Gothic Historical Fiction

Lucy Braithwhite lives a privileged existence as heir to the fortune of Braithwhite & Company - the most successful purveyor of English luxury wallpapers the world over. The company's formulas have been respected for nearly a century, but have always remained cloaked in mystery. No one has been able to explain the originality of design, or the brilliance of their colours, leaving many to wonder if the mysterious spell-like effect of their wallpapers is due simply to artistry, or something more sinister.

Diana Cooke was "born with the century" and came of age just after World War I. The daughter of Virginia gentry, she knew early that her parents had only one asset, besides her famous beauty: their stately house, Saratoga, the largest in the commonwealth, which has hosted the crème of society and Hollywood royalty. Though they are land-rich, the Cookes do not have the means to sustain the estate. Without a wealthy husband, Diana will lose the mansion that has been the heart and soul of her family for five generations.

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.

From the internationally best-selling author, a lush and imaginative novel that crisscrosses time as passion and obsessions collide. An orphan named René le Florentin is plucked from poverty to become Catherine de Medici’s perfumer. Traveling with the young duchessina from Italy to France, René brings with him a cache of secret documents from the monastery where he was trained: recipes for exotic fragrances and potent medicines - and a formula for an alchemic process said to have the potential to reanimate the dead.

West Virginia,1897. When young Zona Heaster Shue dies only a few months after her wedding, her mother Mary Jane becomes convinced that Zona was murdered - and by none other than her husband, Trout. But when Trout is put on trial, no one believes he could have done it, apart from Mary Jane and Zona's best friend Lucy, who was always suspicious of Trout. As the trial raises to fever pitch and the men of Greenbrier County stand aligned against them, Mary Jane and Lucy must decide whether to reveal Zona's greatest secret in the service of justice.

Norway, 1662. A dangerous time to be a woman, when even dancing can lead to accusations of witchcraft. When Zigri, desperate and grieving after the loss of her husband and son, embarks on an affair with the local merchant, it's not long before she is sent to the fortress at Vardø, to be tried and condemned as a witch. Zigri's daughter Ingeborg sets off into the wilderness to try to bring her mother back home.

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.

"For the love of God, cut off my head." The last request in Uncle Silas's will shocks everyone speechless, everyone except his favorite niece, Anna. More than death itself, the claustrophobic Silas fears a premature burial. Will her elders carry out his request? Anna is certain they will not. It's up to her to do the right thing, even if it is a bit grisly. Armed with butcher knife and candle, Anna heads for the crypt underneath the church in the dead of night. All does not go according to Anna's careful planning.

When Elizabeth Bennet and Catherine Morland travel into Kent to visit the recently married Collinses in the village of Hunsford, Lizzy is annoyed to discover Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam at Rosings, while Cathy is certain that novel-worthy romance will ensue. Neither expect the sudden arrival of a vampire into their midst, and Mr. Darcy’s ardent admiration of Elizabeth Bennet is shaken by her expert handling of his frantic, fanged sister.

Times are hard. Anne Chatham is a clever, modest young woman with little money, no prospects for marriage, and a never-shared secret—she can see spirits. Anne finds employment as a typist at Northfield House, the grand country manor of the Wellington family. Her employer, the wheelchair-bound Mr. Wellington, is kindly. His haughty wife is not. He has two handsome sons, the wry and dashing Thomas and the dark and somber Owen. Anne feels sure her prayers have been heard. Until the terrifying night she stumbles upon a tortured spirit roaming the dark halls of Northfield.

Orphans Clara and Jacob Marley live by their wits, scavenging for scraps in the poorest alleyways of London, in the shadow of the workhouse. Every night, Jake promises his little sister ‘tomorrow will be better’, and when the chance to escape poverty comes their way, he seizes it despite the terrible price. And so Jacob Marley is set on a path that leads to his infamous partnership with Ebenezer Scrooge. As Jacob builds a fortress of wealth to keep the world out, only Clara can warn him of the hideous fate that awaits him if he refuses to let love and kindness into his heart....

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.

London, 1833. Doctress Hester Reeves has been offered a life-changing commission. But it comes at a price. She must leave behind her husband and their canal-side home in Kings Cross and move to Tall Trees—a dark and foreboding house in Fitzrovia. If Hester can cure the ailing health of its owner, Gervaise Cherville, she will receive payment that will bring her everything she could dream of. But on arriving at Tall Trees, Hester quickly discovers that an even bigger task awaits her.

Nestled within Paris' historic Palais Royal is a jewelry store unlike any other. La Fantasie Russie is owned by Pavel Orloff, protégé to the famous Faberge, and is known by the city's fashion elite as the place to find the rarest of gemstones and the most unique designs. But war has transformed Paris from a city of style and romance to a place of fear and mourning. In the summer of 1918, in places where lovers used to walk, widows now wander alone.

A Cambridge historian, Elizabeth Vogelsang, is found drowned, clutching a glass prism in her hand. The book she was writing about Isaac Newton’s involvement with alchemy–the culmination of her lifelong obsession with the seventeenth century–remains unfinished....

Deep in the French countryside - as the country reels through rebellion, beheadings, and starvation - a goat herder named Odette is trying to survive. Just that is on her mind - survival. Since she marched to Versailles with a group of Parisian women to protest the high prices of wheat, her life has spun out of control. She's fled the capital for the countryside. But what will happen to her? Can she stay in the Dordogne, where the kindly farmers have taken pity on her?

When Jane’s lover, Tom, returns from the navy to find her unhappily married to his betrayer, Jane is caught in an impossible situation. Still reeling from the loss of her mother at the hands of the witchfinder, Jane has no choice but to continue her dangerous work as a healer while keeping her young daughter safe. But as Tom searches for a way for him and Jane to be together, the witchfinder is still at large. Filled with vengeance, the witchfinder will stop at nothing in his quest to rid England of the scourge of witchcraft.

Herbert Powyss lives in an estate in the Welsh Marches, with enough time and income to pursue a gentleman's fashionable investigations and experiments in botany. But he longs to make his mark in the field of science - something consequential enough to present to the Royal Society in London. He hits on a radical experiment in isolation: For seven years a subject will inhabit three rooms in the basement of the manor house, fitted out with rugs, books, paintings, and even a chamber organ. Meals will arrive thrice daily via a dumbwaiter.

Twin sisters Keziah and Tilly Lovell are identical in every way, except that Tilly hasn't grown a single inch since she was five. Then at the age of 15 the girls are sold to a mysterious Italian known as 'Captain'. Theo is an orphan, raised by his grandfather. Resenting his grandson for his mother's death in childbirth, Theo is forced to leave home without a penny to his name when he remarries, and a new heir is produced. Unable to train to be a doctor as he'd hoped, Theo finds employment in Dr Summerwell's Museum of Anatomy in London, and here he meets Captain and his theatrical 'family'.

In order to get away from the married doctor she had fallen in love with, Susan Moore took a job as a private psychiatric nurse on Sanctuary Island, at Duncarlie Castle. The castle had been brought over stone by stone from Scotland and people said it wasn't haunted.... But if there were no ghosts, there were tragedies that still held sway over the castle and its inhabitants. And Sanctuary Island was a sanctuary only for the birds who lived there, watched over by the enigmatic Park Ranger, Ross Hunter.