English Gothic

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.

I have 36 hours to live. Thirty-six hours to find a solution. Thirty-six hours to kill them all. My friends. My family. My subjects. It's a cruel fate, one my maker subjected me to over a century ago when she placed me in this hell. I learned then that freedom is a falsehood. Escape doesn't exist. I'm a ticking time bomb, slated to erupt.

After thirty-four years in the same weatherworn farmhouse on Dagger Lane, Tommy Hearst thought he knew every creak and whisper the old place could conjure. But when he uncovers a rotting corpse sealed behind wallpaper and hears his dead mother's voice carved into mirrors, he realizes the house isn't haunted—it's alive. As the walls breathe and whisper secrets long buried, Tommy is pulled into a horrifying family legacy—one bound in blood, sealed with silence, and broken by his very birth. Something ancient stirs beneath the floorboards. Something that has been waiting. Watching. ...

When Rivkah Milmanovitch arrives at Ellis Island, her husband is not waiting for her as promised. Alone and pregnant, she makes her way to the Lower East Side tenement of an old friend. Lottie Aarons, whose husband went out for a newspaper and never returned, takes Rivkah in and they work side-by-side in dispiriting sweatshops. Rivkah gives birth to a daughter, Mimi, determined that her child will have a better life in America.

Can a human be trusted with a secret that’s been kept for thousands of years? Reef Parker’s recent life has always been focussed strictly on running the Hollows Authority, the privately owned and only sector of law enforcement in Hollow Earth. His life takes an unexpected and shocking turn when he learns an industrious sprite has developed a way to do the unthinkable—transport mortals into the Hollows. Penelope Carling has lived her life without making waves. Shyly beautiful, no one could have imagined that beneath her quiet exterior was a tormented soul who had endured abuse at the ...

When the rescue team returns with Amanda and the chained Dalhu to the keep, Amanda is not as thrilled to be back as she thought she'd be. Between Kian's contempt for her and Dalhu's imprisonment, Amanda's budding relationship with Dalhu seems doomed. Things start to look up when Annani offers her help, and together with Syssi they resolve to find a way for Amanda to be with Dalhu.

Twenty five years has passed since the battle took place upon the hill of the Nike Site in Topsfield, Ma. The desolate northern town has since laid to rest the demons that once surrounded the crisp air of a stormy evening. The wickedness of an unforgiving evil prays upon a stranger within the silent community. Prepare for a forgotten past to slowly collide with the unwilling present as the depths of hell begin to emerge. This beautiful town in New England will become the destination for familiar eyes without a face of regret. Welcome to the paradox between heaven and hell as the fate of ...

It’s 1875, and Alva Webster has perfected her stiff upper lip after three years of being pilloried in the presses of two continents over fleeing her abusive husband. Now his sudden death allows her to return to New York to make a fresh start, restoring Liefdehuis, a dilapidated Hyde Park mansion, and hopefully her reputation at the same time. However, fresh starts aren’t as easy as they seem, as Alva discovers when stories of a haunting at Liefdehuis begin to reach her.

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....

Come on board for a Gothic journey in a funicular railway in Victorian England, a freight train in the Carpathian mountains, a high tech sky train in Bangkok, an underground railway in Tokyo. Visit stations which lure with the promise of safe shelter but harbour unexpected dangers. Meet the people who work on the tracks – stationmasters, porters, signal-men – and those who travel – commuters, tourists, dead bodies, murderers and ghosts. In this volume, editor Rayne Hall has collected twenty of the finest– and creepiest – railway tales. The book features the works of established ...

Shadows of the Damned: Six Tales of Gothic Horror Step into a world where darkness reigns and ancient secrets lurk in every shadow. "Shadows of the Damned" brings together six spine-chilling Gothic mysteries that will keep you awake long into the night. From the mist-shrouded moors of Yorkshire to the gas-lit streets of Victorian London, each tale weaves a tapestry of suspense, supernatural dread, and forbidden knowledge. Uncover the terrible bargains that bind generations, witness the awakening of eldritch powers, and feel the icy touch of curses centuries in the making. In this collection...

As the age of the photograph dawns in Victorian Bath, silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another. Why is the killer seemingly targeting her business?

Book 4. When a mysterious faction at the Fugere compound resorts to extreme measures for crowd control, problems intensify, threatening not only life and limb, but the already fragile estate between the Apocalypse Babes and the Others--especially as things heat up between Seffy and Trent.

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Brimming with empathy and pathos, TELL ME EVERYTHING is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers.

“Oh, those aren't ordinary goggles, miss! There's nothing ordinary about them,” claimed the seller. “Those are special. Very special. You might not believe me, but... those goggles will let you see ghosts.” Goggles that let you see ghosts? It's an obvious scam, but the (usually) intellectual Augusta Hodge succumbs to it. Why? She desperately wants to see her deceased father again. Shortly after her father's death, Augusta accepts a job as a governess. She never wanted to be a governess, but as a penniless spinster, her options are limited. Her new employer is a difficult man, but ...

Once upon a time Orla was: a woman, a painter, a lover. Now she is a mother and a wife, and when her husband Nick suggests that their city apartment has grown too small for their lives, she agrees, in part because she does agree, and in part because she is too tired to think about what she really does want. She agrees again when Nick announces with pride that he has found an antiquated Georgian house on the Dorset cliffs—a good house for children, he says, tons of space and gorgeous grounds. But as the family settles into the mansion—Orla finds herself unsettled.

In the aftermath of a family tragedy, an aspiring author is torn between love for her childhood friend, and the temptation of a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, she is swept away to a house that breathes, bleeds...and remembers.

Blythe Hawthorne has never let anyone tell her what to do—not society, not her overprotective father, and certainly not the man she’s bound herself to, no matter how rude and insufferable he is. In fact, she’s determined to be a thorn in his side for the rest of her days, even as he ensures that her life in his palace is anything but a fairytale. But as Blythe discovers a new side of herself linked to his past, she’ll have to decide if she’s willing to let an unexpected spark ignite…and to discover the truth about who she really is.

When the castle she works in is sacked by the army of Prince Edward of England, kitchen maid Agnes Fitzgerald manages to escape north of Inverness to throw herself at the mercy of the Lord and Lady at Ravenscraig Castle. Although safe for now, the people of Scotland are fighting hard for their independence, and the threat of the English hangs heavy over the land. But when Agnes spies Cam Buchanan swimming in the loch, her mind turns away from war and towards love. Agnes even dares to dream of a happy future, until she learns that Cam must go and fight alongside Robert de Brus.

They were seven children either orphaned or abandoned by their parents and chosen by legendary philanthropist and brain surgeon Dr. Vincent Capello to live in The Dragon, his almost magical beach house on the Oregon Coast. Allison was the youngest of the lucky ones living an idyllic life with her newfound family...until the night she almost died and was then whisked away from the house and her adopted family forever.