On the 1st of September, I will reveal the cover of The Casquette Rose, my second Louisiana Gothic novel. This one will be far darker than my last novel, Wolf in the Sanctuary. Both focus on the interplay of history and its unconfessed, unatoned-for sins with the struggles of the present. However, while Wolf focused on the idea of the monster as an entity that reveals the true monstrosity of the human heart, The Casquette Rose will be a novel that dances on the fine lines where romance, Gothic horror, and tragedy intersect, crossing paths for a few brief moments where a singular choice can steer a protagonist’s—and a person’s—trajectory in one direction or another.
I’m not one to direct interpretation of my work. I know what I intend my work to be, but I also know that what a reader gets out of my work through their own reading is equally valid. And this book thrives in the spaces of such ambiguity. There are certain things I want to remain unknown, only hinted at by what is both in the text and suggested between its lines.
But that is terrifying, as for this novel, I bled onto almost every page. My struggles with idealism, with losing hope that there were more good people than bad people in the world. And most importantly, my struggles with walking away from an old faith and finding my own path. And I know that—even if I state “this book is a tragedy focusing on the death of idealism”—there are so many ambiguities that alternate interpretations could lead to anger at the extremely dark book I’m putting out into the world.
Is there a content warning? Yes, and it’s a long content warning. While I have traditionally placed the content warnings on the copyright page, this book has earned its own page dedicated to the content warning. I want readers going into it with the understanding that this book doesn’t shy away from darkness.
And the darkness connects to our current world at this moment. And those connections are clear.
This post isn’t to say “don’t read The Casquette Rose.” Instead, what I want potential readers to glean from this post is as follows:
Be warned: This book is dark. It is going to tackle some prescient issues that are hard to talk about and will evoke strong emotions and fears.
In short, I write sins and tragedies, using my own blood to fill the pages of The Casquette Rose, releasing 24 October.
-Robin
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