Susan M. Maines

Ex-FBI agent Cody O'Brien lives a quiet life in Northern California. Self-sufficient and content, she provides a good home for herself and her eight-year-old son, Ryan. But all of that is shattered when Ryan is kidnapped is broad daylight. Cody's greatest fear is knowing the true motive behind the abduction. For her entire life is a lie - one so easily exposed, and so very dangerous. A woman of hard-earned courage, she escaped the killers responsible for her husband's murder and learned to start over. Failed by the Witness Protection Program, she trusts only herself to save her son.

Late Victorian London. When James Miller, the most respectable of Scottish businessmen, is pulled, dead, from the Thames, his daughter is drawn into an investigation which reveals a whole world of secrets and corruption. Alongside local detective Culley, Catriona’s search for her father’s killer leads all the way to the tragic truth behind the ghostly legend of The Darkwater Bride and the power of her deadly kiss. The Darkwater Bride combines the genres of the Victorian mystery thriller with the equally classic Victorian mode of the ghostly tale.