English Gothic

Medusa's Ankles celebrates the very best of A. S. Byatt's short fiction, carefully selected from a lifetime of writing. Peopled by artists, poets, and fabulous creatures, the stories blaze with creativity and color. From ancient myth to a British candy factory, from a Chinese restaurant to a Mediterranean swimming pool, from a Turkish bazaar to a fairy-tale palace, Byatt transports her listeners beyond the veneer of the ordinary - even beyond the gloss of the fantastical - to places rich and strange and wholly unforgettable.

For years Helen Knightly has given her life to others - to her haunted mother, to her enigmatic father, to her husband, and grown children. When she finally crosses a terrible boundary, her life comes rushing in at her in a way she never could have imagined. Unfolding over the next 24 hours, this searing, fast-paced audiobook explores the complex ties between mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, the meaning of devotion, and the line between love and hate.

In 1919, Kitty Weekes, pretty, resourceful, and on the run, falsifies her background to obtain a nursing position at Portis House, a remote hospital for soldiers left shell-shocked by the horrors of the Great War. Hiding the shame of their mental instability in what was once a magnificent private estate, the patients suffer from nervous attacks and tormenting dreams. But something more is going on at Portis House—its plaster is crumbling, its plumbing makes eerie noises, and strange breaths of cold waft through the empty rooms.

Best-selling author Robert Jackson Bennett has won widespread critical acclaim for his unique brand of darkly inventive fiction. In The Troupe, 16-year-old George Carole joins vaudeville in search of Heironomo Silenus, the man he believes to be his father. But what he discovers casts a dark pall over his world: Silenus' troupe hides a dangerous secret - one that invites death to all in its vicinity.

The haunting tale of a desolate cottage, and the hair-thin junction between this life and the next, from best-selling National Book Award finalist Gail Godwin. After his mother's death, 11-year-old Marcus is sent to live on a small South Carolina island with his great aunt, a reclusive painter with a haunted past. Aunt Charlotte, otherwise a woman of few words, points out a ruined cottage, telling Marcus she had visited it regularly after she'd moved there 30 years ago because it matched the ruin of her own life.

I'm not who I used to be. Valentine Morningstar, my own father, tried to ruin my life, and instead he made me stronger. But my own power will consume me if I don't learn how to control it, how to channel it to help everyone, not just myself. I have to learn how to be this new person I've become. GC - my handsome false god, Pazuzu - my dark demon, Sariel - my fallen archangel, and Francis - my...I know what he is now, but it hurts to say it. They keep me grounded. They keep me sane, and they keep me good. Without them, I'm afraid I might just turn into a villain.

After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and house mate in Exeter. She’s always avoided dwelling on the past, even before the war, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she’d never return. A more sensible soul would have delivered the package and left without rehashing old wounds. But no one has ever accused Ruby of being sensible.

Lisa needs to disappear. And her friend's rambling old home in the wilds of Yorkshire seems like the perfect place. It's miles away from the closest town, and no one there knows her or her little boy, Joe. But when Lisa meets some of the locals and hears some disturbing rumours about the house, she realises it might not be the sanctuary she thought. What secret has Rowan Isle House - and her friend - kept hidden all these years? And what will Lisa have to do to survive when her own past finally catches up with her?

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.

Agnes Corey, a junior editor at a small independent publisher, has been hired by enigmatic author Veronica St. Clair to transcribe the sequel to her 1993 hit phenomenon, The Secret of Wyldcliffe Heights. St. Clair has been a recluse since the publication of the Jane Eyre-esque book, which coincided with a terrible fire that blinded and scarred her. Arriving in the Hudson Valley at St. Clair’s crumbling estate, which was once a psychiatric hospital for “wayward women,” Agnes is eager to ensure St. Clair’s devoted fans will get the sequel they’ve been anticipating for the past thirty years.

I was born with noble blood in my veins. Heir to a powerful dynasty. Wealth. Power. Aristocracy. Temptations too dangerous to resist. Until someone tried to steal it all. Scarred and broken, I emerged from the flames. Now I’ve returned to take what’s mine.

A dead body. A missing daughter. A silver blade. All the clues point to one person: Me. My name is Evangeline, and I’m a retired assassin who wants nothing to do with the underworld. But an edict from a Demonic Lord forces me to return to the man and the life I left behind. I have seven days to prove my innocence. Whoever set me up is going to die.

The primal image of the black-caped vampire Dracula has become an indelible fixture of the modern imagination. It's recognition factor rivals, in its own perverse way, the familiarity of Santa Claus. In this critically acclaimed excursion through the life of a cultural icon, David Skal maps out the archetypal vampire's relentless trajectory from Victorian literary oddity to movie idol to cultural commodity, digging through the populist veneer to reveal what the prince of darkness says about us all.

It is the summer of 1921, and a group of Bolsheviks have taken over Irina and Lili Goliteva’s ancestral home in Moscow, a stately mansion falling into disrepair and decay. The remaining members of their family are ordered to move into the cramped attic, while the officials take over an entire wing of grand rooms downstairs. The sisters understand it is the way of things and know they must forget their noble upbringing to make their way in this new Soviet Russia. But the house begins to whisper of a traumatic past not as dead as they thought.

Charlemagne was easily one of the most fascinating figures of Western civilization, as well as the most heroic and romantic. The 47 years of his reign marked some of the most significant and far reaching events of the Middle Ages. Undoubtedly, it was his enlightened vision for Europe that resulted in the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of cultural flowering that never really ceased to develop, and which led in a straight line directly to that period of astonishing achievement we now call the High Gothic. Even in the 21st century, we still hear the echoes of his deeds in the historical events that unfold today.

Andrew and Nathalie's love flourishes, but the secrets they keep from each other taint their relationship with doubts and suspicions. In the meantime, Sebastian and his men are getting bolder, and the storm that's brewing will shift the balance of power in the millennia-old conflict between Annani's clan and its enemies.

Sarita has been watched over by a guardian angel her entire life. She calls him Angelo, and keeps him a secret. But secrets can’t stay buried forever. When Angelo murders someone she loves, Sarita begins to see what's really been lurking in the shadows surrounding her. And she will have to embrace the evil within if she hopes to make it out alive. Johnny Compton, critically acclaimed author of The Spite House and master of dread, takes you on a terrifying race of one woman against the hordes of hell.

Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline. Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you've got. They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted. They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic.

Lianna Mercier has everything. She’s beautiful, well-educated, her father is rich, powerful - and she works for him. The perfect little princess, raised to be just like daddy. But it’s all a lie. A bloody, screwed up lie, and David Gethen is about to tear it all down and destroy Lianna in the process. He wants revenge, he wants to finish the plan his father started years ago - but after he takes her, after he tortures her, he begins to realize just how wrong he may have been.

My father enslaved me. Ruined me. Sold me. Left me to suffer. Until he rescued me. Alpha Sven Mickelson of Norse Sector claims to be my savior, to want me to live, and vows to protect me. But I know Alphas can’t be trusted. All he wants is my mating bond. To own me. To make me his.