Victorian Thriller

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.

London, 1897: Lady Christiana Harker once committed a grave sin against her kind when she saved Inspector Elijah Drexler's life by turning him into a vampire. Christiana's bold act has only driven Elijah deeper into an impenetrable darkness, fueled by morphine, nightmares, and a constant thirst for blood. Elijah has no room left in his heart for anything but his quest for vengeance against his childhood tormentor, a quest that he fully expects to end with his own death.

Jackson Rafferty, second son of the 11th Earl of Devlin, held his dying brother in his arms and swore he'd avenge his murder. That pact made in blood led him to the back halls of Kingston Manor and the woman who would stand between him and pursuing the man Jack knew had killed his brother. Miss Jenevieve Kingston has a secret. Keeping it is the only thing keeping her father alive. When a rogue by the name of Jack Dawson comes dangerously close to spoiling everything, Jenna forces him from her home. But not before he has worked his way into her heart.

The Secret Agent was one of the first espionage novels ever written, and it is certainly one of the finest in the oeuvre of Joseph Conrad. The story concerns the attempt by a group of back-alley revolutionaries to destroy one of London's most famous landmarks and thereby set off a revolution.

In the grey mist of the early morning a body is dumped on the shore of the Thames by a boatman in a metal canoe. The city is soon alive with talk of the savage Esquimaux stalking Victorian London and an eyewitness who claims the killer had an accomplice: a tall woman dressed in widow's weeds, with the telltale look of the degenerate Irish.

Over a decade has passed. Valeria and Emil, aunt, and nephew, are living new lives in Brasov. But when a book is published bearing her late husband's name, Valeria's darkest secret is exposed, and her happy life is left in ruins. Valeria sets out on a mission to find out who revealed her story to the world, but she meets a distraction in Paris, one she was not prepared for, someone who changes everything. Will Valeria survive her own blood thirst, or will she allow a new opportunity for happiness to slip through her fingers?

La misteriosa morte di un giovane studente, erede di un cospicuo patrimonio, mette in moto una spirale di intrighi e vendette destinata a durare più di vent'anni e nella quale viene coinvolta una dinastia di banchieri consumata dall'ambizione e dalla cupidigia. Un romanzo ambientato nell'Inghilterra vittoriana, nel quale l'autore descrive una dura guerra economica combattuta a colpi di delitti, ricatti e torbide passioni.

In April 1831, her grace Corinne Monroe wants her widowed son, Lord Julian, to marry her best friend’s daughter, Miss Sophie Wilkie. Julian last saw Sophie when she was twelve years old, silent, skinny, and always staring at him. However, his mother is nothing if not persuasive, and Julian reluctantly accompanies her to London to meet the young lady.And he knows that whatever happens isn’t going to be good.Lord Devlin Monroe, Julian’s nephew, is very fond of his intriguing reputation in society: he delights, he frightens, he brings on delicious shudders.

Haunted by a tragic mistake in her past that endangered her family and nearly cost the life of the only man she could ever love, Emily now lives a life of exile that just so happens to include sword play and stealth on the dark streets of London in an attempt to stop innocent people from coming to harm at the hands of seedy criminals. Caring not for her own safety, Emily embarks on a life of justice at all costs, if only to rid her mind of the ghostly image of her lost love.

Manchester, England, 1857. When the largest art exhibition ever to be held in Manchester opens, Rosanna Hawkins—one of Manchester’s finest artists to reproduce “parlor versions” of classic masterpieces with near-perfect precision—attends, excited by the chance to sketch such famous works. When she meets the handsome Detective Martin Harrison, who is head of security for the exhibition, she is immediately intrigued. But the couple’s blossoming summer romance takes a strange turn when Rosanna recognizes her own works on display in the exhibition hall.

Matilda Hayward is determined to have a career. After all, it is 1888! While reporting for the Women’s Journal newspaper, Matilda is sent to cover the visiting Freak Show and interview Mrs Anna Tufton, a giantess. During the interview, the giantess slips a note to Matilda begging for her help to escape the show she is forced to do by her husband. But when the giantess’s husband is found murdered, the giantess is a likely suspect.

England, 1883. Recovering from a devastating loss, Evelyn has become determined to use her powers to save other gifted people from those who would study and oppress them. But when her rescue of a young telekinetic girl goes terribly wrong, Evelyn finds herself involved with a secret society devoted to recruiting and protecting people like Evelyn and her friends. Like magic, Evelyn's problems start to disappear. Her reputation is repaired, her friends are provided for, and her parents are thrilled at all her new suitors.

England, 1882. Evelyn is bored with society and its expectations. So when her beloved sister, Rose, mysteriously vanishes, she ignores her parents and travels to London to find her, accompanied by the dashing Mr. Kent. But they're not the only ones looking for Rose. The reclusive young gentleman Sebastian Braddock is also searching for her, claiming that both sisters have special healing powers. Evelyn is convinced that Sebastian must be mad, until she discovers that his strange tales of extraordinary people are true.

As a young medical student at Edinburgh, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took classes with the remarkable Dr. Joseph Bell in forensic medicine. Dr. Bell exhibited many of the characteristics that Doyle would later synthesize into the personage of Sherlock Holmes: complete faith in human reason, meticulous powers of observation, and encyclopedic knowledge of the activities and methods of the criminal classes.

Orphaned as a child, Hortense has had to fight her way to becoming the ton’s favorite private investigator. But for a woman who lives on the edge, the past is never dead. When her former spymaster asks her to find his wastrel brother Jamie, the Marquess of Clare, she thinks it’s just one more job uncovering the ton’s dirty secrets. She has no idea that she’s about to find her future…

Detective Inspector Arthur Gredge of Scotland Yard is a changed man, and not for the better, it seems. The prime suspect in a terrible crime he did not commit, Gredge launches an impassioned defense. The problem is that he does not know if he is guilty or innocent. Midnight Gunn must uncover the cause of Gredge’s unsettling behavior before the inspector loses his mind, his job, or very possibly his life. It is a task that must be conducted with the utmost caution, as Midnight’s own conduct comes under close scrutiny from all directions, putting him and those he loves at risk.

The Sussex Beekeeper at the Dawn of Time is an unconventional and breath-taking tour de force that flirts with the crossover and steampunk genres. The book knits together a transcribed oral memoir, newspaper clippings, and myriad letters and journal pages from across two millennia, much of it held together by the pithy comments of a certain elderly beekeeper residing in Sussex, England. While comparatively few, these notes are nonetheless the essential marble skeleton on which the whole denouement and structure of the book hangs.

The widowed Duchess of Sailer has desires that are hard to fill in polite society. To that effect, she visits a brothel to have her bottom reddened. If word got out, her reputation would be ruined. So, when a member of society is murdered, and her name turns up in the books he is using to blackmail people, the metropolitan police show up on her doorstep. Olivia does the only thing she can to keep her name from being dragged through the mud: she agrees to take the investigator into her life so she can help him find a killer. Inspector Rupert McKinley expects to get in and out, and figure out who killed Lord Ethan. He doesn't care about Olivia's desires...until he starts to spend time with her, and realizes she's more interesting than he ever expected her to be. When their business relationship turns into a personal one, Rupert is determined to find the murderer before someone else - like Olivia - is killed.

London, 1907: Die junge Adlige Victoria lebt allein mit dem Butler ihres verstorbenen Vaters. Sie halten sich über Wasser, indem Victoria als Fotografin und Hopkins bei einer Zeitung arbeitet. Als auf einem Ball hässliche Andeutungen über ein dunkles Familiengeheimnis laut werden, kommt es zum Eklat - und Victoria gerät gar unter Mordverdacht.

November 1853. Inspector Field has summoned his friends Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins to examine a body found in an attic studio, its throat cut. Around the body lie the lacerated fragments of canvas of a painting titled A Winter of Despair. Wilkie realises he recognises the victim, for he had been due to dine with him that very evening. The dead man is Edwin Milton-Hayes, one of Wilkie's brother Charley's artist friends. With his own brother under suspicion of murder, what secrets lie among the close-knit group of Pre-Raphaelite painters who is the killer in their midst?