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Moths
Dower House, lush and irresistible, draws people to it like moths to a flame. Among those caught in its spell are James and Nemo Boyce, who buy it, and Harry Harris, who becomes possessed by both the house and its mistress.
But disturbing events - the mysterious death of a favorite dog, ghostly music in the woods, fleeting reflections in an old mirror - give warning of another presence. And then, at the Boyces' housewarming party, an uninvited guest makes an Sarah Moore, dazzling actress, beautiful, lustful, murderous - and dead for 150 years.
As Nemo begins to undergo a series of bizarre changes, Harry, obsessively in love with her, finds himself swept up into an ever-tightening spiral of tragedy ...
One of Valancourt's most exciting rediscoveries in years, Rosalind Ashe's slow-burn Gothic horror tale Moths (1976) was a critical hit on both sides of the Atlantic and earned comparisons to Daphne du Maurier's classic Rebecca.
"A magical novel, passionate, exciting, and beautifully written." - Iris Murdoch
"Could be a young Daphne du Maurier . . . Fans of Rebecca will be moths to the flame." - Publishers Weekly
"A beautifully written and beautifully constructed novel of mounting fear and terror ... Wonderfully scary, wonderfully exotic ... absolutely riveting." - Stephen King (on Rosalind Ashe's Hurricane Wake)
"A first novel of power and imagination . . . the conclusion is genuinely frightening." - The Guardian
"A first novel as well crafted as any classic of its kind." - The Pittsburgh Press
But disturbing events - the mysterious death of a favorite dog, ghostly music in the woods, fleeting reflections in an old mirror - give warning of another presence. And then, at the Boyces' housewarming party, an uninvited guest makes an Sarah Moore, dazzling actress, beautiful, lustful, murderous - and dead for 150 years.
As Nemo begins to undergo a series of bizarre changes, Harry, obsessively in love with her, finds himself swept up into an ever-tightening spiral of tragedy ...
One of Valancourt's most exciting rediscoveries in years, Rosalind Ashe's slow-burn Gothic horror tale Moths (1976) was a critical hit on both sides of the Atlantic and earned comparisons to Daphne du Maurier's classic Rebecca.
"A magical novel, passionate, exciting, and beautifully written." - Iris Murdoch
"Could be a young Daphne du Maurier . . . Fans of Rebecca will be moths to the flame." - Publishers Weekly
"A beautifully written and beautifully constructed novel of mounting fear and terror ... Wonderfully scary, wonderfully exotic ... absolutely riveting." - Stephen King (on Rosalind Ashe's Hurricane Wake)
"A first novel of power and imagination . . . the conclusion is genuinely frightening." - The Guardian
"A first novel as well crafted as any classic of its kind." - The Pittsburgh Press
196 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 10, 2025
review soon
June 4, 2025
There’s something quietly haunting about Moths, like the delicate brush of wings against glass at midnight. Rosalind Ashe crafts a narrative as fragile and persistent as the creatures that inhabit its pages. The recurring image of moths isn’t just symbolic; I found it spectral. Drawn to light even when it consumes them, the moths mirror not only our protagonist’s descent into obsession and self-erasure, but that of the entire cast of characters.
The moths, as well as the home at the heart of the story, form a soft, flitting metaphor for longing, memory, and the kind of ruin that feels almost romantic in its inevitability. The novel unfolds in a way that recalls the larger strokes of The Yellow Wallpaper, where the supernatural and psychological flicker and battle for your senses.
Ashe’s voice echoes the gothic elegance of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, but with a sharper, more fractured psychological edge. There is also a quiet feminism stitched through the shadows. Like Rebecca, Moths centers women whose power is often misunderstood, underestimated, or mislabeled as madness. They are haunted, yes—but by what? A specter, or the weight of restraint?
And yet, Moths never loses its own sense of self. It is its own haunted house, its own flickering lamp in the night.
A beautiful and melancholy read, Moths lingers long after the last page is turned. By the end, I felt as though I were a moth drawn to its flame.
The moths, as well as the home at the heart of the story, form a soft, flitting metaphor for longing, memory, and the kind of ruin that feels almost romantic in its inevitability. The novel unfolds in a way that recalls the larger strokes of The Yellow Wallpaper, where the supernatural and psychological flicker and battle for your senses.
Ashe’s voice echoes the gothic elegance of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, but with a sharper, more fractured psychological edge. There is also a quiet feminism stitched through the shadows. Like Rebecca, Moths centers women whose power is often misunderstood, underestimated, or mislabeled as madness. They are haunted, yes—but by what? A specter, or the weight of restraint?
And yet, Moths never loses its own sense of self. It is its own haunted house, its own flickering lamp in the night.
A beautiful and melancholy read, Moths lingers long after the last page is turned. By the end, I felt as though I were a moth drawn to its flame.
June 11, 2025
This new edition includes a really good and thoughtful introduction from Lisa Kröger that puts Moths in the context of gothic fiction, horror, and Ashe's contemporaries.
My late grandmother was a writer, and this was her first novel. It's pretty shameful I haven't got round to reading it until now, especially since this is a pretty great book! A ghost story of sorts, it touches on jealousy, love and doubt, and ends up being really entertaining. It starts slowly, with some luxurious prose and pretty evocative character profiles, but once you've been lulled into a false sense of security, the shocks are visceral. It's the story of a woman named Nemo, who buys an old Georgian house in Oxfordshire with her husband, and Harry (our narrator), who quickly befriends the couple and falls for Nemo. After a supernatural experience, Nemo's mood swings evolve into migraines and fits of passion, and when death rears its head, things get pretty intense. It's a short book - I finished it in a day - but it's full of riches, and I'll never look at a hat-pin the same way again.
My late grandmother was a writer, and this was her first novel. It's pretty shameful I haven't got round to reading it until now, especially since this is a pretty great book! A ghost story of sorts, it touches on jealousy, love and doubt, and ends up being really entertaining. It starts slowly, with some luxurious prose and pretty evocative character profiles, but once you've been lulled into a false sense of security, the shocks are visceral. It's the story of a woman named Nemo, who buys an old Georgian house in Oxfordshire with her husband, and Harry (our narrator), who quickly befriends the couple and falls for Nemo. After a supernatural experience, Nemo's mood swings evolve into migraines and fits of passion, and when death rears its head, things get pretty intense. It's a short book - I finished it in a day - but it's full of riches, and I'll never look at a hat-pin the same way again.
September 17, 2025
Many will be attracted to this book from 1976, reprinted by Valancourt, because of it being the story of an old Georgian house in Oxfordshire, the young couple who buy it, and the mysterious and sinister events that occur once they take residence. Certainly we have come across this before, but isolated and delapidated mansions in rural England do lend themselves well to a horror story.
One of the problems here though, is rather like the rambling and overgrown bushes of the garden of the house, there is considerable ground to be cut through before getting to the actual story.
Ultimately, Ashe describes her three well-to-do main characters, with their moodswings and strange traits, well, but any real fun is gained from the incidents that occur, the death of a workman that may or may not be a murder and the discovery of a mysterious notebook that seems to say that one of the characters is not who they say they are. Its a mix of the supernatural and the gothic, but could all have been told in half as many pages.
One of the problems here though, is rather like the rambling and overgrown bushes of the garden of the house, there is considerable ground to be cut through before getting to the actual story.
Ultimately, Ashe describes her three well-to-do main characters, with their moodswings and strange traits, well, but any real fun is gained from the incidents that occur, the death of a workman that may or may not be a murder and the discovery of a mysterious notebook that seems to say that one of the characters is not who they say they are. Its a mix of the supernatural and the gothic, but could all have been told in half as many pages.
July 5, 2025
Lush gothic atmosphere gives way to murderous lust in Ashe’s 1976 debut, latest in Valancourt’s “Monster, She Wrote” series dedicated to rediscovered women of horror. Beguiled by the faded splendor of The Dower House, an overgrown Georgian manse up for sale but well beyond his means, college don Harry insinuates his way into the lives of its new owners, the clubby prosaic James and the dark, fey wife he calls Mo, short for Nemo (‘nobody’), itself short for Mnemosyne (‘memory’). She and Harry are drawn together by an uncanny mutual fascination with the house which seems to possess them, but things take a deadly turn as the suggestible Nemo is taken over by the malevolent spirit of its past mistress Sarah Moore, a regency actress with a penchant for killing her lovers, less moths to a flame that flies to a spider. Passion flares and bodies pile while the agonized Harry becomes both suspect, accomplice and potential victim. True to her era, Ashe’s sumptuous literary Gothicism comes rather heavily back to cinematic earth, but on balance this is an engrossing, deliciously seductive supernatural thriller.
September 30, 2025
Ashe, Rosalind - Moths
Oxford don Harry Harris comes across Dower House, a bit worse for the years.
Nevertheless, this is a spacious beauty, faded, neglected, needing care and expense.
Developers, hoteliers, loud sorts, all are primed at the auction.
Fortunately, the couple Harry backs, Nemo and Peter, carry the day, and get the house.
Along with a wayward spirit, Sarah Moore, Regency actress, dead over 150 years.
The story is an under-the-skin thriller, with three compelling characters.
Nemo (Latin for no one), Sarah (murderous, lascivious) and Dower House itself.
Throughout, Harry observes and narrates, meddles, grows obsessive. Harry is a dishrag.
An over-aged worshiper, his increasing presence takes me away from the other three, the three I would prefer to be with.
Despite a few detours, the pace gathers momentum until a heady conclusion.
While I enjoyed this, I longed for more Nemo, much more.
Oxford don Harry Harris comes across Dower House, a bit worse for the years.
Nevertheless, this is a spacious beauty, faded, neglected, needing care and expense.
Developers, hoteliers, loud sorts, all are primed at the auction.
Fortunately, the couple Harry backs, Nemo and Peter, carry the day, and get the house.
Along with a wayward spirit, Sarah Moore, Regency actress, dead over 150 years.
The story is an under-the-skin thriller, with three compelling characters.
Nemo (Latin for no one), Sarah (murderous, lascivious) and Dower House itself.
Throughout, Harry observes and narrates, meddles, grows obsessive. Harry is a dishrag.
An over-aged worshiper, his increasing presence takes me away from the other three, the three I would prefer to be with.
Despite a few detours, the pace gathers momentum until a heady conclusion.
While I enjoyed this, I longed for more Nemo, much more.
June 2, 2025
For some reason I seem to dislike books written/set in the 70s. What a weird tacky social scene.
November 10, 2025
nemo walked so tara yummy could run
actually was quite scary had to stop reading at night
actually was quite scary had to stop reading at night
October 6, 2025
I feel like my expectations were a bit too high for this one. The pacing is a lot slower than I thought it would be, which wouldn't typically be a negative thing for me, but it ended up making me feel bored. Given that this book is not very long, I was expecting a faster paced book. I really liked the vibes of the story overall, the story had elements of "spooky" things, but I wouldn't say this was scary. It reads more on the fiction side with some supernatural vibes.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews