Victorian Suspense

Nineteen-year-old Carrie Dobbs has a secret; when her parents discover what she has desperately tried to hide, Carrie's mother, Florrie takes matters into her own hands and arranges a marriage with Arnold Bateman to get Carrie out of Whitechapel and away from the gossips. He is a man Carrie could never love, the opposite of Johan, the young man she adores. Arnold has been posted to India and expects her to go with him and be the wife he needs to further his promotion and position in the army.

Twenty years after the Phantom of the Opera has vacated the Paris Opera House, his past catches up with him. The evil Sultana of Mazenderan - whom the Phantom last saw as a 10-year-old girl - wants the Phantom to commit foul deeds for her (again) and will not take no for an answer. After the Sultana kidnaps the Phantom’s beloved to ensure his performance and the Phantom is injured, he is forced to seek out help.

In a literary tour de force worthy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, author David Pirie brings his rich familiarity with both the Doyle biography and the Sherlock Holmes canon to a mystifying Victorian tale of vengeance and villainy. The howling man on the heath, a gothic asylum, the walking dead, the legendary witch of Dunwich - perils lurk in every turn of the page throughout this ingenious novel, as increasingly bizarre encounters challenge the deductive powers of young Doyle and his mentor, the pioneering criminal investigator Dr. Joseph Bell.

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?

She has an excellent escape planned... Lady Tempest MacIntyre has been offered, by her stepfather, as an item up for auction! But she has an excellent escape planned... if she can keep from tripping over the good intentions of the Duke of Stromburg, sometimes referred to as Lord Fool.

When Muriel Carew attends a lavish society party, the last person she expects to bump into is her ex-fiancee Henry Jekyll, a man she's not seen for many years. When Jekyll turns out to be investigating a series of missing persons in London, Muriel is intrigued. But Jekyll is not working alone, and if Muriel wants to aid in the investigation, she must work with both Henry and his partner, the monstrous and uncouth Mr Hyde.

The Welsh borders, 1870s. On the cusp of adulthood, Eliza Mace is battling for her independence. Stuck in a crumbling manor house on the fringe of a small town, she is thwarted by powers that conspire to protect, control and deceive her. But when her father goes missing in mysterious circumstances, Eliza’s determination to uncover the truth is unstoppable. Joining forces with the charismatic new police constable, Dafydd Pritchard, she sets out to solve the case, but that’s no easy task. Her father has run up debts in town and beyond, and there are many who bear him a grudge.

Highlander Harrison MacMasters knows a pretty face can hide bitter deception. Once, he'd been drawn to Grace Winters and the temptation in her kiss. Now, he knows better than to trust her with anything, including his heart. But when he's drawn into a risky mission with life-and-death stakes, he's forced to watch over the one woman he hoped to never see again.

Charlotte Brontë is plunged into a perilous adventure and a passionate romance that leads her from the peaceful Yorkshire moors to the crime-infested streets of London, across the sea to the Continent, to the ports of Cornwall, the wilds of Scotland, and the palaces of Queen Victoria herself. Will Charlotte be able to stop a devious invisible villain whose schemes threaten her life, her family, and her country?

Lady Caroline had always been aware that her dearest friend, Lady Harriet’s twin brothers, Lord Dundee and Lord Erasmus, were handsome, but seeing them for the first time in years when she visits their father’s state for the summer, left her feeling overwhelmed. Even more so when Lord Dundee pays her more attention than usual. Lady Caroline knows of his reputation as a rake, but is drawn in by his charms. Lord Erasmus had admired and adored Lady Caroline from afar for a very long time, and is furious when she leaves her intellectual ways for frivolous shenanigans with Lord Dundee, but ...

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.

On the eve of her marriage to George Hazelton, Frances has a great deal more on her mind than flowers and seating arrangements. The Connors and the Doyles, two families of American robber barons, have taken up residence in London, and their bitter rivalry is spilling over. At the request of her brother, Alonzo, who is quite taken with Miss Madeline Connor, Frances has invited the Connor family to her wedding. On the day itself, Frances is relieved to note that Madeline's father is not among the guests. The reason for his absence, however, turns out to be most unfortunate.

Step into the shadowy streets of Victorian London with In The Fog, a gripping tale of mystery and intrigue by Richard Harding Davis. Set against the backdrop of dense fog that cloaks the city, this story weaves a compelling narrative of deception, danger, and unexpected twists. Follow a group of dinner guests at a prestigious London club as they recount a chilling tale involving a missing nobleman, a strange encounter in the fog, and a crime that defies explanation.

The Bloodline War has begun and blood will soon flow across Europe. Juniper St. James has one goal: escape to England. A horde of vampires stand in her way including the one who has captured her heart. The future teeters on a knife's edge as the crimson tide of destiny threatens to engulf her. To guide her, she has three gifts from an alchemist, two brave bards, and a prophecy of the future. Can she flee with her life or will she become one of the undead?

Sir Alexander Chandler knows his place in the world. As the head of one of the divisions of the Home Office, he has his hand on the nation’s pulse. However, a carriage accident on a deserted Scottish road six months earlier has Sir Alexander questioning his every choice. He has no memory of what happened before he woke up in an Edinburgh hospital, and the unknown frightens him more than any enemy he ever met on a field of battle. One thing is for certain: He knows he did not marry Miss Alana Pottinger’s sister in an “over the anvil” type of ceremony in Scotland. Miss Alana Pottinger...

Celeste struggles with finding her way from a dark past, until she gets a summer volunteer gig at the local historical fair. Enter: outrageous actors, dominating psychics, and ghosts stirred by a medium’s presence. With the help of the psychic’s son - who isn’t at all what her dream date would look like but rather endearing all the same - Celeste uncovers secrets about the village left hidden among the dilapidated buildings.

Paris, 1750. In the midst of winter, as birds fall frozen from the sky, a new maid arrives at the home of a celebrated clockmaker and his clever, unworldly daughter. But rumours are stirring that Reinhart's uncanny mechanical creations - bejewelled birds, silver spiders - are more than mere automata. That they might defy the laws of nature, perhaps even at the expense of the living. But Madeleine is hiding a dark past, and a dangerous purpose - to discover the truth of the clockmaker's experiments and record his every move, in exchange for her own chance of freedom.

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.

London, 1890. Mina Murray once lived an adventurous life, but after a tragedy in the forests of Transylvania, she left it all behind. Now she has settled into a quiet routine as a schoolteacher in London, engaged to the respectable solicitor Jonathan Harker, attempting to fit into the stuffy upper class London society to which he belongs. But when vampires abduct Jonathan, her dark past comes careening into her present.

Clara grew up believing that her mother's family had disowned them. But the grandmother Clara never knew is now entreating her to visit Thurnley Hall, the family seat in Yorkshire. The old lady is on her deathbed and anxious to disclose vital family secrets before it's too late - for Clara's unborn child may be cursed with a horrible fate.