting of the castle that started with the Darkling Bride. She is helping to solve the murders of Aidan’s parents. But will she be the next victim?
The book has mystery, romance, historical details and drama and is a good fit for readers who like gothic novels.
“If you’ve read my previous books, then you already know that I live and die by the Tudors,” says Anderson. “Honestly, I’m terrified at the thought of writing a completely contemporary book. Besides, there’s a distinct shortage of opportunities to write about gorgeous gowns and swords in a strictly contemporary tale. I’ve always felt I have a more old-fashioned, slightly formal style that is an easier fit in historical fiction. But beyond that instinct of self-preservation, I do have an abiding passion for secrets that resonate through generations. Some of my favorite books are multi-timeline…The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.”
For online research, Anderson pored over Irish newspapers from the Victorian era. She wanted the language and layout to feel authentic for the period newspaper reports of Jenny’s death. She also re-read Gothic novels by favorite authors, including Carol Goodman and Kate Morton.
“The best part of research, hands down, was a day trip to Glendalough while in Ireland for a week,” says Anderson. “My daughter and I fell headlong in love with all of it.”
The Darkling Bride has yet to be optioned for film or TV. Anderson’s first books are the trilogy, The Boleyn King, The Boleyn Deceit and The Boleyn Reckoning, follow an alternate historical timeline in which Anne Boleyn did not miscarry her son in January 1536 but bore a live Prince of Wales and was consequently never executed. Anderson’s second trilogy, beginning with The Virgin’s Daughter, continues the alternate timeline in the 1580s and adds a daughter for Elizabeth I. Romantic Times awarded Best Historical Fiction in 2014 to The Boleyn King.
Anderson is currently her next gothic suspense novel, also set in Ireland.
Anderson has lived in the Boston area since 2011. She was born in Oregon, but was adopted as a newborn and grew up in Seattle, Washington.
Her website is lauraandersenbooks.com. She’s also active on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.
The Darkling Bride by Laura Andersen. Hardcover: 368 pages. Publisher: Ballantine Books (March 6, 2018). Language: English. ISBN-13: 978-0425286432 $27.00
