S8E8 Hokey Pokey: Kate Mascarenhas on a gothic horror in a grand hotel

“What you want from that gothic house is the sense of being overwhelmed by scale, while also having a sense of unease and claustrophobia as well. Those two things, twinned together.”

The Regent Hotel in Birmingham may be grand, but beneath its opulence, cocktail parties and fine dining, lies a gothic nightmare of murder, deception and mystery.

Hokey Pokey, the new book from Kate Mascarenhas, follows Nora Dickinson, who finds herself locked in the Regent with a host of high society guests during a terrible snow storm. And while they’re shut off from the outside world, reality begins to shift as supernatural terrors awake. In this episode we learn about Kate’s choice to blend two genres together, we dig into her hauntingly matter-of-fact writing style, and we explore the religious elements to her depiction of the supernatural.

In this episode, you will learn:

• How do ensure flashbacks don’t sap the energy and tension from your story.
• Why intuition and formal knowledge are key to engaging a reader’s emotions.
• Why you should consider drawing the places you’re writing about.

Find out more about Kate here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

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You can view the full transcript here.

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