Gothic Spring is a journey into a mind that is unraveling. Victorine is a young woman poised at the edge of sexual awakening, and cursed with more talent and imagination than society will tolerate.
Victorine Ellsworth knows something about the death of the vicar’s wife...but what? Is she the killer? Or the next victim?
Excerpt
Gothic Spring presents a serious theme (society's intolerance toward talented women) cast in a Victorian setting. Gothic Spring is a journey into a mind that is unraveling. Victorine is a young woman poised at the edge of sexual awakening, and cursed with more talent and imagination than society will tolerate. The conflict between her desire and the restrictions that rule her life lead to tragic circumstances.
Professional Reviews
Nancy Tannler / SE Review
In October, local resident Caroline Miller will publish her second book this year titled Gothic Spring. Her other book, Heart Land was published in April. The titles paint the landscape for two different genres and both are stories near and dear to the Miller’s take on the world.
In an interview with The Southeast Examiner, Miller told a bit of the story of her own life, where the ideas came from and why she chose now to publish these stories that have been brewing for 30+ years.
Caroline Miller is a name that can be attached to the title of Multnomah County Commissioner as well as one of the founding officers of Metro.
“I was around when Metro was just beginning to form as a regional government. It was an exciting time working together with people like Mike Burton, Marjorie Kafoury, Rich Gustufson and the eight other people that made up the first staff,” Miller said. She is also a teacher, union officer, artist and advocate.
Miller’s background is as diverse as her interests in life. She was one of the first ten children born to Americans serving in Panama two months after John McCain was born. Her mother was from Costa Rica and her father from Indiana.
After returning to the states they lived in Santa Monica, California in a tiny trailer park surrounded by Japanese bean fields. “The Santa Monica I lived in is not what it is today, it was where the blue collar workers from LA lived,” she said.
Miller graduated from Reed College in the fifties, lived in San Francisco and then spent time living in England, Africa and traveling in Europe before returning to the states.
“My experience at Reed was eye opening, The ideas of the students made me think I had gone to another planet.” Needless to say, it was a worldly education.
She continued to write and publish stories even while involved in other careers. A series of short stories that followed a particular train of thought were about a boy in the midwest after the great depression.
Miller compiled her the stories into a single fictional memoir about the boy growing up in rural Ohio, calling it Heart Land.
The story tells how he remembers Depression-era America when people realized they were all in the same boat. In order to pull out of the recession, they would have to pull together. The theme, albeit seventy years later, is similar to the challenges our country is facing today.
“I wanted to remind myself and others of what’s good about being an American,” Miller said. “Our relationship with the world has taken a bad turn over the years, but we are still a very caring country.”
Miller sees America as a forward-moving country.
“All you have to do is look back at our evolution towards being a non-racist country. We are a land of opportunity where every ethnicity has hope of prospering,” she said, describing America as being more of a stew than a melting pot because we retain cultural individuality as well as being part of broth that works together.
This month, Asylett Press releases Miller’s second novel, Gothic Spring. The seed for this story was planted while she was living in England as a young woman.
“I’ve always been passionate about women’s issues and thought the perfect setting to examine an independent-minded woman’s life would be during the repressive Victorian era,” she said.
Personal experience as a young, educated woman looking for a career in the fifties also had its influence. Graduating from Reed with a BA in Philosophy, Miller moved to San Francisco, she was rejected again and again for jobs she was qualified for because she was a woman.
“Like the heroine I wrote about in Gothic Spring, I was angry,” she said.
The novel delves into the dark and often manipulative ways a young woman had to move through Victorian society, where they were treated more like chattel than self-actualized people.
“The woman’s movement has come a long way since that time. There is a great deal of hope for the cause.”
Both novels combine the energy and creativity of Miller’s youth with the sagacious wisdom of a woman who has seen the world and experienced first- hand progressive changes.
Heart Land is available online at Barnes & Noble and the just-released Gothic Spring is currently available online from Ayslett.com.
The third book in the funny Silver Sisters Mysteries series. The twins and their 80 year-old mother and uncle get into trouble sleuthing in Sin City.
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