Writers have been bending the laws of physics and time ever since they put pen (or quill) to paper. The place where science meets the speculative has always had a home in gothic fiction. Think of that giant helmet inexplicably crashing down on Conrad in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, and the unorthodox experiments in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—the first science fiction novel and a gothic classic. While H.G. Wells is often credited with writing the very first time travel novel, a Spanish author named Enrique Gaspar actually got there eight years earlier with El Anacronópete, published in 1887. El Anacronópete follows a man who goes back in time with a pre-Tardis-style time machine to marry his niece (!) and then travels to various points in history before he reaches the moment of creation itself.
In my new novel, The Artist of Blackberry Grange, there are no time machines, only portals to the past—in the form of uncanny paintings that transport my main character, Sadie, into her ailing great-aunt’s youth, where she discovers that (almost) everything she thought she knew about her family is a lie.
In the five novels listed here, you’ll find elements of science fiction and fantasy interwoven with gothic themes as characters navigate the complexities of wrestling with time.
The Fallen Fruit by Shawntelle Madison
When history professor Cecily Bridge-Davis inherits sixty-five acres of land from her father, she isn’t expecting to discover a time travel curse that’s plagued over a century of Bridge kindred. In every generation, one of the offspring of each Bridge family unit goes missing—whisked back in time. As her father’s only child, Cecily knows she is next. Armed only with a family Bible listing her ancestors, and a map of the Bridge property, Cecily puts her skills as a historian to the test as she races against time to uncover the roots of the Bridge family curse and end the cycle before she disappears forever. The Fallen Fruit is a sweeping, multi-generational timeslip family saga with Southern Gothic atmosphere that explores the scars of ancestral trauma and the inevitable power of fate.
Grimdark by Shannon Morgan
In this upcoming modern gothic, a woman accompanies her husband to his ancestral home to claim his inheritance, only to discover her own destiny is tied to events from the past. Like many gothic heroines, when Cló comes to Grimdark Hall, she finds it cold and unwelcoming. Inhabited by her husband’s cruel and eccentric older sisters, who contrive countless ways to torment Cló, Grimdark’s labyrinthine halls and hidden rooms nevertheless hold an irresistible appeal. While exploring the estate and its surrounding fens, Cló begins experiencing disturbing visions brought about by the chiming of a ghostly clock. Every time the clock strikes thirteen, Clo is swept back to a time when women are burned as witches and curses transcend death. As echoes of past lives converge in the present, Cló is forced to reckon with old betrayals driven by greed before she falls victim to vengeful grievances.
The Star and The Strange Moon by Constance Sayers
When a cursed, vintage film captivates a young film student, his quest to unlock the mystery behind the disappearance of its vanished star transcends the limits of time. It’s 1968 and actress Gemma Turner is on the cusp of obscurity when she’s offered the lead role in a groundbreaking horror film, L’Étrange Lune. She believes her dreams of stardom are finally coming true, until the night she disappears on-set, only to discover she’s been pulled into the nightmarish world of the film she’s starring in. Forced to replay the same terrifying scenes over and over, Gemma desperately attempts to change the script to survive. Meanwhile, in 2007, film student Christopher Kent has been fascinated by the mysterious film, and Gemma, for years. Only screened once a decade, L’Étrange Lune impossibly contains new scenes at every screening…even though its star disappeared almost forty years before. As Christopher encounters the darkness at the heart of the film’s history, he’s also drawn into its perilous curse. A hypnotic tale of the dangers of artistic obsession and a love unbound from the limits of time.
Where Ivy Dares to Grow by Marielle Thompson
In a similar vein to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, Thompson’s debut centers a woman in love with a man from the past, but it’s her main character’s inner struggle with mental health that makes this novel truly unique and powerful. When Saoirse Reed travels to the cliffside manor where her fiancé’s terminally ill mother awaits death, she receives a cold welcome. Her future in-laws make no attempt to hide their disdain for Saoirse, and her fiancé’s affections have grown sparse in the wake of his mother’s death. Lonely and struggling with dissociative episodes, Saoirse wanders the unkept gardens surrounding the estate, where she slips into the past and encounters Theo Page, her fiancé’s ancestor. Drawn in by Theo’s warmth and melancholy charm, Saoirse finds herself falling for him, while at the same time her tenuous hold on reality begins to crumble. A heart-wrenching, evocative timeslip love story as well as a deeply sympathetic and honest portrayal of mental illness.
Beguiled by Night by Nicole Eigener
You might think you’ve read every iteration of vampire fiction out there. But you haven’t met Vauquelin. Born an aristocrat in seventeenth-century France, Vauquelin is jaded by his long existence. A bit of a snob. Now living in modern Los Angeles, his ennui and self-imposed exile suddenly shatter when time unravels, catapulting Vauquelin into his past, where he’s forced to confront old wounds and acknowledge the macabre nature of his existence. But there’s hope, too. As Vauquelin revisits former lovers and old enemies alike, a chance for atonement and reconciliation emerges. As he regresses through time, an unexpected choice presents itself—one that might alter his future completely, or cost him the only true happiness he’s ever known. Beguiled by Night is a decadent, impeccably researched blend of gothic horror, historical fiction, and timeslip sci-fi, with touches of dark humor and erotica. If you like your vampires sophisticated, queer, and unabashedly bloodthirsty, you may have just found a new favorite in Vauquelin.
Paulette Kennedy is the author of The Artist of Blackberry Grange (2025), The Devil and Mrs. Davenport (2024), The Witch of Tin Mountain (2023), and Parting the Veil (2021), which received the HNS Review Editor’s Choice Award. Her work has been featured in People Magazine, The Mary Sue, and BookBub. Originally from the Missouri Ozarks, where as a young girl she could often be found wandering through the gravestones in her neighborhood cemetery, Paulette’s affinity for fog-covered landscapes and haunted heroines only grew, inspiring her to become a writer. She now lives with her family and a menagerie of rescue pets in sunny Southern California, where sometimes, on the very best days, the mountains are wreathed in gothic fog.
You can connect with her on Instagram at @pkennedywrites or her website: www.paulettekennedy.com
Paulette’s next release, The Two Deaths of Lillian Carmichael, coming in 2026, is a novel of gothic suspense set in nineteenth-century Charleston, South Carolina.
