Having flown to Amdavad to make this Diwali his last amidst a shattering marriage, Alfaaz Trivedi finds his father who was missing since the last 13 years at the doorstep. Thirteen years ago, under the same father, this middle-class family was testing the waters to aspire to step into the world of affluence. With the help of his childhood friend, can Alfaaz unfold the chaos right till the end? What exactly happened to that simple, caring family before to create this mess? Will Alfaaz be able to save his marriage & find his soul back?
Sophie's world is shattered when disaster bankrupts her family. She's still reeling when she's offered an unexpected solution: Mr. Argenton, a wealthy stranger, has asked for her hand in marriage. Marrying Mr. Argenton will save her family, but it condemns Sophie to a life in Northwood, a vast and unnaturally dark mansion situated hours from civilization. Still, she has no choice but accept the offer and hope the darkness won't swallow her whole. It's a struggle to adjust to her new position as mistress over the desolate house. Mr. Argenton's relatives are cold, and Mr. Argenton himself is keeping secrets. Even worse, the house is more than it seems. Doors slam. Inhuman figures slink through the surrounding forest. A piano plays itself in the middle of the night. Blood drips a macabre warning down the walls. Day by day, Sophie is inevitably pulled towards the terrifying truth at the heart of this gothic mystery: Northwood's ancient halls are haunted, and the man she married―the man she's coming to love―is hiding an unforgiveable truth about his ancestral home...and the spirits that now haunt them both.
Orphaned, two sisters are left to find their own way. Sweet and proper, Karah's future seems secure at a glamorous Flower House. She could be pampered for the rest of her life. . . if she agrees to play their game. Nemienne, neither sweet nor proper, has fewer choices. Left with no alternative, she accepts a mysterious mage's offer of an apprenticeship. Agreeing means a home and survival, but can Nemienne trust the mage? With the arrival of a foreign bard into the quiet city, dangerous secrets are unearthed, and both sisters find themselves at the center of a plot that threatens not only to upset their newly found lives, but also to destroy their kingdom.
The wooded hills of Oxfordshire conceal the remains of the aptly named Ashdown House—a wasted pile of cinders and regret. Once home to the daughter of a king, Ashdown and its secrets will unite three women across four centuries in a tangle of intrigue, deceit and destiny… In the winter of 1662, Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen, is on her deathbed. She entrusts an ancient pearl, rumored to have magic power, to her faithful cavalier William Craven for safekeeping. In his grief, William orders the construction of Ashdown Estate in her memory and places the pearl at its center. One hundred and fifty years later, notorious courtesan Lavinia Flyte hears the maids at Ashdown House whisper of a hidden treasure, and bears witness as her protector Lord Evershot—desperate to find it—burns the building to the ground. Now in the present day, a battered mirror and the diary of a Regency courtesan are the only clues Holly Ansell has to finding her brother, who has gone missing researching the mystery of Elizabeth Stuart and her alleged affair with Lord Craven. As she retraces his footsteps, Holly’s quest will soon reveal the truth about Lavinia and compel her to confront the stunning revelation about the legacy of the Winter Queen. Previously published.
First published in Italy in 1921, this short novel is a dark, grim account of two Sicilian women's voluntary imprisonment in the elder's dull, dour marriage. Sisters Nicolina and Antonietta see their chance to flee their small Italian village when Don Lucio announces his intentions to marry Antonietta. They envision a grand life for themselves in Lucio's large, gloomy house in the city--but their taste of freedom proves fleeting. Nicolina dwindles to an unpaid drudge for her sister's family, while Antonietta fares only slightly better as a wife-of-all-work and beleaguered mother. Together the housebound pair ministers to the touchy Don (a domineering, wily paterfamilias and likely crook whose cunning they barely sense) and withers gradually in servitude. After the Don seduces Nicolina, the sisters' friendship ends, and further tragedy intrudes in the self-inflicted death of Antonietta's young son. Though dated in her fairy-tale-like simplicity of character, Messina, who died in 1944, wrote with courage and understated strength of a narrow, prototypically female life singed by masochistic fury.
Catherine's last job ended badly. Corporate bullying at a top TV network saw her fired and forced to leave London, but she was determined to get her life back. A new job and a few therapists later, things look much brighter. Especially when a challenging new project presents itself — to catalogue the late M. H. Mason's wildly eccentric cache of antique dolls and puppets. Rarest of all, she'll get to examine his elaborate displays of posed, costumed and preserved animals, depicting bloody scenes from the Great War. Catherine can't believe her luck when Mason's elderly niece invites her to stay at Red House itself, where she maintains the collection until his niece exposes her to the dark message behind her uncle's "Art." Catherine tries to concentrate on the job, but Mason's damaged visions begin to raise dark shadows from her own past. Shadows she'd hoped therapy had finally erased. Soon the barriers between reality, sanity and memory start to merge and some truths seem too terrible to be real... in The House of Small Shadows by Adam Nevill.
A set of horrific killings hints at the answer behind a legendary crime... Autumn, 1380. Brother Athelstan is very busy. He and his parish council are preparing for the annual Christmas mystery play when a series of brutal murders occur at a Southwark tavern. Two young whores are found slain but their deaths are only the beginning of a series of gruesome killings which occur around the parish of St Erconwald’s. He resolves to solve not only these grisly deaths, but also their source - the Great Robbery of the Lombard treasure, which occurred in Southwark some 20 years earlier. Plots and deceptions abound in this thrilling mystery novel by Paul Doherty, ideal for fans of Susanna Gregory, C. J. Sansom and S. J. Parris. Praise for Paul Doherty 'His fascination for history comes off the page' Daily Express 'Paul Doherty has a lively sense of history ... evocative and lyrical descriptions' New Statesmen 'An opulent banquet to satisfy the most murderous appetite' Northern Echo
Ghosts, intrigue and a murder long ago sit at the heart of House of Many Shadows, the gripping Gothic romance by New York Times bestseller Barbara Michaels. When a car crash leaves Meg Rittenhouse suffering from strange hallucinations, an invitation to recuperate at her elderly relative’s crumbling mansion in the Pennsylvania hills seems like the answer to her prayers. But she couldn’t be more wrong . . . There, in a remote old house miles from anywhere, the terrible sights and sounds become even worse. Suddenly eerie black shapes dance in the shadows – mocking Meg, haunting her . . . threatening her. And the presence of kind, considerate Andy Brenner, the caretaker, both reassures her and terrifies her – because Andy also sees these dark spectres . . .
For fans of Small Spaces, Coraline, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and James Howe's Bunnicula classics comes the first book in the award-winning, New York Times bestselling Books of Elsewhere series. This house is keeping secrets . . . When eleven-year-old Olive and her parents move into the crumbling mansion on Linden Street and find it filled with mysterious paintings, Olive knows the place is creepy—but it isn’t until she encounters its three talking cats that she realizes there’s something darkly magical afoot. Then Olive finds a pair of antique spectacles in a dusty drawer and discovers the most peculiar thing yet: She can travel inside the house’s spooky paintings to a world that’s strangely quiet . . . and eerily sinister. But in entering Elsewhere, Olive has been ensnared in a mystery darker and more dangerous than she could have imagined, confronting a power that wants to be rid of her by any means necessary. With only the cats and an unusual boy she meets in Elsewhere on her side, it’s up to Olive to save the house from the shadows, before the lights go out for good.
