English Gothic

I am not a liar or a thief or a criminal. At least, not anymore. But here I am doing the things that I promised myself I would never do again. Nicholas Crawford made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He is dangerous and damaged but so am I. Our relationship is an addiction that we have to feed. Now, things are about to get even more complicated. Allegiances will be tested. Lies will be told. Truths will be revealed. We have both made promises that we can’t keep. The secrets we have uncovered only scratch the surface, and I’m afraid to find out what lies below.

Charlemagne was easily one of the most fascinating figures of Western civilization, as well as the most heroic and romantic. The 47 years of his reign marked some of the most significant and far reaching events of the Middle Ages. Undoubtedly, it was his enlightened vision for Europe that resulted in the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of cultural flowering that never really ceased to develop, and which led in a straight line directly to that period of astonishing achievement we now call the High Gothic. Even in the 21st century, we still hear the echoes of his deeds in the historical events that unfold today.

After watching his asthmatic daughter suffer in the foul city air, Theodore Constantine decides to get back to the land. When he and his wife search New England for the perfect nineteenth-century home, they find no township more charming, no countryside more idyllic than the farming village of Cornwall Coombe. Here they begin a new life: simple, pure, close to nature - and ultimately more terrifying than Manhattan’s darkest alley.

In Edwardian Suffolk, a manor house stands alone in a lost corner of the Fens: a glinting wilderness of water whose whispering reeds guard ancient secrets. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother, ruled by her repressive father. When he finds a painted medieval devil in a graveyard, unhallowed forces are awakened. Maud's battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen - and the even more nightmarish demons of her father's past.

Pru Dunning has everything she ever wanted: a successful boyfriend, a thriving nursing career, and a truly comfortable life. But then the strange voicemails start. Scarletta, the woman calls herself. She seems to know Pru, although Pru certainly doesn't know that name, nor does she recognize the glamorous voice leaving her poisonous messages. Pru begins to carefully investigate. But when she suddenly becomes a person of interest in a murder case, it feels like Scarletta’s toxic voice, lashing out from the shadows, will silence all beauty in Pru’s perfect life, once and for all.

Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm. But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life.

As identical twins, Haylee and Kaylee Fitzgerald have always done things in exactly the same way. Under their mother's guidance, their every outfit, every meal, and every thought was identical. But now things are different. With Kaylee back at home after her sister's betrayal, her life has been turned inside out. Both her mother and Haylee are away, and Kaylee's alone and more lost than ever.

Nicoletta knows all too well the curse that plagues the house of Scarletti. Then she gazes into the dark, mesmerizing eyes of Don Scarletti and she fears for her future - for it is Scarletti's ancient right to select a bride from among his people...and he has chosen her. Compelled by duty, driven by burning, inescapable desire, Nicoletta surrenders to this powerful, hypnotic man, giving her body willingly into his keeping. But will the tormented don be her heart's destiny... or her soul's destruction?

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe is a quintessential Gothic novel that combines romance, mystery, and horror, set against the backdrop of the picturesque but menacing landscapes of the Apennines. The story follows the fortunes of Emily St. Aubert, who suffers misadventures that include the death of her father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and machinations of an Italian brigand. This novel is celebrated for its elaborate descriptions of nature, its exploration of the sublime and the terrifying, and its influence on later Gothic literature.

Plagued by nightmares of torture and intense violence, a writer suffering from trauma-induced memory loss seeks to solve the mystery of his missing past. The only clue is a single page of an unfinished manuscript found in an old manual typewriter, in a fleabag motel, in a small West Virginian town called Luntville. It is here that the writer will seek answers, believing that if he finishes the book he was writing, his memories will return.

In this entrancing novel, set in late 1800s Europe, a beautiful English schoolgirl participates in an ancient celebration, only to discover she no longer knows the difference between truth and myth. As shadows lengthen, 17-year-old Helena Trant and her classmates must finish their picnic in the Black Forest. Tonight young men will be out to honor Loke, the god of mischief, with drinking and pranks - no woman will be safe. As Helena walks through the misty woods, she loses her friends, but her fear turns to joy....

Whimbrel House is changing. Merritt and Hulda are raising a family. Owein has signed a marriage contract with the magically compatible Lady Cora, a heavyweight of British nobility who’s an ocean away. And the lovely shape-shifting druid Fallon makes a distractingly fetching friend for Owein. But another change is in the air, and this time it’s something wicked. The greatest wizard of the millennium, Silas Hogwood, is back—after five years dead. New body, same foul scent, and driven by madness and revenge.

Sarita has been watched over by a guardian angel her entire life. She calls him Angelo, and keeps him a secret. But secrets can’t stay buried forever. When Angelo murders someone she loves, Sarita begins to see what's really been lurking in the shadows surrounding her. And she will have to embrace the evil within if she hopes to make it out alive. Johnny Compton, critically acclaimed author of The Spite House and master of dread, takes you on a terrifying race of one woman against the hordes of hell.

Conceived in love and possibility, Bonaventure Arrow didn't make a peep when he was born, and the doctor nearly took him for dead. No one knows that Bonaventure's silence is filled with resonance - a miraculous gift of rarified hearing that encompasses the Universe of Every Single Sound.

At the heart of Dark Romanticism is its brooding, pessimistic tone, its emphasis on the supernatural and the sins of humanity, and its use of iconic symbols and horrifying imagery. The classic Dark Romantic authors (Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville) are represented in the stories and poems in this volume, as well as some authors who are not commonly included in this genre.

Ambrosio, the worthy superior of the Capuchins of Madrid, falls to the temptations of Matilda, a fiend-inspired wanton who, disguised as a boy, has entered his monastery as a novice. Ambrosio then falls in love with one of his penitents and finally kills her in order to escape detection. However, he is discovered, tortured by the Inquisition and sentenced to death.

I found myself wondering if she had been born out of the files or they were born together. At any rate, the files and Miss Tofte were inextricably tied up with each other. I tell you it was weird! If it had been anybody else, I would have felt kind of sad about it, I mean, a little old lady with no life other than the file department. But with Miss Tofte, you had an altogether different feeling. This was the way she liked it, make no mistake, this was her choice.

It is 1889 and The Scottish Play is coming home. But before the darling couple of London theatre, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, take their acclaimed Macbeth to the Edinburgh stage terror treads the boards. A grisly message found smeared across the cobbles in blood, foretelling someone's demise. As the bloody prophecies continue to appear Edinburgh's own beloved pair - Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray and Inspector Ian Frey - enter the scene.

On the top floor of a small hospital, an unlikely piano prodigy lies in a coma, attended to by his gruff, helpless father. Outside the clinic, a motley vigil assembles beneath a reluctant New Mexico winter - strangers in search of answers, a brush with the mystical, or just an escape. To some the boy is a novelty, to others a religion. Just beyond this ragtag circle roams a disconsolate wolf on his nightly rounds, protecting and threatening, learning too much.

As her wedding to Lord Darkefell approaches, Lady Anne is summoned by a local girls' school to help them with a young student troubled by ghostly apparitions. She's quick to respond, and quick to discover the trickery behind the so-called ghosts. But despite her efforts to demonstrate to the student that she's been the victim of a cruel hoax, the young woman apparently jumps to her death the very next night. Stunned and saddened by the turn of events, Lady Anne soon realizes that what she thought was a prank was a dark precursor to foul play.