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"On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person -- but also that the cold-reading skills she's honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money. Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased ... where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the...

"From the author of the beloved Ruth Galloway series, a modern gothic mystery for fans of Magpie Murders and The Lake House"-- Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school English teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R.M. Holland, she teaches a course on it every year. But when one of Clare's colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from R.M. Holland's most famous story, "The Stranger," left by her body, Clare is horrified...

An exquisitely talented young British author makes her American debut with this rapturously acclaimed historical novel, set in late nineteenth-century England, about an intellectually minded young widow, a pious vicar, and a rumored mythical serpent that explores questions about science and religion, skepticism, and faith, independence and love. When Cora Seaborne's brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as...

This enduring novel of crime and retribution vividly reflects the social and moral values of New England in the 1840s. Nathaniel Hawthorne's gripping psychological drama concerns the Pyncheon family, a dynasty founded on pious theft, who live for generations under a dead man's curse until their house is finally exorcised by love. Hawthorne, by birth and education, was instilled with the Puritan belief in America's limitless promise. Yet -- in part...

This gothic classic, "The Turn of the Screw" is one of the most famous ghost stories of all time. On Christmas Eve, Douglas reads a manuscript written by a former acquaintance, the governess, whom Douglas claims to have known and who is now dead. The manuscript tells the story of how the young governess is hired by a man who has become responsible for his young nephew and niece after the tragic deaths of their parents. He is uninterested in raising...

After the conclusion of a stormy engagement with her reckless and selfish cousin George, Alice Vavasor, a young woman with an independent fortune, engaged herself to a country gentleman, John Grey. The marriage was approved by her father and her highly placed relatives, but George's sister Kate persuaded her that she was not adapted to the quiet life of the country, and she broke her engagement. Kate was anxious that Alice should marry George to...

"Swedish Lapland, 1717. Maija, her husband Paavo and her daughters Frederika and Dorotea arrive from their native Finland, hoping to forget the traumas of their past and put down new roots in this harsh but beautiful land. Above them looms Blackåsen, a mountain whose foreboding presence looms over the valley and whose dark history seems to haunt the lives of those who live in its shadow. While herding the family's goats on the mountain, Frederika...

"It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts--or, at least, refuge. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she...

The story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting;' Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its...

"As a child, Kate Hamilton was packed off each summer to her grandfather's ivy-covered villa in southern France. That ancestral home, named Marthe Marie, is now crumbling, and it falls to Kate -- regarded as the most responsible and practical member of her family -- to return to the rugged, beautiful seaside region to confront her grandfather's debts and convince him to sell. Kate makes her living as a psychologist and life coach, but her own life...