Gothic Romance Lending Library
In August, 1996, Gothic Journal launched the Gothic Romance Lending Library (GRLL). Due to generous book donations by gothic romance lovers, authors, and publishers, it grew to contain over 3,400 volumes. This non-profit library was sponsored by Gothic Journal and housed in the home of volunteer librarians Rod and Pat Christian in Spokane, Washington, until June, 2012, when it was moved to the home of volunteer librarian Lila Ekstrom in Eugene, Oregon. It was housed there until May 2013, when it was donated in its entirety by Gothic Journal to McDaniel College’s Hoover Library in Westminster, Maryland.
McDaniel College agreed to pay for shipment of the GRLL to Maryland and to retain at least 50% of its volumes in its Hoover Library. To view a press release about this donation, see this link. Here is an excerpt from that press release:
“We are very excited to receive this wonderful donation of gothic romance literature that will complement our growing American Romance Collection made possible by the Nora Roberts Foundation,” said Hoover Library Director Jessame Ferguson. “We look forward to making books from the GRLL available to interested readers and researchers for many years to come. After we process them into our circulating collection, they will be available to anyone in the McDaniel College community or to the general public via interlibrary loan.”
For the past two years, McDaniel College has been awarded significant grant funding from the Nora Roberts Foundation to help advance research and study of romance literature. Nora Roberts is a best-selling author of more than 200 romance novels. These grants support McDaniel’s academic minor in romance fiction and an online creative writing course on the subject, in addition to the American Romance Collection, and now the GRLL, in Hoover Library. All this has established McDaniel as one of the few centers for the study of the romance genre.
When the GRLL was operated by Gothic Journal, library users could order up to eight books at one time and keep them for approximately three months. Books had to be returned (using a provided prepaid mailer) postmarked on or before the due date. Hoover Library has processed 1273 of these books into its circulating collection, so 57% of the GRLL titles are currently available to anyone in the McDaniel College community or to the general public via interlibrary loan. The remainder of the GRLL books were culled, as they were not in suitable condition to circulate.
To find the available titles, go to the Hoover Library at this link. To receive any of these titles to read, you must ask a library that participates in the interlibrary loan system to request them for you from the Hoover Library. When your order arrives at the library that submitted your request, you may pick them up at that library and return them there by the due date specified.
Library Catalog
Gothic Romance: A novel that contains romance,life-threatening suspense, and a puzzle or mystery
There were approximately 2,251 titles in the donated GRLL plus 1,171 duplicates, for a total of approximately 3,421 volumes. The Author catalog links below contain the book titles by author, plus additional data, such as paperback/hardcover, publisher, publishing month, and whether the book has a contemporary or historical setting.
Authors Last Names A-K Authors Last Names L-Z
GRLL Ambassadors
Gothic Journal is extremely grateful its dedicated librarians and to the following GRLL Ambassadors who were recruited in 2012 to help promote online and via social media the GRLL’s availability:
| Ambassador | Location | Contact Info/Links |
| Sara Boyle | Brighton, England | My Love-Haunted Heart |
| Anna Taylor Sweringen | Brooklyn, NY | Gothic romance author www.annataylor2678.webs.com www.annamtaylor.webs.com |
| Lisa Greer | Brewton, AL | Author of gothic romance that will make you shiver… Sign up for my newsletter and get a free gothic romance read: www.lisalgreer.com Facebook: LisaGreerAuthor |
| John Norris | Pretty Sinister Books prettysinister.blogspot.com | |