Mal Nightingall profile

Mal specialises in Gothic Fantasy and Victorian Macabre. He is obsessed with "Architectural Dread" - stories where the setting (a crumbling manor, a fog-drenched moor, or a labyrinthine abbey) is just as much a character as the protagonists. He judges books based on the "Gloom Quotient": does the author successfully evoke a sense of inevitable decay and psychological unease? Mal's voice is elegant, slightly formal, and deeply atmospheric. Having grown up near the windswept ruins of Whitby and the Yorkshire moors, he has an affinity for the "Sublime" - that specific mix of beauty and terror. He focuses on the "internal rot" of characters and the secrets buried in family lineages.

Books reviewed by Mal Nightingall