Gothic English Mystery

Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates—a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name. But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident.

With nowhere to go, no one to help her, Leigh fled into the arms of Luke Casteel! Leigh Van Voreen had to escape from Boston's Farthinggale Manor. The foul secret she harbored within her seemed to darken her life forever. Jillian, her mother, would not believe her...and Tony Tatterton, her stepfather, had betrayed her most cruelly. But the pure devotion of Luke Casteel promised her hope and respect. Only Luke knew her deepest of secrets...only Luke would love and protect her.

When Lois Grover moves into the Beacon of Hope Assisted Living Center, she fears boredom will consume her, but a fellow resident soon invites her to a secret meeting of the Twilight Society. This quirky group of elderly residents, with a variety of skills, talents, and expertise, helps lost souls, tethered to the world of the living, by solving the mysteries keeping them from moving on. The center itself—a historic colonial mansion that has functioned as a hospital, a school, and a sanitarium—possesses mysteries of its own that both help and hinder the society's investigations.

Growing up in Louisiana, Gabriel’s young life is a happy one, despite the growing rift between her mother and her conniving, whiskey-drinking daddy. Her dreams for a bright future as an artist are cut short, however, when her innocence is shattered by the rich cannery owner Octavious Tate. Pregnant and desperate to spare her mother the scandal, Gabriel agrees to a shocking plan that will allow Octavious’ wife, Gladys, to claim the baby as her own and will net Gabriel’s father a huge payoff.

Heaven Leigh Casteel may be the prettiest, smartest girl in the backwoods, but her cruel father and weary stepmother work her like a mule. For the sake of her brother Tom and the other little ones, Heaven clings to the hope that someday she can show the world they are worthy of love and respect. But when the children’s stepmother can’t take it anymore and abandons the family, Heaven’s father hatches a scheme that will alter her young life forever. Being sold to a strange couple is just the beginning....

As Logan's bride, she would savor now the love she had sought for so long. And free from her father's clutches, she would live again in her backwoods town as a respected teacher and cherished wife. But after a wedding trip to Boston's Farthinggale Manor and a lavish, elegant party, Heaven and Logan are persuaded to stay...lured by Tony Tatterton's guile to live amid the Tatterton wealth and privilege. Then the ghosts of Heaven's past rise up again, writhing around her fragile happiness...threatening her precious love with scandal and jealousy, sinister passions and dangerous dreams!

The descendant of adventuring-dead-aristocrats, Clarissa Knightley supplements a modest inheritance by penning gothic novels that cost more than they earn. Upon learning that she has mysteriously inherited a share of an earl's estate, she rashly packs up her household. In remote Gravesyde Priory, she hopes to find a safe haven and family who will welcome her and her young nephew. Instead, she discovers a drunken American army captain, his African servant, and ancient, surly caretakers.

Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different....

On prom night, Caroline Winterfield walked away from the ruins of an abandoned mansion called Haven Cliff and into the woods…never to be seen again. Only her three best friends know what really happened. But a secret is a secret, and a promise is a promise—even when it shatters lifelong friendships. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of that night, Midge, Kelly, and Talia reunite at Haven Cliff, now a gleaming architectural jewel. But they aren’t alone. Someone is watching.

In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall. This place is shrouded in folklore—old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who is not quite a child. Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed. Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth. And she soon suspects the proprietors are hiding something. Then she meets the mysterious mother and young boy who live in the grounds—and together they begin to unpick the secrets of this place.

Ever since Fern could remember, she and her mother have lived as servants in Wyndemere House, the old Gothic mansion of the Davenport family. She may have been a servant, but Fern developed a sweet friendship with Dr. Davenport's son, Ryder, and she was even allowed free range of the estate. But Dr. Davenport has remarried, and his new wife has very different ideas about a servant's place. Yet, for all her wrath, the cruel woman cannot break the mysterious bond between Ryder and Fern.

Anne is barely keeping it together. A frazzled ghostwriter and aspiring novelist, she juggles nine-year-old twins and a listless marriage from an overcrowded Manhattan apartment, spreading herself thinner each day. Just as Anne is about to give up on her dreams, she lands her biggest client yet: Melody Wells. Melody paints a picture of serenity and empowerment in the lavender haze of her visualization workshops—however, the one thing she can’t manifest are the pages her publisher is demanding for her new motivational book. Enter Anne.

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks.

The only family Ruby Landry has ever known are her loving guardian Grandmere Catherine, a Cajun spiritual healer, and her drunken Grandpere Jack. Although thinking about her dead mother and mysterious father sometimes makes her feel sad and solemn, Ruby is grateful for what she has, especially when her attraction to handsome Paul Tate blossoms into a wonderful love affair. But Paul’s wealthy parents forbid him to associate with a poor Landry. Then, finding her father in his massive New Orleans mansion, Ruby is quickly subjected to his world of lies, torment...and madness.

Six years after four family members died of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods—elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and 18-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat—live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives—cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune.

The car crash that killed Heaven and Logan left Annie Casteel Stonewall orphaned and crippled. Whisked off to Farthinggale Manor by the possessive Tony Tatterton, Annie pines for her lost family, but especially for Luke, her half-brother. Friend of her childhood, her fantasy prince, her loving confidante...without the warm glow of Luke's love, she is lost in the shadows of despair. When Annie discovers Troy's cottage hidden in Farthinggale's woods, the mystery of her past deepens. Even as she yearns to see Luke again, her hopes and dreams are darkened by the sinister Casteel spell.

On a blistering summer day in 1968, nine-year-old Tommy vanishes without a trace from Coram House, an orphanage on the shores of Lake Champlain. Some say a nun drowned him, others say he ran away. Or maybe he never existed. Fifty years later, his disappearance is still unsolved. Struggling true crime writer Alex Kelley needs a fresh start. When she’s asked to ghostwrite a book about the orphanage—and the abuses that occurred there—she packs up her belongings and moves to wintry Burlington, Vermont.

Olivia Becente was never supposed to have the gift. The ability to commune with the dead was the specialty of her sister, Naiche. But when Naiche dies unexpectedly and under strange circumstances, somehow Olivia suddenly can’t stop seeing and hearing from spirits. A few years later, she’s the most in-demand paranormal investigator in Denver. She’s good at her job, but the loss of Naiche haunts her. That’s when she hears from the Brown Palace, a landmark Denver hotel.

Portrait of the Medical Student as a Young Body Snatcher. Yet I must insist that in the end, this is not a story about Death. It is perhaps a Life story, or even—yes—a Love story. It is the story of how I clawed my way from the decay of a crumbling legacy into the modern era of Reason and Science. It is the story of how I escaped the prison of archaic superstition to the freedom of enlightenment. It is the story of how a rose can blossom from even the bloodiest soil, of how light can grow from shadow, how love can grow from despair.

Once again, internationally acclaimed, New York Times best-selling author Carlos Ruiz Zafón creates a rich, labyrinthine tale of love, literature, passion, and revenge, set in a dark, gothic Barcelona, in which the heroes of The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game must contend with a nemesis that threatens to destroy them.