English Gothic

Published in 1820 and written by the Protestant curate Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer is considered one of the greatest works of Gothic literature. Consisting of a series of stories within stories, the narrative features the scholar John Melmoth, condemned to wander the earth in search of a victim to take his place and free him from his eternal torment.

After the tragic death of their eleven-year-old son, Adam and Ella are fighting to keep their family from falling apart. Then comes an opportunity that seems too good to be true. They win a competition to live for free in a breathtakingly beautiful mansion on the Cornish Lizard Peninsula. There’s just one catch: the house is supposedly haunted. Despite misgivings, the chance to start afresh is too tempting to pass up. Adam, Ella, and their surviving son, Henry, move into Fenton House. But as the house starts to reveal its secrets, they come to suspect that they may not be alone.

With toiletries, hairbands, and notebooks in her bag, and at her mother’s instruction, a nineteen-year-old girl leaves her parents’ home and the seaside town she grew up in. Out the train window, Rafa sees the lit-up mountains and perfect trees—and the Olympic Hotel waiting for her perched above the small village of Strega. There, she and eight other girls receive the stiff black uniforms of seasonal workers and move into their shared dorm. But while they toil constantly to perform their role and prepare the hotel for guests, none arrive.

Elizabeth and Bryony are polar opposites, but their unexpected friendship has always worked. They're the best of friends and godmothers to each other's daughters - because they trust that the safety of their children is both of their top priority.

I sit amongst the presidents, royalty, the captains of industry, and the wealthiest f--ks in the world. We own Spiked Roses - an exclusive, membership-only establishment in New Orleans where money or lineage is the only way in. It is for the gentlemen who own everything and never hear the word no. Sipping on whiskey, smoking cigars, and conducting multi-million dollar deals in our own personal playground of indulgence, there isn’t anything I can’t have...and that includes her. I can also have her if I want. And I want.

Guarding my lovely hostage has become my obsession. I protect Marisol from the vicious men in my brutal cartel, including myself. I've kept the promise I made to my boss on the night of her capture: No one touches her.

Mia: It was so close, I'd tasted it - the freedom. But the only thing I could taste now was the end. Over the last two years, I’d let all outside forces dictate my life, my feelings, my head. I’d allowed everyone to control what my punishment should be for all my wrong-doings. I’d been tested and learned my lesson. I’d paid my dues and suffered long enough. Because in the end, even the once-upon-a-damned deserved to be happy too.

Idyllic Avril Island, owned by the Bennett family, is where their hundred-year-old cottage sat nestled in acres of forest. Forty-year-old June Bennett believed that the island had been sold after the summer of her father's disappearance when she was only 12 years old. It's months after the shocking death of her older sister, May, in a fatal car accident that June finds out that the cottage was never sold. Avril Island is still owned by the Bennett family, and now it's hers. Still reeling from the grief of losing her sister, June travels back to Avril Island in search of answers.

Leedswick Castle has housed the Alnwick family in the English countryside for generations, despite a family curse determined to destroy their legacy and erase them from history. Three beloved authors share stories of the Alnwick family through the generations, revealing how love and war can change a place—but only its people can unshackle it from the misdeeds of the past.

When my mom got sick, my dreams of a career in music imploded. That is, until Madame Usher wafts into my life like a ghost from the past, offering me the chance to study at the exclusive Manderley Academy - a music school for the most gifted and wealthy. It’s an offer I can’t refuse - free room and board at the Gothic mansion where elite students immerse themselves in mastering their art. But there’s a catch, and it’s a big one.

Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread undead curse, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Dracula has been assigned to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature.

Ambrosio, the worthy superior of the Capuchins of Madrid, falls to the temptations of Matilda, a fiend-inspired wanton who, disguised as a boy, has entered his monastery as a novice. Ambrosio then falls in love with one of his penitents and finally kills her in order to escape detection. However, he is discovered, tortured by the Inquisition and sentenced to death.

A battered woman awakens atop a forgotten gravesite by Lake Superior's southern shore. Identified only by the locket around her neck inscribed with the name Rebecca, she seeks refuge with an elderly lighthouse keeper. But as Rebecca struggles to remember who she is, she finds herself haunted by the lingering memories of Annabel, a mysterious woman who perished in the lake's unforgiving waves years earlier. With the spirit of Annabel seemingly reawakened, and an unknown adversary on the hunt to silence Rebecca once and for all, more is at stake than reclaiming her own memories.

Really, it's too much to expect any normal man to behave like a staid accountant in order to inherit the fortune he deserves to support the lifestyle of an earl. So when Derek Saunders's favorite elderly aunt and her ill-conceived - and possibly fraudulent - Lady Travelers Society loses one of their members, what's a man to do but step up to the challenge? Now he's escorting the world's most maddening woman to the world's most romantic city to find her missing relative.

When Andrew is forced to retire from active duty, he believes that all he has to look forward to is a boring desk job. His glory days in special ops are over. But as it turns out, his thrill ride has just begun. Andrew discovers not only that immortals exist and have been manipulating global affairs since antiquity, but that he and his sister are rare possessors of the immortal genes. Problem is, Andrew might be too old to attempt the activation process. But fate may force his hand.

For fans of Mexican Gothic, from three-time Bram Stoker Award–winning author Gwendolyn Kiste comes a novel inspired by the untold stories of forgotten women in classic literature—from Lucy Westnera, a victim of Stoker’s Dracula, and Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester’s attic-bound wife in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre—as they band together to combat the toxic men bent on destroying their lives, set against the backdrop of the Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury, 1967.

The Beetle is a horror novel that was published in 1897 and significantly outsold Dracula, which appeared in the same year. A polymorphous Egyptian creature – the Beetle – seeks revenge on the eminent British politician Paul Lessingham for crimes committed against the disciples of an ancient cult. Although it is less well-known than Dracula to modern audiences, The Beetle remains a leading example of the Gothic novel.

Every autumn, John Pentecost returns to the farm where he grew up to help gather the sheep down from the moors for the winter. Very little changes in the Endlands, but this year, his grandfather - the Gaffer - has died and John's new wife, Katherine, is accompanying him for the first time. Each year, the Gaffer would redraw the boundary lines of the village, with pen and paper, but also through the remembrance of tales and timeless communal rituals, which keep the sheep safe from the Devil.

A historic hotel long past its prime and huddled along The Cut, a questionable Lake Erie beach, isn’t Sadie Miles’ ideal place to raise a toddler while also navigating her second pregnancy. After finally fleeing her abusive ex-fiancé, though, Sadie’s new housekeeping position and free room at L’Arpin Hotel are the best she can manage. On her first night, Sadie runs to help a guest struggling in the hotel’s pool only to find the water calm and empty when she gets there, leaving her with a lingering unease.

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.