Winner of both the Silver and Diamond Quill awards from the League of Utah Writers for her multi-author anthologies, Lyn Worthen has been reading since before she can remember, and began her career as a freelance writer and editor sometime in the previous century. And while creating technical training, product documentation, and marketing collateral paid the bills, her love for the written word ultimately led her back to fiction.

She currently divides her time between building the occasional short fiction anthology, and writing fiction in multiple genres under various pen names. You can follow her on Facebook at CamdenParkPress, or visit www.camdenparkpress.com

Love Among the Thorns edited by Lyn Worthen

The isolated mansion hiding dark secrets and a lonely heart. The castle with grief and love permeating its walls and influencing its guests. LOVE AMONG THE THORNS presents eleven contemporary Gothic/paranormal romances with the flavor of the classic Gothics of the 70s and 80s – locations and lives shrouded in solitude and secrecy, mired in mist and mystery, and where the spark of true love grows from the smallest candle flickering in the wind into a fierce light that drives back the darkness.

CURATOR'S NOTE

Love Among The Thorns features romantic suspense and Gothic stories, one of my favorite side branches of mystery fiction. Under the excellent watchful editorial eye of Lyn Worthen, you'll discover some new writers here. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Introduction:
The Blood-Red Rose
Lyn Worthen

The isolated mansion hiding dark secrets and a lonely heart. The inn with grief and love permeating its walls and influencing its guests. These were staples of the Gothic romances of the 70s and 80s – stories of locations and lives shrouded in solitude and secrecy, mired in mist and mystery, and where the spark of true love grew from the smallest candle flickering in the wind into a fierce light that drove back the darkness.

But times have changed since I curled up in an overstuffed easy chair, burrowing under blankets and letting my hot cocoa grow cold as I sank into one of those old classics after another. We no longer shiver in delight at the overbearing hero or cower in fear along with the weak-willed heroine who has gotten in over her head. While we appreciate that characters get into situations they're not prepared for, we want to see them rise to the challenge – and in a romance, to prove that they're worthy of the love that is waiting for them, not merely giving in to forces beyond their control.

For Love Among the Thorns, I asked authors for stories that evoked the Gothic sensibilities, reimagined for today's readers. And if they chose to incorporate a paranormal element into their story (as most did), I wanted them to go beyond the standard tropes and give me unique characters and situations. Above all, I was looking for the "blood dripping from the rose" – the underlying elements of danger, dread, or suspense (both real and merely imagined) that were at the core of the Gothic sensibility.

I also asked authors to look beyond the wind-rattled Victorian mansions and stately plantation houses shrouded in moss, and introduce us to the Gothic locations hiding in our contemporary world. And they rose to the challenge. The fog and forests of the Pacific Northwest are popular locations in Love Among the Thorns. But we also travel from the wind-swept plains of Montana to the Louisiana bayou and the glittering lights of Manhattan. Across the ocean, we visit grand estates in the forests of Germany and the windy crags of Scotland, and sail the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean. In each locale, we experience that sense of things not being quite right, not quite what they seem on the surface.

Above all, wherever they're set, and whatever obstacles have been place before the lovers, the stories in Love Among the Thorns are about the relationships that develop between the characters, bringing them from strangers – or even antagonists – to the point where they leave the story hand-in-hand, with a possible future that is stronger because of the hardships they had to overcome to achieve it.

This bouquet of blood-red roses is our gift to you. Caress their silken petals, breathe in the fragrance of the opening buds, and be mindful of the blood dripping through your fingers to the ground below.

And remember as you stroll along our garden path, that there is Love Among the Thorns.

– Lyn Worthen
Sandy, Utah
October 21, 2019