Gothic Historical Fiction

Lacey Elliot has been a woman without a past since the day her mother whisked her off to Charlottesville, refusing for 30 years to speak of her father, her family or her history. But when Lacey intercepts a desperate letter from an aunt in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, she sees her chance to confront the past that has terrified her mother and to fill in the gaps in her own life. Against the charm and the colorful, turbulent history of the picturesque town, the violent history of Lacey's own heritage is about to repeat itself.

It began with a happily ever after. It soon became a nightmare. Norfolk, England, 1816. Joy Horton is resigned to her spinster status. Loathe to pass on her disorder, she refuses to marry and works tirelessly as a skilled seamstress. But when a brooding duke falls madly in love with her, she's unable to resist his persuasive proposal. Honeymooning in London, Joy believes she has everything she's ever wanted...until accusations of murder creep into their lives.

An American woman and her son unearth the buried secrets and past lives of an English manor house in this masterful and riveting novel from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Belfer. “Infused with the brooding, gothic atmosphere of Jane Eyre or Rebecca . . . a novel that must be savored...

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE FINALIST FOR THE 2023 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE From the author of the award-winning debut story collection We Show What We Have Learned, an "atoundingly original” (The New York Times Book Review) work of historical fiction with shocking and eerie...

A post-mortem photographer unearths dark secrets from the past that may hold the key to his future in this “sensual, twisting gothic tale…in the tradition of A.S. Byatt’s Possession, Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale, and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights” (BookPage). All love...

Set in Virginia during the Civil War and a century beyond, this novel by the award-winning author of The Yellow Birds explores the brutal legacy of violence and exploitation in American society. Spanning over one hundred years, from the antebellum era to the 1980's, A Shout in the Ruins examines...

From the author of The Uninvited comes a haunting historical novel with a compelling mystery at its core. A young child psychologist steps off a train, her destination a foggy seaside town. There, she begins a journey causing her to question everything she believes about life, death, memories...

Acclaimed author Arturo Pérez-Reverte has earned a distinguished reputation as a master of the literary thriller. Now, he gives us his most accomplished novel to date. Andrés Faulques, a world-renowned war photographer, has retired to a life of solitude on the Spanish coast. He spends his days...

Winner of the 2023 PEN Translation Prize Winner of the 2023 NSW Premier’s Translation Prize An eerie, alienating, yet comic and profoundly sympathetic short story collection about Americans in America by one of Indonesia’s most prominent writers, now in an English translation for its...

Times are hard. Anne Chatham is a clever, modest young woman with little money, no prospects for marriage, and a never-shared secret—she can see spirits. Anne finds employment as a typist at Northfield House, the grand country manor of the Wellington family. Her employer, the wheelchair-bound Mr. Wellington, is kindly. His haughty wife is not. He has two handsome sons, the wry and dashing Thomas and the dark and somber Owen. Anne feels sure her prayers have been heard. Until the terrifying night she stumbles upon a tortured spirit roaming the dark halls of Northfield.

Miss Marigold Manners may be steeped in the etiquette of her old-money Boston family, but she is also an accomplished, modern woman and an avid student of archaeology who can handle any situation with poise. When the death of her parents leaves her too destitute to pursue her academic career and she receives a letter from a distant relative on Great Misery Island, Marigold decides she must do what any person of superior sense and greater-than-average curiosity would: she mounts her trusty bicycle and heads up the craggy, fog-shrouded coast of New England for a date with fate.

IAs soon as she arrives in Venice, golden-haired Charlotte Morrow is pursued by the city's most dashing and celebrated men. Young and reckless, the orphaned English ward of a mysterious guardian expects a life of parties and adventure. Instead she finds herself little better than a bird in a gilded cage at Edentide, her guardian's immense palazzo on the Grand Canal. A "Ghoul of Venice" is terrorizing the city, draining beautiful young women of their blood. To Charlotte's horror, her handsome, brooding guardian, whom she secretly calls the Demon Count, is considered a prime suspect.

In the dying days of 1850, the young detective Charles Maddox takes on a new case. His client? The only surviving son of the long-dead poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his wife Mary, author of Frankenstein. Charles soon finds himself being drawn into the bitter battle being waged over the poet's literary legacy. When a chance discovery raises doubts about the death of Shelley's first wife, Harriet, he starts to question whether she did kill herself—or whether what really happened was far more sinister…

Scotland 1862. A murder, a terrifying creature, and a battle for his affections were not what Midnight Gunn expected when he journeyed to Scotland for the summer. Bodies are mysteriously disappearing from the city morgue, Midnight’s growing household is in turmoil, and someone or something lurks in the shadows, watching.

Having no fortune, a negligible reputation, and an appearance that could only be described as plain, Miss Olympia Daventry has few prospects. Unless, of course, she elects to remain in her aunt's home dodging her uncle's amourous advances and his sermons, both of which are dished out in equal measure. Out of desperation, she accepts an offer of marriage from a man she has never met. Married by proxy, she travels to his home and at her first sight of it, begins to wonder if perhaps she has not made a terrible mistake.

“To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history. . . .” Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they plunge her into a world she...

These 13 stories by the author of The Invisible Man "approach the elegance of Chekhov" (Washington Post) and provide "early explorations of (Ellison's) lifelong fascination with the 'complex fate' and 'beautiful absurdity' of American identity" (John Callahan). First serial to The New Yorker...

Louisiana, año 1830. Harriet, esclava de la plantación Beaumont de Saint Francisville, acude a Marie Laveau, la Reina del Vudú de Nueva Orleans, para vengarse de su amo, hombre tiránico y cruel atormentado por la muerte de su esposa. En una casa maldita de la Louisiana del Viejo Sur Harriet vivirá una historia de venganza, magia y libertad. ¿Qué secretos esconde la mansión Beaumont? ¿Qué hay bajo las oscuras aguas del bayou? Viaja a la Nueva Orleans del siglo XIX, a las plantaciones de algodón y el vudú.

Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot, and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water - until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes...not drowned, not lost, simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together.

The Postmaster looked over my shoulder. As I turned to look I saw a flicker of movement from across the street. I felt unseen eyes peer at me. He walked away without another word. I watched as he climbed onto his bicycle and sped away down the street. I turned back and looked over my shoulder. Someone had been watching us.