Series: The Hotel #1
Publication date: August 20th, 2020
Synopsis:
The latest book from the critically acclaimed author of Beautiful, Frightening, and Silent; Jennifer Anne Gordon.
On an almost uninhabitable rocky island off the coast of Maine, a Hotel looms over the shore, an ever-present gray lady that stands strong like a guard, keeping watch. For many who comes here, this island is a sanctuary and a betrayal.
This is a place where memories linger like ghosts, and the ephemeral nature of time begins to peel away... like the sanity of all who have been unlucky enough to step foot on its shore.
In the late spring of 1873, Isabelle gave birth to her son Oscar, he cried for three startling minutes, and then went silent. During the months that follow, Isabelle is drugged and lulled into an almost hallucinatory world of grief and fear. Her life begins to feel as though it exists in a terrifying new reality separated from those around her...
When her grieving begins to make her husband, Henry, uncomfortable, he and his mother conspire to send Isabelle away to a Summer Hotel on Dagger Island, where she can rest and heal. While they are adamant that the hotel is not an asylum and that Isabelle will be able to return eventually to her home, Isabelle understands in her heart that it is all a lie. That perhaps, everything about being a woman in this time, may have always been a lie.
Her family has lied to her, and she has lied to herself.
The Hotel, of course, is not what it seems, and the foreboding Dagger Island begins to feel more like a prison than a retreat. Isabelle hears relentless sounds coming from the attic above her room, and the ever-present cries of small children scream in her head almost constantly. Are they hallucinations, or are they connected to the cemetery she found, filled with the fresh dirt of little graves, the brokenhearted reminders of people that no one believes ever existed?
She meets a fellow guest at the Hotel, a young, enigmatic, and deeply damaged priest, named Francis. Together they teeter on the edges of reality and try desperately to become free from the fates that their pasts have bound the to.
From Daylight to Madness is a poetic, and haunting Gothic Fiction novel that is both profoundly unsettling and darkly romantic.
Series: The Hotel #2
Publication date: November 19th, 2020
Synopsis:
Critically acclaimed Author Jennifer Anne Gordon's conclusion to The Hotel Series, with the sequel to From Daylight to Madness.
In one startling moment in the late summer of 1873 a tragedy fell like summer sun on the gray jagged shores of Dagger Island. Francis loses everything he thought his life was, and what it could have become. His heart breaks and his feet run, all the way back to his childhood home, he reaches for a past that may not exist.
He is there, in the little house in Dorchester Neck. A place haunted with missing time. He feels the comfort from walls that lean in too close, but then... He feels the trauma that ripped his life in two and in a blink of an eye he is back at the hotel. He can feel the memories fade as the cold fingers of winter wrap around him. He does not know how he got there, or indeed if he ever left.
Francis has lived his whole life veiled in the memories that are more alive than his present. The current days fade away before he can hold on to him. Everything he was or thought he could have been is gone. He realizes he may be a monster, and the person he has fallen in love with may not even exist. Francis holds onto the memories he thinks are real... until he is almost consumed by them.
Francis is isolated in a world of mesmerism, with his tormentor and healer Doctor Hughes.
His world is a labyrinth... he feels his hand in his. The fingers intertwine and there is nothing left but her...
She is a memory, a ghost, and a hallucination.
He can almost remember the moment when his father's glass shattered into his face... he cam almost remember who he was before he was broken in two.
He can almost remember...
He can almost...
He can...
He...
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Guest Post
What inspired you to write this book?
The Hotel Series, which is a two-book duet which includes From Daylight to Madness (book 1) and When the Sleeping Dead Still Talk (book 2), we originally intended to just be one novel. I was inspired originally by an experience I had while I was doing a past life repression session. I very much saw the first scene in the first book, and then there was another time that I saw the final scene. I really wanted to find out what happened in between these two bookends. So, I decided to fictionalize it. As I wrote From Daylight to Madness, which is the story of Isabelle and Francis, I realized I was not about to give Francis the amount of time the character needed and deserved if he didn't get his own book.
What can we expect from you in the future?
I have a lot of things planned and am hoping to write. I have started work on a speculative fiction story, which is easiest to describe as "Contagion meets Lost in Translation" or "The Stand except with a meet cute." It's bee fun to step away from gothic fiction for a little while and tackle something that feels very current.
Do you have any "side stories" about the characters?
YES!!! My favorite thing to do is leave Easter Eggs in the books that are possible hints. At some point I will probably do a short story collection with the extra stories.
Can you tell us a little about the characters in (Name of book)?
The main characters in the Hotel Series as Isabelle, a woman living in the 1870's. She gives birth to a son, who dies shortly after he is born. The book follows her struggles with the grief process and the way women specifically were treated who had mental illness. The other main character is Francis, he is a Catholic Priest who has lost his faith. Over the course of the two books the mystery of Francis is solved. He is a victim of childhood trauma, and the book When the Sleeping Dead Still Talk is his journey to understand what has happened to him.
There are also some fun/creepy side characters including Hawthorne Hughes who is the gentleman who runs the "Summer Hotel" (which is really an asylum). There is also a young very unstable teenage girl named Agnes. I don't want to say too much about her, other than people always clamor for more of her. I did get a chance to expand her character more in the second book of the series, which was fun and heartbreaking.
Where did you come up with the names in the story?
Isabelle and Francis I just knew in my heart that would be their names. The other names came from searching through the Census reports from around that time and doing research on popular names for the time period, the location, and the characters ethnicity.
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
Every time my characters surprised me by doing something I did not expect.
How did you come up with the title of your first novel?
A lot of my book Beautiful, Frightening, and Silent is written in a poetic way, and the title came from one of the lines in the book that was in describing the ghost.
Who designed your book covers?
The covers for the Hotel Series were designed by the incredibly talented Don Noble of Rooster Republic Press. I could not be happier with them! The cover of my first novel, Beautiful, Frightening, and Silent is a photo that my husband took of me. I just cropped my head off and photoshopped my tattoos away.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
No, no I don't think I would. Nothing major at least.
Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?
I learned about the emotional exhaustion that comes from writing really heavy material. I also think I learned a lot about character development over the two books and even learned a little about creating a nontraditional love story.
If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?
For the hotel series I would love Joaquin Phoenix and Eva Green to be Francis and Isabelle.
How did you come up with name of this book?
From Daylight to Madness came to me again in a poem I had written years ago and it fit very thematically to the book, so I made sure to work it into a line in the book. The title for When the Sleeping Dead Still Talk just came organically, I typed those words in one of the chapters and I knew right away that was the title.
What is your favorite part of this book and why?
I can't say which part is my favorite in When the Sleeping Dead Still Talk, because it's a huge spoiler. From Daylight to Madness, my favorite part is the picnic scene, and the scene when Isabelle goes into the attic... because every gothic romance needs a creepy attic scene.
If you could spend time with a character from your book whom would it be? And what would you do during that day?
I would choose Isabelle, and much like Francis, I would take her on a picnic.
Are your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination?
A combination of imagination and pieces of myself.
Do your characters seem to hijack the story or do you feel like you have the reigns of the story?
Oh they definitely hijack the story, I have ceased thinking I control them, and frankly I like it the most when they take over and surprise me.
Have you written any other books that are not published?
Only my current work in progress. I do have a couple short stories that are not published as well as a ton of poetry.
If your book had a candle, what scent would it be?
Petrichor, which is the smell of rain on dry soil. It would be that with undertones of saltwater.
What did you edit out of this book?
A ridiculously long multiple page metaphor about spiders in a well... it was really just word vomit.
Is there a writer which brain you would love to pick for advice? Who would that be and why?
I am lucky, I host a podcast called Vox Vomitus, and on the show, we chat with today's best authors about their writing, what went right, and what went wrong along the way. So, I have been lucky enough to already pick the brains of many of my favorite authors already including Paul Tremblay, Carol Goodman, Wendy Webb, Diane Zinna, Matt Ruff, and VC Andrews aka Andrew Niederman, just to name a few. The advice I always want is how to persevere through the hard parts of writing, the rejection, the loneliness, the bad idea...
Fun Facts/Behind the Scenes/Did You Know? -- type tidbits about the author, the book or the writing process of the book.
Every time I get frustrated, I have a "popcorn party" which is when I need to stress eat a bowl of popcorn until the muse returns to me.
JENNIFER ANNE GORDON is a professional ballroom dancer and choreographer by day, and a curly haired neurotic writer by night. She is an actor, a traveler, a photographer, a lover of Gothic Horror, and a dog mom. She lives in the wilds of New Hampshire with her partner on and off the dance floor. Her novels include the Kindle Award for Horror 2020 Winning book, Beautiful, Frightening, and Silent, as well as the historical Gothic novel From Daylight to Madness (The Hotel #1) as well as When the Sleeping Dead Still Talk (The Hotel #2). She also has a published collection of her artwork, titled "Victoriana (mixed media art of jennifer anne gordon).
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