English Gothic

Listeners know that few authors are able to create an atmosphere of unease and terror as well as Oates, a fact confirmed by the four novellas presented here. All the novellas in this collection revolve around the theme of love gone wrong - horribly, shockingly wrong.

Thorne Manor has always been haunted...and it has always haunted Bronwyn Dale. As a young girl, Bronwyn could pass through a time slip in her great-aunt's house, where she visited William Thorne, a boy her own age, born two centuries earlier. After a family tragedy, the house was shuttered and Bronwyn was convinced that William existed only in her imagination. Now, 20 years later Bronwyn inherits Thorne Manor. And when she returns, William is waiting.

Theodora Goss's first major short story collection showcases such stories as "The Rose in Twelve Petals," "The Rapid Advance of Sorrow," "Lily, With Clouds," "In the Forest of Forgetting," "Sleeping With Bears," and many more.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath - but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

When Peter Constantine inherited a vast, remote estate, his life began to change. Free at last from money worries, Peter and his wife, Meg, could relax - and Peter could explore his new, mysterious home. From the thick woods, the winding trails, the bizarre, sensual sculpture, came a pulsing, ancient call that stirred his very soul. Then he heard the music and saw the beautiful woman who beckoned him into the wood...into an ancient ritual, a blood curse, a world of violent, unbridled lust.

In this tantalizing tale of Victorian ghost stories and family secrets, timid, solitary librarian Gerard Freeman lives for just two things: his elusive pen pal Alice and a story he found hidden in his mother's drawer years ago. Written by his great-grandmother Viola, it hints at his mother's role in a sinister crime. As he discovers more of Viola's chilling tales, he realizes that they might hold the key to finding Alice and unveiling his family's mystery - or will they bring about his untimely death, as they seem to foretell?

I’m trapped by the devil. What started as an innocent mistake turned into actual hell. In my defense, I didn’t mean to get involved with a mafia prince. But he barged through my defenses anyway. He stalked me from the shadows and stole me from the life I know. Jeremy Volkov might appear charming, but a true predator lurks inside. He’s out to possess, own, and keep me. But I have no plans to stick around in his blood-soaked world. Or so I think.

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.

David Binder is a young, successful writer living in Chicago and suffering from writer's block. He stares at the blank page, and the blank page stares back - until inspiration strikes in the form of a ghost story that captivated him as a child. With his pregnant wife and young daughter in tow, he sets out to explore the myth of Virginia Beale, Faery Queen of the Haunted Dell.

Stitch by perfect stitch, Andrew Garvie makes exquisite dolls in the finest antique style. Like him, they are diminutive, but graceful, unique, and with surprising depths. Perhaps that's why he answers the enigmatic personal ad in his collector's magazine. Letter by letter, Bramber Winters reveals more of her strange, sheltered life in an institution on Bodmin Moor, and the terrible events that put her there as a child. Andrew knows what it is to be trapped; and as they knit closer together, he weaves a curious plan to rescue her.

Erik Hadley is a gifted violinist with a dark past and an even more troubled soul. His only place of safety, a glass room built to protect others from his violent outbursts. But it's nothing more than a prison, and I have every intention of setting him free. It won't be easy. There are those who want to keep him imprisoned, who want to keep him from me and a life beyond those walls. I can't let that stand, I won't. Will I be able to sever the strings that hold his mind hostage? Am I strong enough to cast that first stone?

Family is who you make it and I’ve discovered blood means nothing, not unless I’ve slipped my blade into flesh and drawn my scythe with it. Just when things were starting to look up and all the pieces of my f--ked up life were coming together, I’m once again thrust into a war and this time I’m taking no prisoners. This is it, the final showdown, my scythe is sharpened and my boys are by my side. We might just find ourselves dead but not before I’ve drawn my scythe on every one of our enemies’ foreheads.

Orkney 2024: a terrible discovery on an idyllic beach in Fynhallow Bay: a teenage boy has been burned to death, a girl is missing, and another girl, Erin, is in hospital and remembers just one thing – she is Nyx. Her mother, Clem, waits by her bed, desperate to bring her daughter back to reality. Orkney 1594: accused of witchcraft, Alison Balfour awaits trial. The punishment? Death by burning. Separated by four hundred years but united by the ancient clan of magic-wielders, the Triskele, two women stand imperiled.

A troubled Byronic hero, a young governess blinded by her romantic obsession, a beautiful but forbidding manor, and a secret as ominous as the black rainbow that frames the huddled towers of the manor in the moonlight are the romantic elements of this Gothic mystery.

Savage (adjective): 1) Not domesticated; wild and untamed 2) A brutal or vicious person 3) Malek Antonov. He’s a myth. A ghost. A legend. A Bratva assassin so feared, some won’t even dare to speak his name. He comes in search of vengeance for the death of his brother, but what he finds instead is me.

Stretching like an armor-toothed belt across Italy's upper thigh, the Gothic Line was the most fortified position the German army had yet thrown into the Allied forces' path. On August 25, 1944, it fell to Canadian troops to spearhead a major offensive: to rip through that fiercely defended line. This gripping chronicle tells, through the eyes of the soldiers who fought there, of the 28-day clash that ultimately ended in glory for the Canadians.

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains. But in the aftermath of her death, her adopted son, Camden, wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes.

Six years after four family members died of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods—elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and 18-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat—live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives—cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune.

It was full dark when I snuck out of the castle to meet you. You wore those ripped black jeans and your new friend’s boots, with sleet from the forest still in the grooves. You moved awkwardly in your new clothes because you were still creating yourself, like one of your drawings. We drank vanilla cola from glass bottles and listened to a song about how fast the night changes over and over.

Nothing ever happens on the Otter Lake reservation. But when 16-year-old Tiffany discovers her father is renting out her room, she’s deeply upset. Sure, their guest is polite and keeps to himself, but he’s also a little creepy. Little do Tiffany, her father, or even her astute Granny Ruth suspect the truth. The mysterious Pierre L’Errant is actually a vampire, returning to his tribal home after centuries spent in Europe. But Tiffany has other things on her mind.