Rosalind Ashe — Moths with Lisa B. Kröger

Republished this year by Valancourt books, Rosalind’s Ashe’s 1976 gothic thriller Moths is a spine-chilling tale of supernatural seduction featuring a femme fatale who lures men to their deaths like lepidoptera to a flame. Gothic lit expert Lisa B. Kröger joins us to discuss Ashe’s knack for channeling female rage in a novel that’s been compared to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

Mentioned in this episode:

Moths by Rosalind Ashe

Monster, She Wrote by Lisa B. Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson

Toil and Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult by Lisa B. Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson

Original 1976 cover art of Moths

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 58 on Monster, She Wrote with Lisa B. Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 240 on Angela Carter

Lisa Tuttle

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Hurricane Wake by Rosalind Ashe

Literary Houses by Rosalind Ashe

Dark Runner by Rosalind Ashe

Sinister Affirmations

Midnight Movie clip

Transcript

This transcript is autogenerated and may contain typos.

AMY HELMES: Thank you for listening to Lost Ladies of Lit. For access to all of our bonus episodes and to help support the cause of recovering forgotten women writers join our Patreon community. Visit lostladiesoflit.com and click Become a Patron to find out more. 

KIM ASKEW: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Lost Ladies of Lit, the podcast dedicated to dusting off forgotten women writers. I'm Kim Askew here with my co-host, Amy Helmes. 

AMY: Today's book isn't so much dusty as moth-eaten, you could say, and that's surprising because the book isn't terribly antiquated. It was originally published in 1976, which to me is just a baby. 

KIM: Right, right. And at the time, Rosalind Ashe's Moths was likened to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, in that it, too, features a haunted gothic manner.

AMY: And yet, if we're going to draw parallels, I would have to toss in the work of Angela Carter, another author from the 1970s (we did an episode on her earlier this year) because this book features a femme fatal who possessed by the ghost of a nymphomaniacal Regency actress resorts to raping men to satisfy her insatiable lust. [sings] Whoa. Here she comes. She's a man-eater!

KIM: Yeah! Amy! 

AMY: I’m breaking out the Hall and Oates for this one, guys! 

KIM: I love it. I love it. And what's wild about the book is the fact that these men are really easy marks. They're lured to their deaths, like moths to a flame, hence the novel's title. 

AMY: Yeah, women listeners, you have no need to fear on this one. You're safe. It's the gents who might be quaking in their boots after reading this book. And just in time for Halloween, today we have a returning guest who writes horror fiction and screenplays and has a PhD in gothic literature. She's going to guide us near the deadly flame at the heart of Ashe's unforgettable novel. So let's raid the stacks and get started.

[intro music plays]

KIM: Our guest today, Lisa Kroger, is the co-host of the “Monster She Wrote” podcast as well as the “Know Fear” podcast. Together with Melanie R. Anderson, Lisa wrote the amazing nonfiction book Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction. You can find out more about this book by going back and listening to Episode number 58 of this podcast. Lisa's latest book with Anderson is 2022’s Toil and Trouble: A Women's History of the Occult. Lisa sits on the board of Trustees of the Horror Writers Association, and she recently wrote a wonderful introduction to a new edition of Moths out this year by Valancourt Books. And Valancourt has a whole series of Monster, She Wrote titles by women authors. Lisa, welcome back to the show. We're so glad to have you on again. 

LISA: I am so glad to be here. Thank you so much for having me. This is, I mean, it's always exciting to be on Lost Ladies of Lit, but it's very exciting to be talking about Moths. 

AMY: Yeah. And you know, sometimes we feature books on the show that I'm like, yeah, I'd heard that name, but had just never gotten around to, you know, investigating that woman. In this case, I never heard of Rosalind Ashe. Uh, what was your first experience with her? Is Moths the first book of hers that you've read?

LISA: Yeah, it is. Um. I had not heard of Rosalind Ashe, and that was kind of surprising to me because I spend a lot of time looking through old bookstores and paperback swaps and just seeing what kind of old horror fiction I can find. Um, but then also I spend a lot of time like going through old magazine issues, uh, archives, like Weird Tales and that sort of thing. And, when a new name will pop up to me, I'll usually write it down and try to find out stuff. But I knew nothing of Rosalind Ashe until Jay at Valancourt books told me about it. He actually sent me a really excited email and said, I found a book I think you must read it. And he sent me Moths and since then, I've now gotten two of her other books. But um, yeah, Moths was the very first one that I read and I loved it. 

KIM: So all of us have never heard about her until. And there's not a ton of information about her online. Do you wanna fill in some of the blanks for us, Lisa? Because I'm very curious about Rosalind. 

LISA: Um, I will try my best. There's not a lot that we really know. What I put in that introduction was stuff that we knew and that we could verify with her estate, and I'm using that term loosely because I think she still has children around. But, you know, some authors' families — I'm thinking of Shirley Jackson's — they're really involved in their mother's work and her legacy. Um, but then there are some who are just kind of like, yeah, my mother wrote these books and it's cool, but they don't really have an interest in running, I think a big author estate. Um, which is fine. I get that. But yeah, we had a hard time. So Rosalind Ashe, what we do know, is that she was born in Jamaica. And she was educated, I think, in private schools in both Canada and England, and then as an adult lived in England. She lived in the US for a short period of time, but I think most of her adult life was spent in England. She was an English teacher at times. She was a writer and an editor. She worked with Lisa Tuttle, which I did find really interesting because we've, uh, worked with Lisa Tuttle with the Monster, She Wrote Valancourt book series, um, and she had some nonfiction books that involved like literary houses, which I always find really fascinating. And which I think also plays into this book a little bit. Um, and then she was a mom and I know she liked to paint and do kind of like art portraits, but that was a hobby. So yeah, even her family, when we were going through the process of trying to get the rights for this book, uh, didn't offer much, which I don't know if they were just private or what, but yeah, that's really all we know about her. I know she published at least three fiction books because they're the ones I have sitting on my desk right now. 

AMY: Yeah, it's interesting. I guess the good news is we don't need to know that much about her because there is so much about this book that will keep us talking for the rest of this episode. It’s okay. Uh, starting with the fact that, you know, we mentioned that this book features a homicidal nymphomaniac. Um, Lisa, why don't you, you get us there. Why don't you set up the premise and tell us about the book's narrator and his two obsessions, as it were.

LISA: Okay, so yeah, this book is, is really, really fascinating. Our narrator is Harry Harris and it's almost a framework style story in that he's looking back, I think, on the house and the things that have happened in it, and almost talking to us, the reader, like we're sitting there across the table as he tells the story. I find it really interesting that it's from his point of view, because even though he's really presented as sympathetic and somebody that we trust… like he's not really an unreliable narrator in any sort of way, but he is kind of a peeping tom for a lot of the story. Um, Harry is an academic and so he spends all of his time in, I think it's Oxford, um. And he talks about how he doesn't have a need for a big house or anything like that 'cause he's just a single person living alone and he's got his books to keep him company. But he's obsessed with this house called the Dower House and it's this old, like estate manor and to the point he'll go and picnic where he's just looking at it almost lovingly like, I mean he describes it in the language of love when he is talking about this house. He eventually starts researching it to find out who lived there before, and that's when he becomes friends with the new owners. Because he finds out that they're putting the house up for auction. So he's able to go through, even though he's not a real buyer, he's, you know, just being nosy and looking through the house. And that's when he becomes friends with the new owners who are James and Nemo Boyce. And Nemo is the wife, and she's the one who kind of gets caught up in the supernatural goings on in the house. Um, and so Harry's obsession kind of shifts from Dower House to Nemo in a really interesting way. But yeah, that's kind of the setup for this story.

KIM: Okay, so great job there. Okay, so we're gonna try to discuss this book without giving away too many spoilers. But if you don't wanna know anything in advance, you may wanna just read the book first, then circle back to this episode. But the beginning of the book very much draws you in. It prompts more questions than it answers, and it continues to build a slow and steady tension. Lisa, would you read a passage from the beginning that exemplifies Ashe's? Skill at this? 

LISA: Okay. I'm very happy to do this. I will say I think it's a fun book to read because the descriptions are very lush throughout. Um, everything is over the top in the best ways, but I picked this one. This is Harry looking at the house after the voices have taken over.

Nemo is talking about what she's planning to do for the house, and he gets a little bit like he's already kind of started talking about the house as if it was theirs, like that they're in this weird like threesome. Um. But this is really weird, you see, I guess a little bit of his obsession and how it can turn dark, but I think it also exemplifies her, um, Rosalind Ashe’s style really well.

[she reads]

KIM: Oh my God, chilling. And also cinematic like you could imagine like Dario Argento or Guillermo del Toro taking it and doing amazing things with the way that she describes everything.

AMY: I didn't know what passage you were gonna choose there, and that couldn't have been more perfect, because it kind of tells the whole story in preview. Yeah. Like without really knowing. It totally does. And Yeah. Um, yeah. And just the way it starts off so pastoral , like when he is having picnics on the lawn of this old abandoned house and you're just like, oh, I would love to do that. You know? Yeah. Like, I, I can see doing that. And then you just have no idea how bonkers things are gonna get from here. 

KIM: Completely. Completely. Yeah. Needless to say, really strange things start to happen once Nemo and James settle down into Dower House. There's the inexplicable tinkling of a music box's melody, a creepy reflection in an antique mirror. Of course. Um, there's a whispered voice heard on an audio recording. It's so spooky. All these unsettling accidents. Lisa, in your introduction to the book, you say this is more a house possessed than haunted. Let's talk about that. Can you tell us what you meant by that? 

AMY: I feel like that's a technical term that we non-horror lay people don't even know that there's a difference between possession and haunting. 

KIM: Yes. Yes. Spell it out for us. No pun intended. 

LISA: Yeah. Um. I really hate most possession narratives because they seem very rooted in patriarchal religion and culture because often it is young women (or girls really, if we're gonna talk about it, they're not even women) it's girls who are like being possessed. They're losing control of their body and then they're fought over and kind of saved by men. So you usually have priests from the Catholic church coming in and they're like, I'm gonna save the day. Um, and even the demons that they're fighting are kind of male-presenting. So. I liked that this was a little bit of a twist on that because we do have a possession going on in the story, but the house seemed to be, to me, the perfect, or the first maybe possession that was going on because we'll talk about like Sarah Moore, the ghost. That's like the ghostly presence, but it's a vessel for her, and she really didn't even have that much of a connection to the house to begin with. It's just like she decided she wanted to take up residence there. You know, it's not even, I mean, I guess you could say something like, Hill House is a possessed house too, but Hill House seems more to me like a bad place, you know, where just bad things are gonna happen and it was bad from the moment it was built and people go bad there. That to me, is more of a haunted house than even this, like when you look at what is happening. But you know, there are the trademarks of the traditional hauntings, like the ghostly melody and the creepy mirrors and all that kind of stuff. Um, but I do think that the focus is on Sarah Moore, and so I think it is her kind of energy and spirit that's possessing it. She was an actress in the late 1820s, I think, and she lived in the house for a few months. Um, and that she was this free spirit artistic, like sexually adventurous, and then the men decide she's a nymphomaniac. Um, but…

AMY: … And she’s an actress who never likes to repeat a performance. 

LISA: Never likes to repeat a performance. Yes. 

LISA: I’m sure there's no innuendo in that. 

AMY: She could have played great characters on stage, but she wouldn't do it because she's like, “If I play Lady Macbeth, I don't need to play it more than one night.” Which ties into the murders. 

LISA: Yeah. Yeah. But um, yeah, so I do like the fact that the house itself is more of a playground for Sarah Moore than it being any kind of like bad place.

AMY: Yeah. Almost like how Harry likes the house, so does Sarah. Yeah. And Sarah possesses the house, but she also possesses Nemo the wife. But it's almost like Nemo... like when you're talking about other possessions like The Exorcist or whatever the woman is so unwitting, I don't necessarily get that Nemo hates it while it's, you know, like, you don't get the “Please save me” element from her. Yeah, she feels sick and she has bad headaches and stuff while it's happening, but she's almost a little complicit in what Sarah's doing to her, I feel like. 

KIM: Yeah. What do you think, Lisa? 

LISA: Yeah, I mean, I find Nemo a really interesting character because her name is Latin for “no one,” which I think kind of speaks to the fact that at the beginning of the book, she's just kind of this beautiful woman who comes in, like she's a wife, she's interested in renovating the house, but we don't really get a sense of who she is as a person until Sarah Moore possesses her, which I find really fascinating. Um, so she is kind of the perfect vessel because she's young and she's beautiful. And you mentioned Angela Carter at the beginning of this, and I feel like the way sexuality and beauty and violence are all intertwined, really fit well with Angela Carter's, especially her like fairytale retellings. But I don't know if she is complicit. I do think she's empowered by it. 

AMY: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way to put it.

Which is a nice way. Yeah, 

LISA: Yeah, yeah. Um, and I always like books when women are allowed to have both, like a strong sexual energy, but also when they can just be bad and violent without having to have a reason for it. 

KIM: That's true. Yeah. There really is no reason. It's not like there's a cause.

AMY: I don’t know. I mean, I see a little bit of a cause, and that gets into my next point. So basically what happens is, Sarah, this ghost actress from the 1820s, she kind of takes over the house, she takes over Nemo's body. And Nemo's the perfect vessel because men find her irresistible. So it's moths to a flame and she can just bang, bang, bang, love them and leave 'em sort of thing. Murderous results, basically, every time the seduction will happen with these men. And there's a series of guys who are just so drawn to Nemo, but they're so dumb and they're so horny. They're just to me like I don't even feel bad for them. Yeah. They are like self-destructive moths. They're dive bombing the flame.

KIM: They think that they can be “the one.” 

AMY: They're so arrogant. Yeah, and I don't know if there's no man by the end of the book did I feel any sympathy for and to a degree, like I saw that as sort of the motivation. You know, like I, I don't know. This is all happening this week that whole Jeffrey Epstein birthday book is in the news. And so I have that on the front of my brain too. But the idea of that, the idea of these men don't even see Nemo for who she is. Like you said, Lisa, we don't even get that much information about who she is as a person. All we get is like these men talking about what sex appeal she has and oh my God, “I'm so drawn to her and blah, blah, blah.” And I do feel like there is sort of a method to the madness of what's going on here. 

LISA: I think there is, I think you're right in that and you know, I'll try to avoid getting too spoilery, but even when the men realize what is happening and they know, “Okay, this woman is possessed. This is dangerous. People are getting hurt.” There was one man in particular who actually said, okay, this is happening, BUT…

KIM: Mm-hmm. 

LISA: “…When will we ever get a chance to sleep with a woman who is possessed by a Regency actress? When will I ever get to sleep with a possessed woman?” Is essentially what he's saying. I mean, the language that he used was akin to sexual assaults, which was disturbing, but the fact that they knew this woman was possessed and there was very little that anybody, including her husband or her friends, tried to do to get her un-possessed. 

AMY: I mean, being possessed by a spirit is not totally unlike being under the influence of a drug or something. You know what I mean? And for them to think, “I'm just gonna go back and try that again 'cause I had a real good time that day.” And that goes back to Sarah Moore, never wanting to repeat a performance. So when there's a, um, sexual encounter in the book. The first time is not the danger. I mean, it's usually a kind of rough encounter that the men experience, but they get away the first time. It's only when they come back for the repeat encounter that they run into trouble, which I thought was interesting. So. Mm-hmm. They, yeah, they just come back for more of it. Mm-hmm. Um. Okay, so the narrator of the novel is this guy Harry. So we get the male point of view, but we do get to hear the feminine point of view throughout the book in the form of Nemo's diary. So Sarah Moore's persona comes through in Nemo's journal entries, and so I'd love to read a selection where she's recounting one of her deadly conquests. Um, this is with a man named Robert, who is a science fiction author from the college nearby Oxford, and he has inexplicably gone missing. So the authorities are trying to figure out where this guy is. Nemo knows exactly what happened to him, and she writes about the incident with him in the woods near Dower house. 

[Amy reads]

LISA: Love it. Wow. 

AMY: [laughing]

LISA: I love this book. 

AMY: Yeah. I'm so glad she brings that point of view in, that doesn't come until about halfway through the book where you start getting the journal entries and you start hearing more of her voice.

KIM: Yeah. It's, it's like, leave her alone!

LISA: Maybe that's like her supervillain power is turning these men, like we've said, moths to the flame, but just kind of, they're just lost to their sexual fantasies where they lose all reason, but it's almost like she's kind of warning them like, “Leave me alone.” But just barely.

Yeah. They don't take the hint 

LISA: The pitchfork going into the neck is so good. I was talking to somebody about this the other day, about how much I enjoy just an unhinged woman, like, whatever that particular brand of book is. So, like, I just read Victorian Psycho or like Maeve Fly, or I mean, just any of these books where I feel like women are just kind of allowed whether they have a reason to or not.

And even, you know, we, we brought up movies and how, I think this is a very cinematic book. I think about movies like Pearl, I guess the pitchfork immediately put that in my brain. But, you know, um. I love that. I like it when we get to see women kind of being mean and bloody and nasty, um, and having their own agency.

I do enjoy how stupid some of the men in the book are, which we've talked about. Yeah. But I really think for readers today that there's like a good deal of female rage that I think is really cathartic to read. Um, and I don't even think we have to scratch the surface of what's happening in the world to understand why that feels so good.

Um, but yeah, to me at least it was very cathartic. That kind of rage, that simmers just beneath Sarah. 

AMY: I have the perfect little anecdote to bring up here. While I was waiting for you guys to get onto the recording here, I was just on my phone flipping through Instagram and I've seen this ad one other time and it's so crazy that it popped up right before we're talking about this.

So it's for this. Pack of funny motivational cards called sinister affirmations. They're geared toward women and it's sort of your daily dose of whatever. But, um, they're so funny and so I wanted to read you a couple of what these cards say. The first one I saw was some people say women of a certain age shouldn't wear a crown of femur made from her vanquished enemies, but really a woman of any age should wear whatever makes her feel confident.

KIM: I love it. Oh my God, I want these. 

AMY: And then there was another one: In a world where you can be anything, be the terror in the dark, who brings nightmares to men who call their female colleagues Babe? Uh, another one. Don't be a replacement for his mother. Be a replacement for the thing under his bed that he was afraid of as a child.

Mysterious, elusive, and probably from a hell dimension. Oh my God. I love that one. And then I'll just read one more practice Self-care, like a Venus Fly trap. Stay hydrated and destroy whatever pest invades your personal space. 

KIM: Okay. That's Nemo. That's perfect for this book. Yep. 

LISA: That last one? Yes. Yes.

KIM: And oh my gosh, this is a great segue. Align in your introduction, Lisa. Um, Ashe understands the central conflict at the heart of Go Horror, a woman's body that is under siege by the men around her. Can you talk a little bit more about that? 

LISA: I've done a lot of work in like the first wave of gothic novels in the 1890s, and they all.

Not all of them, but a lot of them kind of had that traditional gothic plot where women really are kind of the chattel in the story. Like they're just connected to whatever property is at stake. So if you marry the woman, you get the manor, you get the wealth, you get the title, you get, whatever. And so that would often be, you know, here are these villainous men pretending to love her, only to marry her and lock her away and you know, do terrible things.

I thought that's really what is happening with nemo. And I think that was what was the true horror. I was like, you, by the time a lot of the men had their accidents using their quotes for that one, but when they had their accidents, um, you know, you don't feel bad for them. 'cause they had proven themselves to be terrible human beings.

But I did feel bad for Nemo because. Yes, she is being possessed by the ghost, but it's the men who were chasing after her who were trying to have their way with her. And as you said, I did see a lot of like consents. Problems in the book, just in that, yeah, a woman possessed is not able to give her consent.

Um, but yeah, they want what she can do for them sexually, if that's not the most gothic of plots. I mean, we're not afraid of the murderous ghost as women reading it. We're afraid of the men who want to sleep with the murderous ghost. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. 

AMY: And her husband James is there the whole time. And he just doesn't care.

He knows, he knows what's going on and he doesn't, he doesn't care. He doesn't try to help her. Um, I think at one point Ashe writes that Nemo was quote, “Just another one of James's well-made objects.” Um, and then later on in the book, there's a psychologist kind of guy who's brought in and um, they're talking about Nemo and he says something about “She's most dangerous when she is purposeless.” That's her problem throughout the book because she doesn't really have anything to do. She doesn't have a job. She's remodeling the house a little bit, but her name basically means “no one.” Yeah. 

LISA: Also, just in the fact that her husband is, to me, one of the worst husbands in all of horror literature.

Um, that reminded me a lot of Rosemary's baby because there you have a woman who's kind of purposeless, um, and her husband. Literally sells her to the devil to get what he wants. Um, so I saw a lot of parallels there just in that relationship. 

AMY: Did you guys have the experience reading this one where especially at the very beginning, it starts off So Quain, you're in Oxfordshire in England, you know, you've got the Oxford Dawns and this beautiful country estate, and it was making me think of like, I was reading a Dorothy Sayer mystery or something like that.

I had them in 1940s clothing. In fact, until they get to the disco party in the book. I was like, wait, what? 

KIM: Oh yeah. All the seventies little things was jarring. Yeah, it was unexpected to me too. I was totally picturing like the thirties or forties or something in my head. 

AMY: Yeah. Like I was thinking tweets and, yeah, 

KIM: Yeah, yeah.

AMY: And then I was like, they're at a disco party. Yeah. Yeah. Um. I can imagine probably, I didn't Google this, I should, but I can imagine that there were probably some really cheesy 1970s cover art for the initial editions of this book, um, which would maybe mislead people in terms of the tone. Like you might think you're getting like a VC Andrews kind of trashy, thriller kind of book.

I feel like English majors and classic lit lovers who think, oh, I'm not a horror novel kind of reader. Like this book is still for you. 

LISA: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think so. And I have, I mean, I can show y'all the seventies cover. Oh, there we go. And I'll describe it for those listening, but it's, um, I mean, to me it kind of looks like an Ann Rice.

From the seventies maybe? Yes. But it's got, um, I guess Possessed Nemo and she's like in her nightgown, red, red hair, she looks like, um. Oh, who's that actress? Who was in all those Elvis movies? Um, Ann. Yeah. Ann Margaret, yes. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. She looks a little to me like Ann Margaret in like this, like white nightgown and she's got moth’s wings behind her.

And then the men look like they are out of some sort of renaissance painting. Um, yeah, they, they, yeah, they've got no shirts on. Oh, good. They're very much in lustful longing, like trying to claw their way up to her. Oh 

AMY: Yeah. Like something out of a Sistine Chapel painting or something. Oh, totally. Yeah.

Right. And what's interesting 

KIM: is it has an allusion to Rebecca there, which I wanted to ask you about because there is that comparison to Daphne Dimar is Rebecca, do you think, um, it's a credible side by side or do you think, like on that book there, is it just a marketing gimmick? 

LISA: So honestly, I think it's both.

Yeah, de Maier is maybe one of my favorite authors. I do think Rebecca is a good comparison because I think that's a possessed house. More than a haunted house. Yeah, that's a good point. Um, and there's a lot of jealousy and obsession from the people, and I do think that women are able to kind of get away with some really villainous things in that book.

So yeah, I do think there are some comparisons to be made. I will say it was also a very common marketing ploy of this time period. Almost every book that is either like a gothic romance, a dark romance, or a horror novel that was written by women is called. Better than Rebecca. Um, on this original paperback, it says, not since Rebecca has there been a woman, so hauntingly, seductive.

And then on her book, uh, the Hurricane Wake, which is the other one that I've read on the front, it says by a young woman who outranks do maier. And then the back, it says it's a tale of a Rebecca like woman. So now that there's. Two different comparisons. But yeah, I think if you like, 'cause de, especially in her short stories, goes to some really crazy places and lets her women do just.

Unhinged things. Um, so yeah, I do think that it, it, it's a good comparison in this case, not always, but in this case I think it's okay. 

AMY: Um, I did discover there is a 1994 film called Midnight Movie. It stars Brian Dennehy and Louise Germaine, and it's loosely adapted from this novel. Uh, it seems like the plot and the characters are a bit different.

It actually was directed by, I, I can't remember the director's name, but it's someone kind of famous. Um, it did receive mixed reviews, and I'm gonna link to a Not Safe For Work clip in our show notes of the trailer. Um, just so you can get a glimpse of it. Um, it also stars Jim Carter, who is Mr. Carson in Downton Abbey, a young Jim Carter.

So Renny Rye is the director. 

AMY: Who was it?

KIM: Renny Rye. 

AMY: Yeah, he's, he's kind of famous. He, um, but yeah, it, it looks kind of cheesy. I'm surprised it came out in the nineties. I feel like I would've remembered that at that point, being out. Um, but I feel like this could be adapted more Huey to the original story and still make a really good movie.

I'm not sure why they felt the need to, they changed a lot to make it a be about like a. Horror movie itself. I, I, I didn't quite get the premise, but yeah. Lisa, you mentioned you had a couple other books by her. Are any of those worth reading? 

LISA: Um, yeah. Well, I mean, I, I've read the hurricane, wait, which I'll just read the back cover of it just because I think it kind of tells you what you need to know.

It's got the words, hurricane and big letters. Um, it says the wild wind keens, the thundering rain de descends flame lights the sky. And within the ramshackle plantation house, another hurricane rages as Tom. His eyes alight with possessive love for his twin sister Liz. His soul darkened with murderous hate for his childhood playmate.

Maurice. Uses the storm as his accomplice. As the lights fail, fear mounts, there is blood death, dark ceremony, and finally, madness. 

KIM: Ooh. 

LISA: So this one is, is, I mean, they compare it again to de, which I can see some of it. I wanna say it's set in Jamaica, so she kind of pulls from her childhood there. Um, and it's this plantation house that you know is getting cut off by the weather and it's got kind of slightly incestuous twins.

Maybe one sided. It's kind of if you took DeMay and BC Andrews and kind of put 'em in a blender. Mm, yeah. Okay. I'm also like, 

AMY: For some reason I'm getting Wide Sargasso Sea. Like crazy Bertha, you know?

LISA: Yes. I mean there is definitely some of that because I even think at one point she's locked in a tower and has to escape because her twin brother can't handle his obsession with her. 

KIM: Oh, that’s very fairytale-like. 

AMY: Well, we all did the VC Andrews novels. So 

KIM: Yeah, that's always… 

AMY: I feel like we all kind of had that. 

LISA: We all had that stage in our lives. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's a right of passage. Um, yes, and then I have Dark Runner, which I haven't read yet. It seems to be a little bit more satanic about a woman who moves into a flat in London and things start going badly, but, mm, I haven't read that one yet, so.

Ooh, that sounds intriguing. 

AMY: Lisa, you are so funny to talk to. You're so matter of fact about this one, like Satanic. Mm-hmm. And this one, and you've got a nice little office in the back. So Matter of fact. Yeah. So thank you by the way, for everything that you do to help preserve the legacies of women writers, especially the gothic and horror gals.

Um, it's a good reminder that women have always been as capable as men of writing. Super twisted, shocking. And horrific tales and that there's nothing wrong with that. Um, their unique perspective is definitely worth exploring. So thanks for joining us today to help shed more light on Rosalind Ashe. This was so fun.

LISA: Thank you so much. Like I said, I'm so excited to come on and talk books by women.. 

AMY: And is there anything else? We mentioned the occult book that came out a few years ago. Is there any other project that you want to plug? 

LISA: Yeah, I, um, have a book coming out next year with Beacon. It's called, There's Something in the Water.

KIM: Ooh. 

LISA: So it's all about aquatic horror and, uh, look into why we're fascinated by, you know, the ocean and what's inside of it. Mm. It's looking at film and books, but also a little bit of kind of weird science. 

KIM: Ooh, I love that. Ooh, I love weird science. 

AMY: Oh, that's great. I wanna be cremated someday, and I do not want my ashes thrown in the ocean. That is my one stipulation. Because the ocean is so scary to me. Like I would be terrified. It terrifies me. Yeah, completely. 

LISA: I don't think I could go on a cruise. Yeah. Just because I'm like, I think I would be constantly aware of what could be underneath me. Oh yeah. Yeah. 

AMY: It's a whole world. 

KIM: When is this coming out?

LISA: They haven't set an exact date, but I think it's fall of 2026. 

KIM: Okay. 

AMY: Okay. Well, when that's happening, give us a shout back. Yeah, yeah. 

LISA: Absolutely. 

AMY: So that's all for today's episode. Be careful this Halloween, when you're out trick or treating, stay away from haunted houses and sexy ladies. You never know what they're actually capable of. Our theme song was written and performed by Jenni Malone, and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Amy Helmes and Kim Askew.