Gothic Historical Fiction

Twisted Briar is Peggy's fortieth novel; her forty-fifth book. Each book resonates with Peggy's authentic Appalachian mountain voice and her gift to engross the reader in the story. From Chapter 2 : He was looking for another woman and boy. The young woman stopped and looked at the crowd as though she didn't know what direction to go in. She looked so lost and scared he felt sorry for her. Not only that, she was just a girl. She couldn't be a whole lot older than the frail little boy whose hand she had a tight grip on. One thing was for sure, the ragged clothes they wore wouldn't keep them ...

When the skeletal remains of a young woman and her baby are found entombed behind the kitchen wall of a historic Tudor house, Cassandra is overcome with grief. She seems to know who the young woman was, but not how she knows, or how she came to be there. Cassandra becomes inexplicably drawn to the house and the mystery of the bones of Blackfriars. As she begins to learn the truth about the Thorne siblings who occupied the house during the reign of Elizabeth I, her own life takes an unexpected turn, and she finds out that her fate is linked to the Thornes in ways she never imagined.

Swedish Lapland, 1717. Maija, her husband Paavo and her daughters Frederika and Dorotea arrive from their native Finland, hoping to forget the traumas of their past and put down new roots in this harsh but beautiful land. Above them looms BlackAsen, a mountain whose foreboding presence looms over the valley and whose dark history seems to haunt the lives of those who live in its shadow.

🔥From New York Times, USA TODAY and #1 Dark Fantasy bestseller Tamara Rose Blodgett, comes the explosive conclusion to the bestselling Savage Series—where fate, love, and vengeance collide in a gritty post-apocalyptic world. What Readers are Saying: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "A perfect finale! Fast-paced and unforgettable." ~ Amanda Catoe ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Tamara Rose Blodgett keeps you on edge until the last page!" ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "A dark, beautifully woven conclusion—so emotional and thrilling!" 💔 A World on the Brink of War Ulric is relentless. He will stop at nothing to hunt Adahy, Elise...

In the spring of 1844, the Wells family receives a letter from a distant relative, the wealthy landowner Nicholas Van Ryn. He has invited one of their daughters for an extended visit at his Hudson Valley estate, Dragonwyck. Eighteen-year-old Miranda, bored with her local suitors and commonplace life on the farm, leaps at the chance for escape.

A young, reserved governess arrives at a grand estate to tutor the unruly son of a widowed lord. Beneath her prim exterior, she harbors a fascination with forbidden literature, secretly penning her own sensual tales. One stormy night, the lord discovers her hidden manuscripts, and instead of dismissing her, he demands she read them aloud. What begins as a tense recitation soon unravels into a mutual exploration of their repressed desires, with the flickering candlelight and creaking manor walls as their only witnesses.

2025: Lee can't remember exactly where he hid the body, but he can remember the blood. Hiding out at his father's centuries-old home in Japan, Lee knows something is wrong with him, and he knows it has something to do with his mother's disappearance almost a decade ago. 1877: A female samurai, Sen, stalks the borders of her home to protect her family from slaughter after the abolition of the samurai class. She's not sure how they'll ever survive, not without her father, who has returned from war with a different soul behind his eyes.

In this dazzling debut, Taylor M. Polites crafts a Southern gothic novel that mines classic literary archetypes while shaping them in new ways. Set in Reconstruction-era Alabama, The Rebel Wife opens with Augusta Branson losing her husband to a terrible blood fever. Now she and her son must fend for themselves in a community being destroyed by violence.

Some houses are haunted by ghosts. Pemberley is haunted by its master. When Elizabeth Bennet arrives at the great estate to care for the ailing Miss Darcy, she finds more than shadows behind closed doors. Whispers echo through the west wing. Mirrors reflect memories that are not her own. And Fitzwilliam Darcy—her former suitor—roams the halls with a gaze hollowed by secrets. What tragedy silenced Pemberley's music? Why does the scent of foxglove cling to Lady Anne’s locked rooms? And why does Darcy speak as if his heart no longer belongs to him? Drawn into a web of suspicion, desire, ...

Discover a haunting Victorian Gothic tale where family secrets, supernatural terror, and the unbreakable bond between sisters collide in the wild moors of Northumberland... When desperate poverty forces Eliza Harrow to accept a mysterious inheritance from her estranged uncle, she believes her prayers have been answered. Withering House—a remote Gothic manor in the windswept Northumberland countryside—promises refuge from her precarious existence in Victorian London. But the house harbors secrets that stretch back three centuries. Local villagers speak in whispers of lights in empty ...

A mountain girl in the early 1900’s copes with a marriage arranged by her dad. Her story is titled from an old saying “I own my land, heaven-high and hell-deep.” “Your pa gave his consent for us to marry,” he said the words as though it was a simple matter. It wasn’t a romantic proposal of love and devotion. It wasn’t a proposal at all. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I tried again. “I don’t know your name,” I managed to say as I felt my chest constrict. There was a pain in me that started at my toes and went to the roots of my hair. Dad had come up with a ...

Victorian London is a place of fluid social roles, vibrant arts culture, fin-de-siecle wonders...and dangerous underground diabolic cults. Fencer Evadne Gray cares for none of the former and knows nothing of the latter when she's sent to London to chaperone her younger sister, aspiring art critic Dorina. Unfortunately for Evadne, she soon learns too much about all of it when Dorina meets their uncle's friend, Lady Henrietta "Henry" Wotton. A semi-respectable aristocrat in public, in private she is secretly in the thrall of a demon.

Nestled within the rugged North York Moors lies Ashford Manor, a grand estate shrouded in secrets and cloaked in Victorian elegance. Here, the sudden and mysterious death of Lord Reginald Ashford sets the stage for an enthralling narrative woven with intrigue, betrayal, and hidden desires. As the esteemed inhabitants of Ashford Manor mourn the loss of their patriarch, the arrival of Inspector Hargreaves and Constable Barkley marks the beginning of an intense investigation that promises to unearth more than just the cause of Lord Reginald’s untimely demise. Set against the evocative ...

Threatened with destruction unless he fashions a wife for his Creature, Victor Frankenstein travels to England where he meets Mary and Kitty Bennet, the remaining unmarried sisters of the Bennet family from Pride and Prejudice. As Mary and Victor become increasingly attracted to each other, the Creature looks on impatiently, waiting for his bride. But where will Victor find a female body from which to create the monster's mate? Meanwhile, the awkward Mary hopes that Victor will save her from approaching spinsterhood while wondering what dark secret he is keeping from her.

Unearth the chilling secrets buried within Rosegate Manor, an age-old home shrouded in darkness and whispers, nestled in Mobile, Alabama.Meet Carrie Jo, a historian with a unique gift—she's also a human dream catcher. Hired to transform the decaying Rosegate Manor into a living museum, she soon finds herself ensnared in webs of disturbing mysteries that stretch back over a century. As she peels back the layers of time, the disappearance of the Brown triplets, three six-year-old boys who vanished without a trace in 1911, haunts her investigation. Guided by spectral figures and pursued by ...

From Chapter 2: ... “Did you see those folks from off while you were up there?” Gramps asked, but I didn’t answer, nor did I think Granny had seen me at all, but Gramps was good at guessing what I’d been up to. “What folks?” I asked as innocently as possible. Gramps grinned ever so slightly as he nodded toward my feet. “You got that red clay dirt on the bottom of your feet. That mountain is the only place where you can find that kind of red dirt.” I looked down and sure enough my feet were stained slightly orange by the red dirt I’d walked through instead of plain old ...

A gothic folklore book set in Ireland, Canada, and Italy during the 19th to early 20th century. Dive deep into the eerie world of *The Irish Banshee*, a spine-chilling collection that captures the essence of ancient Irish legends and supernatural encounters. This gripping gothic folklore narrative spans from the hauntingly beautiful countryside of Ireland to the atmospheric locales of Canadian wilderness and Italian coastal regions. Transporting readers to the 19th and early 20th centuries, it brings to life the spectral harbingers that stalk these lands. Discover the Mysteries: Linked only...

When Eliza Sullivan inherits an estate from a recently deceased aunt, she leaves behind a grievous and guilt-ridden past in New Orleans for rural England and a fresh start. Eliza arrives at her new home and finds herself falling for the mysterious lord of Havenwood, Malcolm Winfield. Despite the sinister rumors that surround him, Eliza is drawn to his melancholy charm and his crumbling, once-beautiful mansion. With enough love, she thinks, both man and manor could be repaired.

In 1933, nine-year-old Stella is left in the care of her grandmother, Motty, in the backwoods of Tennessee. The mountains are home to dangerous secrets, and soon after she arrives, Stella wanders into a dark cavern where she encounters the family's personal god, an entity known as the Ghostdaddy. Years later, after a tragic incident that caused her to flee, Stella - now a professional bootlegger - returns for Motty's funeral, and to check on the mysterious 10-year-old girl named Sunny that Motty adopted.

It is 1917, in that sliver of borderland that divides Georgia from Alabama. Dispossessed farmer Pearl Jewett ekes out a hardscrabble existence with his three young sons: Cane (the eldest, handsome, intelligent); Cob (short, heavyset, a bit slow); and Chimney (the youngest, thin, ill-tempered). Several hundred miles away in Southern Ohio, a farmer by the name of Ellsworth Fiddler lives with his son, Eddie, and his wife, Eula.