Lonesome Dream: A novel constructed as a subversive genre fusion of the cozy mystery and the gothic romance, exploring themes of trauma and feminist destabilization of toxic masculinity

This creative thesis is a novel that attempts to tell a character-focused mystery through a feminist perspective. By fusing two sub-genres, the cozy mystery and the Gothic romance, the novel subverts genre tropes to create a complex female protagonist who subsequently subverts social expectations of women in society. As well, the protagonist’s actions challenge toxic masculinity, and in the role of an “accidental sleuth,” represents a pursuit of attainable justice, when many individuals historically and in today’s world often find themselves victims of unchecked and unacknowledged injustice. Further, this work explores the impact trauma and loss has on an individual, how it shapes one’s life and how it never fully goes away. With these goals, the novel works to be a meditation on human behavior and feminism, attempting as well to challenge past genre stereotypes of female protagonists in both the sub-genres this thesis explores.