Victorian Suspense

In the heart of Regency-era Bath, two souls find solace and love amidst the shadows of their pasts. Lydia Pritchard, a young woman with a mysterious past, serves as a companion to the kind and vivacious Lady Avery. With a heart burdened by secrets and a fierce devotion to her younger brother, Max, Lydia has found refuge in her newfound home. Unbeknownst to her, the arrival of the enigmatic and dashing Lord Jasper Ravenscroft, known as Ravenstock, will change her life forever. Ravenstock, a charismatic and influential man, is captivated by the shy and beautiful Lydia from the moment they ...

In Secrets of the Nile, Lady Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves, have joined his formidable mother on a holiday to visit the exotic treasures of Egypt. Their host, Lord Bertram Deeley, is a renowned amateur British collector of antiquities, who has invited his closest friends on a lavish cruise up the Nile to his home at Luxor. But on the first night of their journey, he suddenly collapses after offering a welcome toast, a victim of the lethal poison cyanide. Who amongst this group of his nearest and dearest would want to kill their generous host?

It is March 1870. London is in the grip of fog and ice. But Scotland Yard's Inspector Ben Ross has more than the weather to worry about when the body of a young woman is found in a dustbin at the back of a Piccadilly restaurant. Ben must establish who the victim is before he can find out how and why she came to be there. His enquiries lead him first to a bootmaker in Salisbury and then to a landowner in Yorkshire.

Anastasia is a completely average almost-eleven-year-old. That is, UNTIL her parents die in a tragic vacuum-cleaner accident. UNTIL she's rescued by two long-lost great-aunties. And UNTIL she's taken to their delightful and, er, "authentic" Victorian home, St. Agony's Asylum for the Criminally Insane. But something strange is going on at the asylum. Anastasia soon begins to suspect that her aunties are not who they say they are. So when she meets Ollie and Quentin, two mysterious brothers, the three join together to plot their great escape!

A Devil’s Bargain – A Gothic Tale of Love, Curses, and the Shadows That Bind Us There are houses that whisper. Houses that breathe. Houses that remember every soul that ever dared to cross their threshold. Ravenshade Manor is one of them. When Evelina Harrow arrives at the decaying estate, she believes she’s simply settling a family debt. But from the moment she steps inside, the house knows her name. The walls shift when she isn’t looking. Shadows move where no light should be. And then there’s Lucien D’Armand—the cursed and enigmatic lord of Ravenshade, a man who walks the ...

Successful businessman Jeremy Marks wasn't highly regarded by any of the members of the West London Archery Club. Most of them considered him a buffoon and a bore. But everyone was stunned when the fellow was murdered during a lull in the club's annual archery competition. He'd been shot with arrows from a longbow during a raging thunderstorm. But those who knew Marks well understood that the unkempt "court jester" persona adopted by the late, unlamented man was as fake as the smile he wore.

Paris, 1899. Abigail Wilson has received an invitation from Professor Alphonse Flamand, a prominent French Professor of Archaeology, to join him on an archaeological dig in Egypt. Overjoyed to be presented with such an opportunity, Abigail and her husband, Daniel, travel to Paris to meet the professor at his office in the Louvre to discuss plans. However, when Abigail goes to the appointment, she finds Flamand dead with a knife in his chest. In a whirl of confusion and despite her pleas of innocence, Abigail is arrested.

Shadowseer: Rome continues the story of Kaia, 17, an orphan coming of age in Victorian Europe of the 1850s. Kaia yearns to escape her horrific orphanage, to discover who her parents were, and to understand why she can sense shadows when others cannot. When the brilliant Detective Pinsley, 45, takes Kaia under his wing and enlists her help in solving the mysterious and bizarre murders sweeping over Europe, the two of them become unlikely partners. Are they part of a greater war of light versus dark? And is Kaia the only one who can stop it?

Justine DeCabrillac, daughter of the nobility whose parents died in the chaos of the Revolution, is rescued from a decadent child brothel by a woman of the French Secret Police. Justine, too, becomes a great spy for France. Attacked on a rainy London street, Justine knows only one man can save her: Hawker, her oldest friend - her oldest enemy. London is crawling with hidden assassins, and someone is out to frame Hawker for murder. The two spies must work together to find who's out to destroy them.

Miss Penelope Monckton, just returned from nursing with Florence Nightingale's in Crimea, has come to the country estate of one of the most scandalous men in England, Lord Rickarby—nicknamed Rakerby—to collect a bequest from his late wife, her childhood friend Millie. But something about Millie's death doesn't sit right with Penny. A celebrated painter, Joss, Lord Rickarby, knows Miss Penelope Monckton only from the letters she sent to his late wife during her time nursing in a war zone.

No one in 1840s New York likes fires, copper star Timothy Wilde least of all. After a blaze killed his parents and another left him with a terrible scar, he has avoided flames of all kinds. So when a seamstress turned arsonist threatens Robert Symmes, a corrupt tycoon high in the Tammany Hall ranks, Timothy isn’t thrilled that Symmes consults him. His dismay escalates when his audacious and charismatic older brother, Valentine, himself deeply politically entrenched, decides to run against the incumbent, who they suspect is guilty of assault and far darker crimes.

The sole survivor of his family’s gruesome murder years earlier, poor little Ned Lawton has struggled to put the dark events behind him. So, when a brash New York detective darkens his doorway demanding an interview, the wealthy young gentleman immediately shuts him out. But a rash of murders in America are mirroring of the London killings, and Patrick Kelly knows Ned might be the key to stopping the bloodshed.

A Gothic Novel of Love, Fate, and the House That RemembersWould you live in a house whose legendary curse came long before you did? Kathryn White arrives at Lyon House – an imposing Victorian mansion steeped in history and shadow – ready for a new chapter. But something within the walls stirs. Whispers echo through candlelit corridors, and ghostly signs begin to surface. A series of mysterious events draws her deeper into the past... one that refuses to stay buried. As memories blur and timelines bend, Kathryn finds herself part of a legacy written long ago – where love defies time, ...

Ghost stories date back centuries, but those written in the Victorian era have a unique atmosphere and dark beauty. Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections Dracula’s Guest (vampires) and The Dead Witness (detectives) have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanity’s oldest supernatural obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising and often legendary cast, including Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W. F. Harvey. Amelia B. Edwards’s chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce ("The Moonlit Road"), Elizabeth Gaskell ("The Old Nurse’s Story"), and W. W. Jacobs ("The Monkey’s Paw") will turn you white as a sheet. With a skillful introduction to the genre and notes on each story by Sims, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.

It’s Christmastime in London, and Sherlock Holmes takes on two cases. The angelic three-year-old child of a wealthy couple is the target of a vicious kidnapper, and a country aristocrat worries that his handsome, favourite son has mysteriously vanished from his London pied à terre. Holmes and Watson, aided by the colourful Heffie O’Malley, slip slide in the ice to ensure a merry Christmas is had by nearly everybody.

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.

Sassy socialite Grace Stotesbury has plans for her future. None include marriage, murder or blackmail. Nor do they include the dashing, ex-naval commander, Lord Lexington—now a charismatic Private Investigator who sets her heart pumping and skin tingling. The nerve of him. She is the last person to see the murder victim alive—in an argument in a ballroom full of witnesses. Her situation worsens when she becomes the latest victim of an audacious blackmailer, someone who is privy to her most damning secrets. Can she work with Lexington to clear her name and catch the blackmailer? Will ...

Guaranteed to capture the hearts of everyone who truly loves books, The Bookman's Tale is a former bookseller's sparkling novel and a delightful exploration of one of literature's most tantalizing mysteries with echoes of Shadow of the Wind and A.S. Byatt's Possession.

Emma Cadbury had been an innocent, a whore, a charity worker, and a surgeon. She chose a life without love until she saved a dying soldier in a charity ward. Brandon Rohan had lost himself to drugs and degradation, wanting to die, and only one person could save him. But she’d disappeared. Now they’ve come together again, but he doesn’t remember, and she doesn’t want to. But someone is trying to kill her, and Brandon is the one man who can save her.

A collection of Regency books filled with romance, mystery, and strong heroines to make you fall in love! An Earl’s Agreement An arranged marriage turns dangerous when he will stop at nothing to make her his bride! Will her hero prevail? Heart of a Marquess A plan born of deception… Can Charlotte overcome her stepsister’s cruel actions and find the love she deserves? A Duke’s Promise A governess and a duke could never be a good match, but the Duke of Harrogate will stop at nothing to save Miss Sophia Weston from a desperate situation. Diamonds of the Marquess Lady Emily Dove ...