Gothic Historical Fiction

Rosemary Chivers is haunted by the choices she made as a teenager—and by those made for her by a controlling mother. Now, in the Cold War era of conformity and suspicion, Rosemary is a modern new teacher at a school for troubled girls, where she challenges the narrow curriculum meant to tame restless young minds. She also keeps a devastating secret. She knows one of the students is the child she gave up. But which one?

1899. Ten long years since the shocking events that led to Constance Bentwith’s incarceration in Bedlam. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn has split asunder, becoming a hotbed for dangerous minds. 10 years ago, Richard and Lily Kramer left the trauma of London behind them for the tranquil town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. When an unexpected visitor from their past arrives, they are once again reluctantly drawn into the esoteric world of rituals and monsters. Only this time, the monsters are more human than they bargained for. And infinitely more dangerous.

"An enthralling story of secrets, sisters, and an unsolved mystery." —Kate Morton An evocative novel in the vein of Kate Morton and Daphne Du Maurier, in which the thrill of first love clashes with the bonds of sisterhood, and all will be tested by the dark secret at the heart of Applecote...

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...

The author of the New York Times Notable The Great Glass Sea (“The most unexpected second book by a writer of note to appear in years.” —John Freeman, The Boston Globe) returns with a gripping adventure story that probes the expansive, shifting wilds of the Sierra Nevada during the Gold...

As she battles against her forbidden passion and Sir Montague's strange machinations, Rebecca realises that her only hope for survival is to unlock the secrets of Willow Castle....

Forever untangling the branches of her strange family tree, Edwina Blackwood is at a turning point. Her parents’ disappearances still strike her as unaccountably odd. Her sister’s questionable life and untimely death have left her shaken. Spellfire has transformed her home and livelihood to ash. And now a devious stalker is on her trail. With supernatural detective Ian Cameron by her side, Edwina can’t get out of London fast enough.

In 1886, a respectable young woman must acquire a husband. But Violet Pring does not want to marry. She longs to be a professional artist and live on her own terms. When her scheming mother secures a desirable marriage proposal from an eligible Brighton gentleman for her, Violet protests. Her family believes she is deranged and deluded, so she is locked away in Hillwood Grange Lunatic Asylum against her will. In her new cage, Violet faces an even greater challenge: she must escape the clutches of a sinister and formidable doctor and set herself free.

From a daring Confederate raid that nearly seized Washington, DC, to a stunning reversal on the bloody fields of Cedar Creek, the summer and autumn of 1864 witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of our Civil War, in mighty battles now all but forgotten.

“A carnivalesque tale spun in luscious, crackling prose, Freakslaw is the glittery punk offspring of Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love and Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus. You know those books you want to roll around in, rub on your skin, and clasp to your heart? Freakslaw is one.”...

"Exciting, exhilaring, scary and moving in equal measure, The Oversight is a teeming world of dark deeds and dark magics, brilliantly realized." -- M. R. Carey The Oversight of London has been sworn for millennia to prevent the natural and the supernatural worlds from preying on each other. Now...

Anna Fort wants to be a supportive wife, even if that means accompanying her husband for the winter of 1918 to a remote, frozen island estate so he can finish his book as the guest of an eccentric millionaire. When she learns three girls are missing from a school run by their host, Anna realizes finding them is up to her—even if that means risking her husband’s career, and possibly her life.

"Every once in a while, a book comes along that drops you into another world and takes you places you never could imagine. This is that book. An astounding accomplishment!" —R. L. Stine, author of Goosebumps Set in nineteenth-century Sri Lanka and inspired by local folklore, Island Witch...

""This novel will bend and twist your notion of what love is, while leaving you utterly bewitched."" — KIRKUS REVIEWS (Starred Review) ""Vivid and impressive...Fans of Addie LaRue will be enthralled."" — PUBLISHER'S WEEKY (Starred Review) An inventive and romantic speculative novel about two...

The witty and entrancing story of a young woman trapped in a ramshackle English playhouse—and the mysterious figure who threatens the theater's very survival The year is 1901. England’s beloved queen has died, and her aging son has finally taken the throne. In the eastern city of Norwich...

As far as rash decisions go, it was formidable. But Lady Jocelyn Rathbourne's will remains strong. If the only way to save her family's estate and reputation is by aiming a small pistol at the Duke of Calydon, then so be it. For Lady Jocelyn demands satisfaction - and she will have it at any cost. Even if it means demanding the hand of the intense and foreboding Duke himself....

Bertha Mellish, “the most peculiar, quiet, reserved girl” at Mount Holyoke College, is missing. One cold November morning the junior is spotted walking through the Massachusetts woods; then, she vanishes. As a search team dredges the pond where she might have drowned, Bertha’s panicked father and sister arrive at the campus desperate to find some clue as to her fate or state of mind. Bertha’s best friend, Agnes, a scholarly loner studying medicine, might know the truth, but she is being unhelpfully tightlipped.

England 1819. Thomas Shield, a master at a school just outside London, is tutor to a young American boy and the child’s sensitive best friend, Charles Frant. Helplessly drawn to Frant’s beautiful, unhappy mother, Shield becomes entwined in their family’s affairs. When a brutal murder takes place in London’s seedy backstreets, all clues lead to the Frant family, and Shield is tangled in a web of lies, money, sex and death that threatens to tear his new life apart. Soon, it emerges that at the heart of these macabre events lies the strange American boy.

A major historical novel from "one of the great artistic forces of our time" (The Nation)—an eerie, unforgettable story of possession, power, and loss in early-twentieth-century Princeton, a cultural crossroads of the powerful and the damned Princeton, New Jersey, at the turn of the twentieth...

In 1692 Salem, a haunted witch hunter, bound by a strange, pulsing thread, hunts shadows in a village gripped by fear. Gothic dread, subtle terrors, and the weight of history entwine in a tale of a man bound by a cursed knot, chasing truth through a village lost to fear.