Emily Carpenter’s Gothictown brilliantly captures the post-pandemic desperation that left many Americans searching for a fresh start, wrapping this contemporary anxiety in the suffocating embrace of Southern Gothic tradition. In this tightly wound thriller, Carpenter invites readers to a seemingly idyllic Georgia town where the sweetness of Southern hospitality quickly sours into something far more sinister.
The premise is irresistible: Billie Hope, a New York restaurateur still reeling from closing her beloved café during the pandemic lockdown and her mother’s simultaneous departure to join what appears to be a cult in Maine, receives a tantalizing email offering a Victorian mansion for just $100 and a generous business grant if she relocates to Juliana, Georgia. For Billie, her therapist husband Peter, and their nature-loving six-year-old daughter Mere, it seems like the perfect escape from their cramped Manhattan apartment. But as any horror aficionado knows, if something seems too good to be true, it invariably is.
The genius of Carpenter’s storytelling lies in how she plants subtle warning signs from the outset—an uncapped well that no one can locate, a mysterious old mill with crime scene tape, nightmares shared by family members, the curious absence of a bookstore in town—while simultaneously showing why Billie might ignore these red flags. The protagonist’s desperate need to succeed again after losing her restaurant, to provide space for her daughter, and perhaps to escape her grief over her mother’s abandonment creates a psychological vulnerability that makes her decisions understandable, if increasingly worrisome.
Small-Town Secrets, Ancient Rituals
As Billie opens her new restaurant (another “Billie’s”) with surprising ease, the town’s peculiarities become increasingly difficult to dismiss. The “old guard” families—the Minettes, Dalzells, and Cleburnes—exert an unsettling influence over the town, their scions hovering at the edges of Billie’s new life. Jamie Cleburne, the handsome antique shop owner next door to her restaurant, takes a particular interest in Billie, while Peter grows increasingly unstable, suffering from insomnia and strange visions.
The escalating eeriness of the narrative is masterfully handled. Carpenter builds tension through accumulating oddities: townsfolk with trembling hands who all say the same grace before meals and kiss charms on their bracelets; a shared dream of children singing in darkness; a pet cat gone feral. These elements combine with historical fragments suggesting that Juliana harbors a terrible secret dating back to the Civil War—a secret involving a long-abandoned gold mine and sacrifices made to appease the town’s namesake, a long-dead child who has been elevated to a sort of local deity.
When Peter mysteriously abandons his family and Billie discovers his body in a lake on the Cleburne property, the horror shifts from atmospheric to immediate. The revelation that the town’s leaders have been orchestrating “offerings” to ensure the town’s prosperity is chilling, especially when Billie realizes she was specifically targeted as a potential bride for Jamie Cleburne to continue the old guard’s bloodline.
Character Depth Amid Dark Forces
What elevates Gothictown beyond standard thriller fare is Carpenter’s attention to psychological complexity. Billie’s emotional journey is compelling—from her initial eagerness to embrace small-town life to her growing suspicion, and finally to her fierce determination to survive and protect her daughter. Her conflicted feelings about her mother, her guilt over her husband’s death, and her momentary weakness in seeking comfort from Jamie make her a flawed, relatable protagonist.
The supporting cast is equally well-drawn, particularly the enigmatic Wren Street, who has been investigating the town’s dark history even as she maintains a cautious distance from her own daughter, Temperance. The gradual unveiling of Wren’s backstory and her connection to the mine’s tragic past adds layers to the narrative.
Even the villains avoid one-dimensional characterization. Jamie Cleburne’s genuine attraction to Billie, coupled with his absolute devotion to the town’s twisted mythology, creates an antagonist who is simultaneously sympathetic and terrifying. The elderly members of the founding families, with their casual acceptance of human sacrifice as simply “the way things are done,” embody the banality of evil.
Gothic Elements with Contemporary Resonance
Carpenter skillfully employs classic Southern Gothic tropes—the decaying mansion, ancestral sins, religious fanaticism, the supernatural intersecting with reality—while grounding them in a thoroughly modern context. The town’s Initiative program is a brilliant device, using contemporary anxieties about economic instability as bait for potential victims.
Gothictown also explores themes that resonate beyond its thrilling plot:
Community vs. Individuality: The contrast between New York’s individualism and Juliana’s suffocating communal bonds raises questions about belonging and sacrifice
Motherhood and Family: Billie’s relationship with her absent mother mirrors her determination to be present for Mere
Economic Desperation: Post-pandemic vulnerability makes the town’s offer seem plausible
Power and Control: The founding families’ grip on Juliana reflects broader issues of how wealth and tradition enable abuse
Impressive Craftsmanship with Minor Flaws
Carpenter’s pacing is near-perfect, gradually accelerating from gentle unease to heart-pounding danger. Her prose strikes a balance between lush description and propulsive action, particularly in passages describing Billie’s nightmares or her explorations of the abandoned mine.
If Gothictown has weaknesses, they lie in a few plot resolutions that feel slightly convenient—the tax evasion scheme that ultimately brings down the town elders seems somewhat anticlimactic compared to their more monstrous crimes, though it’s historically accurate that Al Capone was ultimately imprisoned for tax evasion rather than murder. Additionally, a few secondary characters fade into the background without resolution, particularly Alice Tilton, whose fate remains somewhat nebulous.
The novel’s exploration of whether the town’s strange occurrences are supernatural or the result of carbon monoxide leaking from the mine offers an intriguing ambiguity. Carpenter wisely leaves room for readers to decide whether Juliana Minette truly exerts otherworldly influence or if the town’s residents have merely convinced themselves of her power—a question that lingers long after the final page.
Final Verdict: A Haunting Addition to the Southern Gothic Canon
Gothictown stands as one of Emily Carpenter’s most accomplished works, building on the atmospheric tension of her earlier novels like Burying the Honeysuckle Girls and The Weight of Lies while delving into deeper psychological territory. Readers who enjoyed Carpenter’s previous work will recognize her talent for creating unsettling environments with complex female protagonists, but this novel pushes further into horror territory with confidence.
Fans of authors like Gillian Flynn, Riley Sager, and Southern Gothic masters like Flannery O’Connor will find much to appreciate in this tale of a town where hospitality masks malevolence. Gothictown also shares DNA with works like Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and films such as Get Out or Midsommar, exploring how communities can normalize horrific traditions through ritual and shared delusion.
Carpenter’s author’s note explaining the real historical inspiration behind the fictional Juliana—the fate of female mill workers in Roswell, Georgia, during Sherman’s March to the Sea—adds another layer of meaning to the narrative. By connecting her fictional horror to historical atrocity, she reminds us that the most disturbing stories are often rooted in truth.
With its compelling blend of psychological insight, supernatural suggestion, and genuine human drama, Gothictown deserves a place on any thriller lover’s shelf. It’s a haunting examination of what people will sacrifice—and who they will sacrifice—to maintain their way of life, and a reminder that sometimes the most dangerous traps are the ones that look like salvation.