Gothic Historical Fiction

Diana Cooke was "born with the century" and came of age just after World War I. The daughter of Virginia gentry, she knew early that her parents had only one asset, besides her famous beauty: their stately house, Saratoga, the largest in the commonwealth, which has hosted the crème of society and Hollywood royalty. Though they are land-rich, the Cookes do not have the means to sustain the estate. Without a wealthy husband, Diana will lose the mansion that has been the heart and soul of her family for five generations.

Laura and Monique were cousins and, in childhood, had been as close as twins. So when Monique's husband, the Comte de Montigny, came to Laura and asked her to impersonate Monique in order to protect Monique's child, she agreed. His story of Monique's disappearance and suicide, however, did not sound like the actions of the cousin Laura had known, and the rest of Monique's family reacted with odd hostility to "Monique's" reappearance...She feared that Monique had been murdered - and that she would be next.

Branded an outcast by the noble branch of his werewolf clan, Cort Renier had come to San Francisco seeking fortune—and revenge. What he found was a mysterious beauty who could not—or would not—reveal who she truly was. At first glance she seemed vulnerable and afraid, like so many girls caught up in the debauchery of the city's whiskey-soaked gambling dens. But one look into her stunning turquoise eyes and he knew he'd found the winning hand.

Jessie Speer set out for California, following her father's dream which turned into a nightmare and killed her family. Now, snow-clogged mountains, beautiful but heartless, held her prisoner. She prayed for a miracle. Blizzard after blizzard left her aching with cold, one step away from starvation. As months passed, Jessie almost stopped believing in warmth, safety and rescue. Only Daniel Bear was willing to brave the fearsome mountain to answer the stranded settler's desperate need.

The history of the Alardyce family is fraught with scandal and intrigue. But after her eldest son Robert leaves the country, finally Amy Alardyce can enjoy some peace. Robert is wanted by the police for some unspeakable crimes, and his family hope he has run far enough and never looks back. A decade after his disappearance, Robert has forged a successful life for himself, making his fortune from the diamond and gold mines of Africa. But when he sees a death notice in the newspaper, the call to go home to Scotland grows ever louder.

When Helen Honeycutt falls in love with Emmet Justice, a charismatic television journalist who has recently lost his wife in a tragic accident, their sudden marriage creates a rift between her new husband and his oldest friends, who resent Helen's intrusion into their tightly knit circle. Hoping to mend fences, the newlyweds join the group for a summer at his late wife's family home in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.

As the Korean War ends, practical and well-mannered army nurse Corinne Ford returns stateside to live in the Mississippi town of Conroy with her new fiancé, Private First Class Elijah Dunne. She wonders if their love is strong enough to overshadow their differences, but upon her arrival to Elijah's backwoods stomping grounds, she understands that culture shock is the least of her worries.

Lady Jemma Forster knows all too well how ruthless gossip-mongers can be. She sacrificed her own happiness to restore her family's reputation. Her marriage of convenience to an affluent earl meant saying goodbye to passion, and any chance at love with the dashing lawman who set her soul aflame. She leads a sedate, practical life as the Countess of Wolverston. Until her husband is murdered, and the only man who can bring his killers to justice is her former love.

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.

Picking up right where The Ancient Ones left off, David has just discovered the diabolical brother he left for dead in 15th-century Romania has returned. Making matters even stranger, the news is delivered by his old friend, Danulf, the half-vampyre/half-lycanthrope he had also presumed dead.

Penguin Audio presents E.M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread, adapted for listening and now available as a digital audiobook as part of the Penguin English Library series. This abridged version is read by Stephen Fry. 'I had got an idea that everyone here spent their lives in making little...

Lucy Braithwhite lives a privileged existence as heir to the fortune of Braithwhite & Company - the most successful purveyor of English luxury wallpapers the world over. The company's formulas have been respected for nearly a century, but have always remained cloaked in mystery. No one has been able to explain the originality of design, or the brilliance of their colours, leaving many to wonder if the mysterious spell-like effect of their wallpapers is due simply to artistry, or something more sinister.

A fearless fortune teller in 1920s Paris must use her powers to divine who she can trust—and even more importantly, learn to trust herself—in the searing new gothic novel from the author of The Haunting of Moscow House. Spirited twenty-something Zina and her secretive grandmother, Baba Valya...

En el París del siglo XV, con sus sombrías callejuelas pobladas por desheredados de la fortuna y espíritus atormentados, la gitana Esmeralda, que predice el porvenir y atrae fatalmente a los hombres, es acusada injustamente de la muerte de su amado y condenada al patíbulo. Agradecido por el apoyo que en otro tiempo recibió de ella, Quasimodo, campanero de Nuestra Señora, de fuerza hercúlea y cuya horrible fealdad esconde un corazón sensible, la salva y le da asilo en la catedral." Nuestra Señora de París" ha dado lugar a numerosos libretos de ópera y a varias versiones cinematográficas.

Notre-Dame de París cuenta la historia de la gitana Esmeralda, quien en compañía de su cabra Djali toca la pandereta y baila en las calles de París para subsistir, hasta que se la acusa de haber asesinado al capitán Phoebus, su amado, y se la condena a la horca. Sin embargo, el jorobado Quasimodo, campanero de Notre-Dame, quien tras su deformidad esconde un corazón sensible y sediento de amor, luchará para salvar a la gitana. Recreación del mito de la bella y la bestia y uno de los monumentos de la literatura francesa, Notre-Dame de París es una historia verdaderamente inmortal.

“It’s a stunner.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) From award-winning South African author Nadia Davids comes a gothic psychological thriller set in the 1920s, where a young maid finds herself entangled with the spirits of a decaying manor and the secrets of its enigmatic owner. I...

England 1904. Mirror twins Adelaide and Victoria have spent their lives in orbit of each other–doomed to be in the other’s shadow, their lives are intertwined and inextricable as each other’s identical inverse. Adelaide is dutiful and reserved, happy to remain in her childhood home, Harewood Hall, forever. Victoria wishes for a thrilling life, exploring the world and finding a great romance–but the twins cannot live apart. Visiting Lord Stanley bewitches Victoria with his talk of a life of luxury in New York, but it is obedient Adelaide whom he marries against her will and to Victoria’s fury

The isolated cottage on the remote Hebridean island of Moila seemed like an ideal away-from-it-all retreat for writer Rose Fenemore, a place where she could work in peace, and where her brother Crispin could walk, fish, and photograph the birds and wildlife. But it is not easy to escape the world and its troubles. Crispin's arrival is delayed, and Rose, on her own in the lonely cottage, has to cope with two very different men who come in from the sea on a night of summer storm.

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…

It's 1825, four generations after Berggrund Island's women stood accused of witchcraft under the eye of their priest, now long dead. In his place is Pastor Silas, a widower with two wild young daughters, Beata and Ulrika. The sisters are outcasts: imaginative, oppositional, increasingly obsessed with the lore and legend of the island's dark past and their absent mother, whom their father refuses to speak of. As the girls come of age, and the strictures of the community shift but never wane, their rebellions twist and sharpen