But when Charity arrived at their hotel in the picturesque French town of Avignon, she had no way of knowing that she was to become the principal player in the last act of a strange and brutal tragedy. Most of it had already been played. There had been love--and lust--and revenge and fear and murder.Very soon her dreams turn into a nightmare, when by befriending a terrified boy and catching the attention of his enigmatic, possibly murderous father, Charity has inadvertently placed herself center stage. She becomes enmeshed in the schemes of a gang of murderers. And now the killer, with blood enough on his hands, is waiting in the wings.

    When Lora marries Union soldier Wade Tyler she learns of his past, and as she moves closer to the heart of the mystery she finds herself on the edge of a shattering truth that someone will do anything to keep hidden forever.

    She and her standoffish cousin Don, would be drawn in a search for answers to baffling puzzles. New friends and thrilling adventures wait for Cathy where she learned to love the mountains and legendary magic of her Grandmother's beautiful isle. The greatest surprise of all came when she least expected it....

    Includes the novella, Sardonicus, and 16 other short stories.

    "Yonder Key is like living in a shell, with the sound of the sea all around."But when Olive reached the luxurious, gloomy Croome mansion, where the family had isolated themselves for thirty years, she was struck by a sense of danger and evil in the household. Where did it come from? From Zoé, who seemd gentle, but who hid knives and ropes in her room when not watched? From Zoé's embittered sister Joanna, who didn't want Olive to try to cure Zoé? From the strangely silent servant Ezra?Alone in the world, Olive has no place else to go. She must stay at Yonder - to help Zoé, and save herself from the unseen danger of YONDER.

    And yet it was to this isolated place on the rugged English seacoast that the exquisitely lovely young Deborah Chantrey had come--summoned by the master of Mullion Hall, Deborah's uncle and now her guardian. Why had he wanted her to come here, she whispered. Gentle and shy Deborah was out of place among her swashbuckling young cousins. With fear and foreboding she began to suspect the sinister nature of their activites at Mullion Hall.And then one wild and stormy night Deborah was forced to be their accomplice as she rode with them on a terror-filled journey. Now she too was deeply mired in the evil at Mullion Hall--an evil from which even a deepening love seemed only to increase the hopelessness of escape.

    Thus Laura escaped. She walked out with the visitors and hitched rides all day. In the evening she reached her brother.She would have to go back, he told her. "They wouldn't let you stay here. Remember the little girl...? That's why we had to send you away."But Laura had it all planned....And so it was that the small community got new neighbors. One--her name was Beverly Urey--seemed very kind and obliging. She loved children and considered it a favor when she was allowed to babysit.Peggy, who lived across the road, didn't like her at all. Some of the other neighbors thought Miss Urey a bit peculiar. But they had other, more important things to think about: the body of an unidentified woman had been found in the woods...

    But when she returns to her English heritage, Carey Reach, she experiences strange events that cannot be explained to a neighbor, crippled John Templeton. For Anne, raised in Tudor history by her learned father, is fascinated by the Octagon Room, a mysterious grave, and recurring glimpses of the drama between Althea and Edward Courtenay, who aspired to the throne of England. She does not share her secrets with John or her housekeeper, and her fancies become out of control as she identifies more and more with the other, past world that beckons her. When she becomes weirdly indivisible from the happenings of other times, finishing her father's book is a ready excuse for privacy to visit the Octagon Room and its visions.