In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts

by Gwendolyn Kiste

Stoker winner Gwendolyn Kiste holds up a dark, queer mirror to The Great Gatsby in In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts, a haunting exploration of the obsession and control at the edges of an American classic.

In 1955, Daisy Buchanan is found dead in an abandoned West Egg mansion, but her daughter Mel knows she's really been gone for years. No one knows whether Daisy was murdered, or if it was a simpler, slower death: her yearslong spiral of alcohol, abuse, and helplessness. But when Mel enters the estate, she finds Daisy's ghost, somehow frozen at twenty-three, and a charming, bleeding phantom that used to be Jay Gatsby.

To free her mother, Mel must carve a path through family secrets and decaying revelers: deep into Gatsby’s starving house, as it gorges itself on unfulfilled love and grows stronger every night.

Genres: Horror, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Gothic, Retellings, Adult, Queer

176 pages, Paperback

Expected publication September 15, 2026

About the author

Gwendolyn Kiste is the four-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Immortals, The Haunting of Velkwood, Boneset & Feathers, and Pretty Marys All in a Row, among others. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in outlets including Lit Hub, Nightmare, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vastarien, Tor Nightfire, Titan Books, and The Dark. She's a Lambda Literary Award winner, and her fiction has also received the This Is Horror award for Novel of the Year as well as nominations for the Shirley Jackson, Premios Kelvin, Ignotus, and Dragon awards.

Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, their excitable calico cat, and not nearly enough ghosts. Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com

Reviews

[BookishKB · Rating 3 out of 5]

✨ In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts ✨

I can appreciate the attempt at a queer Great Gatsby retelling, but this one just fell flat for me. It felt too short to fully explore the ideas it was reaching for, which left the story feeling underdeveloped and a bit too fast paced.

🖤 What to Expect
• Queer gothic horror
• Great Gatsby reimagining
• Haunted mansion
• Ghostly mother
_ _ _
⭐ Final Score: 2.5
📅 Pub Date: September 15, 2026
📝 Thank you to Creature Publishing and NetGalley for the advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.

[Johanna Van]

I blurbed this one!

"Clever, compelling, and creepy: In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts is the sapphic sequel to The Great Gatsby we have all been waiting for as fervently as Gatsby waited for Daisy."

[sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

thank you to edelweiss for the arc! please don't let my haterism dissuade you from reading this;
maybe you'll love it, but I sure didn't. Typically I try to dnf arcs if I know I won't like them, but this was so squarely in my niche (gay gatsby genre fiction) that i couldn't resist finishing it. I went in with a generous heart, but I couldn't ignore the boring character work and the juiceless horror (ironic). I regret to inform you that even being gay as fuck could not save this book. Yes, I'm sad about it too.

Conceptually, this is solid — Daisy's daughter investigating Gatsby's haunted house IS cool — but if you're doing Gatsby fanfic you simply Have to bring something to the table not already explored by the original text. and this really doesn't. everyone reading this novella will probably have read the original, or at least have cultural knowledge of the character's archetypes, which makes every agonizingly repetitive sentence about Tom/Daisy/Gatsby/Nick spelling out their feelings and motives VERY boring. The only character with original flavor is Jordan, and I'm giving her a whole extra star for being the milfy bisexual ladykiller of my dreams. Hello and god bless. She was complicated and interesting and not wholly transparent, unlike literally every other character.

My biggest gripe: retellings don't ever require the author to prove to the reader that they know the original back to front. It's always tedious and it's bad storytelling.





and also you cannot use "aw shucks" as an adjective, and you certainly can't do it TWICE

[The Lit · Rating 3 out of 5]

This latest dive into Gothic fiction has left me with a few lingering chills and a bit of uncertainty. In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts is a haunting tale that attempts to balance historical elegance with a supernatural edge.
​I’m giving this a 3-star review! ⭐⭐⭐
​A big thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this story. As always, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
​The Review:
This was an interesting read, but I’m settling on three stars. While the atmosphere is undeniable, I found myself waiting for a bit more momentum to carry me through the middle of the book. It is a beautifully written story, but it didn't quite reach the heights I was hoping for in a Gothic thriller.
​The Good:
Gwendolyn Kiste is a master of atmosphere. The "gilded" setting feels lush and oppressive in all the right ways, making the "ghostly" elements feel grounded in the world. The prose is evocative and poetic, perfectly suiting the dark, historical tone of the narrative.
​The Not-So-Good:
The pacing felt a bit sluggish at times, with the plot occasionally getting lost in the descriptive language. I also found it difficult to fully connect with the characters' motivations during certain key turning points, which made the stakes feel a little more distant than I would have liked

[ฅ^•⩊•^ฅ · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only reason I didn’t DNF this book is because it was short but those 176 pages felt like 600. I like horror, I like queer stories, but I’m tired of trauma being the only thing that seems to matter in literature right now. It’s exhausting. I went in hoping for a haunting story that would genuinely chill me to the bone and give me goosebumps, but instead it just made me roll my eyes. I’ve honestly felt more scared reading Goosebumps books than this.

The worst part? Aside from the heavy focus on trauma, definitely the mommy issues. If I had a mother like Daisy, I wouldn’t care about her at all. There’s no way I’d go chasing her or her ghost into a haunted house. I’d be running the other way. Another thing that really bothered me was Mel and us focusing more on her love life that the actual story. The haunted house? Not haunted. Not scary. Just kind of… there. The ghosts were fine, I guess. Daisy’s were the only ones that stood out even a little.

At least now I know that “feminist horror” apparently means “no horror, just vibes and trauma.”. But hey, at least it was short.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll start off by saying that I’m a fan of this type of horror. Ghosts of the past, metaphorical ghosts, real ghosts, you name it… if you love the horror of all of the above, you’ll love this.

“How do you explain all the ways your life is haunted to someone who can’t even fathom ghosts?”

✷ Great Gatsby inspired
✷ queer horror
✷ haunted house
✷ ghosts

This is a haunting story about forgiveness and acceptance. I had to sit with this one for a while… and it might stay with me for a little. I found myself highlighting more than I thought I would, and the way it relates to my life and my relationship with my own parents was surprising to me, but I shouldn’t be surprised. I always loved The Great Gatsby.

“It’s 1955, for god’s sake; by now, the world should be more civilized than this.”

This book was on the shorter end but it packed a punch of emotion for me. The writing was descriptive, beautiful and even funny at times… if you have laugh at a funeral type humor. Highly recommend for a novella in this genre.

Thank you to the NetGalley Team and Gwendolyn Kiste for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thankfully this is a short novella because it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for from a ‘haunting exploration of obsession’. I didn’t HATE this book but here are my potentially unpopular opinions:

I guess it being short was where I struggled initially because there wasn’t much build up to the story and it went straight into ectoplasm in Gatsby’s mansion.

It felt a bit like a bad joke unfortunately as I really wanted to love this. But I recognised so many quotes from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel which felt forced.

One of the things that made me apply for this ARC was the promise of a sapphic relationship. This just didn’t seem to hit the mark, and Mel’s obsession with Jordan felt very odd given the age gap/her mums bestie.

This could have been so much more atmospheric and could have explored a part of the story that had not been originally.

[Roxanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and the pacing was good for what was there, I wish there had been...more. The ghosts were amazing, I wish we could have more of them for sure, more of a build up. It was a very interesting and inventive take on the Gatsby story, and I though it did a great job giving readers info in case they are less familiar with Gatsby while still mentioning specific things that occur in the book.

Mel was a great main character jumping into the literal and metaphorical ghosts of her family's past along with Gatsby and his house. I wish that we could have had more of Mel and Vera. We get some nice scenes with them and it really would have been nice to elaborate on that.

Overall I give it a solid 3.5 stars and would absolutely recommend it for anyone who likes a good haunted house. Especially a creative haunted house!

[444.ariesbaby_reads✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

•in these gilded, ghostly hearts- gwendolyn kiste👻🩶•

a murder, secrets, longing & ghosts of the past come to resurface.

the hidden truths, long buried yet to be discovered by daisy’s daughter after she was murdered in a mansion that is starved for energy and life. after one visit, it keeps calling, a pull that cannot be ignored. curiosity taking over and the urge to help the lingering ghosts that cannot leave.

this was such a beautiful, historical gothic novel.
where the past clings like ghosts and the ghosts haunt for love and memories of their past.

this novel is full on longing and fixed obsessions for what used to be and the things that are no longer within reach.

•★ ★ ★ ★

thank you to @netgalley & @creaturepublishing for this arc copy!✨

[Andrea (looseleftlesbian) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I fell in love with Mel pretty quickly and I can attribute that to the author. There was just something about the character that made instantly fall in love with her.

This was such an interesting novella and take on what happens after the events of The Great Gatsby. This is just a snippet of Daisy’s daughter, Mel’s life. I think it would be so interesting to see her life before this story and after. It would also be interesting to me to see both books be read and analyzed in high school classes.

In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts is a hauntingly beautiful and queer sequel you didn’t know you needed, but was better than you could’ve imagined.

[ASK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, the characters are so well done. I almost wish some elements of the book were metaphorical rather, as it would have made an amazing lit-fic. The way that they were conflicted, so many experiences, influenced by their times, mixed motivations, so many conflicting emotions. That part was great. I was confused by the genre and it could have been just me. In my opinion, a metaphorical house haunting would be better or a true horror. The ectoplasm was a huge distractor and cheapened it for me. The premise was amazing. I would love to read more about the characters. But the yellow liquid... Like I said, that Brought it down. I had trouble connecting with it after the first, umm.. Wave.

[Linds · Rating 3 out of 5]

In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts by Gwendolyn Kiste is a quick, uncomplicated might may tickle your fancy if you're looking for a Gatsby-themed ghost mystery or ever wondered what happened to Pamela Buchanan, Daisy's daughter. The story introduces us to her (also known as Mel) as she teams up with some old and new faces to investigate her mother's death. It didn't quite hit all the right notes for me, and at times it felt a bit anachronistic, but if you're looking for a haunted house story with some of the characters from The Great Gatsby, consider checking it out? Thank you to Creature Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC!

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well that was gorgeous

[Shan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5