Gothic Psychological Suspense

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Zodiac by Sam Wilson, read by John Chancer. Every murder is a sign. In a society divided along Zodiac lines, status is cast at birth - and binding for life. Who you are can be determined by a matter of days, hours, even minutes. Even for the most experienced detectives, every once in a while a murder can shake them to the core. Like when the Chief of Police is killed in his own home.

Cat’s twin sister, El, has disappeared. But there’s one thing Cat is sure of: her sister isn’t dead. She would have felt it. She would have known. To find her sister, Cat must return to their dark, crumbling childhood home and confront the horrors that wait there. Because it’s all coming back to Cat now: all the things she has buried, all the secrets she’s been running from. The closer Cat comes to the truth, the closer to danger she is. Some things are better left in the past....

The charm of spending the Christmas holidays in South Wales, with its crumbling castles and ancient myths, seems the perfect distraction from the nightmares that have plagued literary agent Lyn Ravenshaw since the loss of her baby five years ago. Instead she meets an emotionally fragile young widow who's convinced that Lyn's recurring dreams have drawn her to Castle Farm for an important purpose - and she's running out of time.

The Barter is a ghost story and a love story, a riveting emotional tale that also explores motherhood and work and feminism. Set in present-day Texas, and at the turn of the 20th century, the novel follows two young mothers at the turning point of their lives. Bridget has given up her career as an attorney to raise her daughter, joining a cadre of stay-at-home mothers seeking fulfillment in a quiet suburb. But for Bridget, some crucial part of the exchange is absent: something she loves and needs.

Pubblicato nel 1886, questo famosissimo romanzo di Stevenson è un grande classico della letteratura mistery e della fantascienza. Ciò non toglie che sia anche un grande opera letteraria che approfondisce la psicologia della scissione della personalità e il rapporto del uomo col suo lato ombra. Descrive inoltre mirabilmente lo stato di dipendenza provocato dalle droghe e l’illusione di potersene liberare facilmente si trova tutta nella frase del protagonista: “Posso liberarmi di Mr. Hyde quando voglio”.

It is 1993 and Thomas Penmarsh has lived in Finisterre, the house by the sea, all his life, sleeping each night in the room with the barred window. He's only 48 but has been an old man since one evening in 1967 when he lost everything he valued. However, now his controlling mother has died and he is master of the house. When Esmond, his cousin and childhood confidant, comes to live with him, Thomas is overjoyed - Esmond always looks after him. But is Esmond all that he seems?

Rainey Bliss Adams desperately needed a new start when she and her daughter Ariel relocated from St. Louis to Old Gate and settled into the house where the Bliss family had lived for over a century. Rainey's husband had been killed in a freak explosion that left her 14 year-old daughter Ariel scarred and disfigured. At the grand housewarming party, Bliss House begins to reveal itself again.

Edith may have been tricked into a nursing home, but at eighty years young, she’s planning her escape. Patience works there, cleaning up mess and bonding with Edith, a kindred spirit. But Patience is lying to Edith about almost everything. Edith’s own daughter, Clio, won’t speak to her. And someone new is about to knock on Clio’s door...and their intentions aren’t good. With every reason to distrust each other, the women must solve a mystery with three suspects, two murders, and one victim. If they do, they might just find out what happened to the baby who disappeared.

As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable, but their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend. Villa Aestas in Orvieto is breath-taking, but it has a dark past: in 1974 it was rented by a notorious rockstar, who was joined by up-and-coming musician Pierce Sheldon and his girlfriend, Mari. By the end of the holiday Pierce is dead, and Mari goes on to write one of the greatest horror novels of all time.

When you’ve already died, there should be nothing left to fear... When Adam Ramsdell pulls Elle’s half-frozen body from the surf on a lonely California beach, she has no memory of how she ended up there, what her full name is and how she got those terrible bruises on her throat.

1786, Jerusalem College, Cambridge. The ghost of Sylvia Whichcote is rumoured to be haunting Jerusalem, since disturbed fellow-commoner, Frank Oldershaw, claims to have seen the dead woman prowling the grounds. Desperate to salvage her son’s reputation, Lady Anne Oldershaw employs John Holdsworth, author of The Anatomy of Ghosts a stinging account of why ghosts are mere delusion to investigate.

On the family homestead where she grew up, Martha Mary saw ghosts. As a young woman, she hopes to distance herself from those spirits by escaping to an inland college town. There she is absorbed by a budding romance, relieved by separation from an unstable sister, and disinterested in the flyers seeking information about a young woman who has disappeared - until one Indian summer afternoon when the missing woman appears beneath Martha’s apartment window, wearing a winter coat, her hair coated with ice.

They say crows remember human faces. But what if they remember our sins as well? Seventeen-year-old Natalie Parson has always seen things others can’t. The doctors call it a mental illness. Her parents call it a phase. The pills are supposed to make the visions stop. But when a single crow appears on her mailbox—watching, waiting—Natalie knows this is something medication can’t fix. Soon one crow becomes hundreds, then thousands, descending upon the perfect suburban community of Oakridge Estates. As her classmates begin to die in bizarre circumstances, Natalie discovers a terrifying...

After she died that time, she was frozen, waiting for the answer to crash in on her... Lilli Ashler was an actor of limited ability who found fame in a play called A Lunatic’s Laugh. Her mediocre talent led gossips to say she must have sold her soul for success. Then she disappeared from public view. When Lilli dies, her granddaughter, Dominique, inherits her Gothic Irish mansion. Opposite the mansion stands a notorious asylum where the writer of A Lunatic’s Laugh spent time as an inmate before he dashed his head against the wall, his blood and brains seeping into the stone. The ...

Ran McGhie's world has been turned upside down. A young, lonely and frustrated writer, and suffering from mental health problems, he discovers that his long-dead mother was related to one of Glasgow's oldest merchant families. Not only that, but Ran has inherited Newton Hall, a vast mansion that belonged to his great-uncle, who appears to have been watching from afar as his estranged great-nephew has grown up.

December, 1989, and Ashley Smith - a bright-eyed American studying in London - has unexpectedly been invited by her classmate Emma Chapman to spend Christmas at her family's Cotswolds manor house, Starvewood Hall. The holiday is a true English fantasy: woodland walks, charming pubs and elaborate dinners at the manor, with the added romantic potential of Emma's twin brother, Adam, who feels like Ashley's wildest dreams come true. But is there something strange about the old house, both stately and rundown.

She’s a survivor being stalked by a crazed serial killer. He’s a reclusive billionaire with a tragic family secret. Ivy Anderson is tested to the limits of her training during an art conservation that is anything but typical. Assigned to work for reclusive businessman, Drake Colton, she finds his isolated gothic mansion full of priceless art both inspiring and terrifying. Twelve years ago, her innocence was shattered when she was abducted, raped and tortured. But Ivy’s a survivor: she’s spent years training her mind and her body to be a fighter. And she refuses to let the ghostly ...

When desperation leads Emma Clarke to accept a position at the mysterious Thornfield Manor, she expects to serve as a simple maid to the reclusive millionaire Adrian Blackwood. What she doesn't expect is to uncover dark secrets, face a dangerous enemy from the past, and fight for a love that could cost her everything. Fresh out of college and drowning in debt, Emma takes the only job she can find—maintaining the sprawling estate of Adrian Blackwood, a wealthy investor who rarely leaves his Gothic mansion. Thornfield Manor holds secrets in every shadow, and its master is as enigmatic as he...

In From the Dead, E. Nesbit crafts a haunting and poignant gothic tale of love, betrayal, and regret beyond the grave. When Arthur Marsh drives away his devoted wife, Ida, with cruel words born of wounded pride, he seals a tragic fate neither can undo. Months of heart-wrenching loss follow until a mysterious telegram summons him to her deathbed—but it is too late. Or is it? What follows is an unforgettable encounter between the living and the dead, where the heart’s deepest yearnings clash with fear, guilt, and the chance for redemption lost.

In 1998, a 16-year-old girl is found dead. She’s posed on a swing on her boarding school’s property, dressed all in white, with no known cause of death. Whispers and rumors swirl, with no answers. But there are a few who know what happened; there is one girl who will never forget. One year earlier: a new student, Violet, steps on the campus of Elm Hollow Academy, an all-girl’s boarding school on the outskirts of a sleepy coastal town. This is her fresh start, her chance to begin again in the wake of tragedy, leave her demons behind.