Gothic Historical Fiction

Scotland 1862. A murder, a terrifying creature, and a battle for his affections were not what Midnight Gunn expected when he journeyed to Scotland for the summer. Bodies are mysteriously disappearing from the city morgue, Midnight’s growing household is in turmoil, and someone or something lurks in the shadows, watching.

Maisie Thomas spends every summer at Grange House, a hotel on the coast of Maine ruled by the elegant Miss Grange. In 1896, when Maisie turns 17, her visit marks a turning point. On the morning after her arrival, local fishermen make a gruesome discovery: drowned lovers, found clasped in each other's arms. It's only the first in a series of events that casts a shadow over Maisie's summer. As she considers the attentions of two very different young men, Maisie also falls under the gaze of Miss Grange, who begins to tell her disturbing stories of her past.

It began with a happily ever after. It soon became a nightmare. Norfolk, England, 1816. Joy Horton is resigned to her spinster status. Loathe to pass on her disorder, she refuses to marry and works tirelessly as a skilled seamstress. But when a brooding duke falls madly in love with her, she's unable to resist his persuasive proposal. Honeymooning in London, Joy believes she has everything she's ever wanted...until accusations of murder creep into their lives.

The Locksby Harper Stanwick, Sr. is a mystery and psychological fiction set in the declining river town of Hatch during the late 19th century. The Locks unfolds in the shadowy and forlorn town of Hatch, a place where darkness pervades both the streets and the lives of its weary inhabitants. When the enigmatic Alvin Stark arrives and takes residence in the eerie mansion known as The Locks, he brings with him an air of mystery that stirs the stagnant waters of Hatch. Set against the backdrop of Hatch's economic decline and overshadowed by the thriving Ben's City downstream Stark's arrival ...

Elizabeth Canham accepts a position at Burndale Academy, an isolated girl's school where she meets mysterious widower Griffin Fairfax, a man dogged by dark rumors who both frightens and fascinates her. Soon, a woman is found dead in the nearby woods - the victim of a brutal murder...a murder that bears terrifying similarity to others. Then Beth discovers all the victims were intimately connected to Griffin. Beth’s heart tells her Griffin cannot be the charming, seductive killer stalking the night, stealing women’s hearts...and lives.

The Ripper Lives: A Name for Evil (9/10) As the hunt for Jack the Ripper enters its deadliest phase, Inspector Frederick Abberline faces a horror far beyond murder—a force of evil that defies explanation. When Callum Gow, a man long thought lost to the abyss of Whitechapel’s underbelly, reappears, his testimony offers the most chilling description of the Ripper yet. But Gow is no ordinary witness. Scarred in body and mind, he speaks of things no sane man should understand—voices in the darkness, an unrelenting pull toward annihilation, and a killer whose malice stretches beyond human ...

The Ripper Lives: The End and the Beginning (10/10) London burns and the hunt nears its end The final chapter of The Ripper Lives plunges Inspector Frederick Abberline into the deadliest confrontation yet. As the streets of Whitechapel smolder and blood stains the snow, a desperate chase through the city’s shadows leads to an unthinkable climax. The man behind the murders is cornered—but nothing is ever so simple in this city of secrets. With the Met Police closing in and enemies lurking in every alley, the battle for justice descends into chaos. A brutal fight for survival unfolds ...

Lord Michael Sutherland, Viscount Ellersleigh, is infamous among the ton for his powers of seduction and his prowess as a lover. Running from his own ennui and a lover who fancies herself his future wife, Michael retreats to the country and a crumbling, haunted castle won in a game of chance...a castle occupied by an innocent and oh-so-tempting young woman, Miss Abbigail Barrows. But country life proves to be anything but quiet. At a debauched house party, Michael finds himself confronted with an unfortunate quandary: Marry Abbigail, an innocent, or hang for murder.

Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2015. The Lie Tree is a wonderfully evocative and atmospheric story by Frances Hardinge, award-winning author of Cuckoo Song and Fly by Night. Faith's father has been found dead under mysterious circumstances, and as she is searching through his belongings for clues she discovers a strange tree. The tree grows healthy and bears fruit only if you whisper a lie to it.

🎃 A Pride and Prejudice Halloween: husband-hunting or haunting hearts? 🎃 Halloween at Pemberley: a perfect setting for romance, right? Not when there’s a centuries-old curse threatening to doom any woman who dares love a Darcy. Enter Elizabeth Bennet, whose curiosity about the family secrets leads her into the arms of the enigmatic Mr. Darcy. But with sisters chasing officers in monster costumes and a mother on a husband-hunting mission, Elizabeth’s got her hands full. Why is Darcy hosting this spooky soiree if he claims no interest in the guests? Is he trying to break the curse ...

After the death of her husband, Simon, in an accident which rendered her unconscious for a time, Katherine Greene inherits Moorwood Manor. She also becomes a prisoner there. Katherine is accused of murdering her husband during the accident. His cousin, Richard Greene, demands that in exchange for his silence about the murder, Katherine marry him and turn over the estate. If she refuses, he will turn her over to the police. Katherine is completely under Richard's power.

Northanger Abbey is the coming-of-age story of Catherine Morland, who is taken to the fashionable resort of Bath with her friends, the Allens. While in Bath, she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor. The Tilneys invite Catherine to Northanger Abbey, their family estate. Catherine, an avid reader of Gothic novels, soon becomes obsessed with the thought that possible atrocities are going on at the abbey.

Left penniless and alone by the death of her father, Sarah Lowell works as a day nurse at King’s College Hospital. Her daily walk to and from work crosses the Rookery of St. Giles, a dangerous place made all the more frightening by the fact someone lurks in the shadows, watching Sarah, stalking her. Enigmatic surgeon Killian Thayne offers Sarah his protection, but his sensual, commanding presence presents another kind of danger. Then a patient is found dead, drained of blood. Another soon follows, and another, and rumors paint Killian as the monster who killed them.

For the first time, the untold story of the three women closest to Victor Frankenstein is revealed in a dark and sweeping reimagining of Frankenstein by the acclaimed author of The Lost History of Dreams and Doomed Queens. Unnatural Creatures shocks new life into Mary Shelley's beloved gothic classic by revealing the feminine side of the tale.

Lady Dona St Columb seems to revel in scandal: she is involved in every intrigue of the Restoration Court. But secretly, the shallowness of Court life disgusts her, and in her heart she longs for freedom and honest love. Retreating to Navron, her husband's Cornish estate, she seeks peace and solitude away from London. But Navron is being used as the base for a French pirate, an outlaw hunted all over Cornwall. Instead of feeling fear, Dona's thirst for adventure has never been more aroused; in Jean-Benoit Auéry she finds a sensitive man who would, like her, gamble his life for a moment's joy.

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.

A man condemned...Falsely accused of murder and mute from a near-fatal beating, Apollo Greaves, Viscount Kilbourne has escaped from Bedlam. With the Crown's soldiers at his heels, he finds refuge in the ruins of a pleasure garden, toiling as a simple gardener. But when a vivacious young woman moves in, he's quickly driven to distraction...A desperate woman...London's premier actress, Lily Stump, is down on her luck when she's forced to move into a scorched theatre with her maid and small son.

This annotated edition of the classic Gothic novel, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly includes an historical introduction, an overview, study of the themes present in the book, and a list of famous quotes.

Iseult Wince is a Victorian woman perilously close to spinsterhood whose distinctly unpleasant father is trying to marry her off. She is awkward, plain, and most pertinently, believes that her mother, who died in childbirth, lives in the scar on her neck. Iseult’s father parades a host of unsuitable candidates before her, the majority of whom Iseult wastes no time frightening away. When at last her father finds a suitor desperate enough to take Iseult off his hands - a man whose medical treatments have turned his skin silver - a true comedy of errors ensues.

The House of Erzulie tells the eerily intertwined stories of an ill-fated young couple in the 1850s and the troubled historian who discovers their writings in the present day. Emilie St. Ange, daughter of a Creole slaveowning family in Louisiana, rebels against her parents by embracing spiritualism and advocating the abolition of slavery. Isidore, her biracial, French-born husband, is horrified by the brutalities of plantation life and becomes unhinged by an obsessive affair with a notorious New Orleans vodou practitioner.