The way she tackles this task leads to her being thrown into the grim prison of Chengfu, where she meets Nicholas Sabine - a man about to die.He asks her a cryptic riddle, the mystery of which echoes through all that befalls her in the months that follow...She is brought to England and tries to make a new life with the Gresham family, but she is constantly in disgrace and is soon involved in the bitter feud between the Greshams and a neighbouring family.There is danger, romance and heartache for Lucy as strange events build to a point where she begins to doubt her own senses.How could she see a man, long dead, walking in the misty darkness of the valley? And who carried her, unconscious, into the labyrinth of Chiselhurst Caves and left her to die?It is not until she returns to China that Lucy finds, amid high adventure, the answer to all that has baffled her.

    

    Outside a violent storm was raging through the Balkan mountains. Urging Sophia to leave her husband and live with him in the castle, the count demonstrated his powers over bats, birds, and the raging storm. Then he persuaded Sophia to try her own powers, summoning up demonic spirits to assist her. Thrilled with her new-found ability to dominate the elements, Sophia accepted the potion offered her. Soon she found herself stripped of all inhibitions, alone in the tower with a strong-willed, fiercely passionate man...

    Philip claimed that Neil had set the blaze that killed Neil's young wife after he discovered her in Philip's arms. Neil maintained that Philip had started the fire and that he feared Philip's pyromania still put all their lives in danger. Jennifer didn't know which of the brothers to believe, but when the villa she was staying in burned to the ground, she knew that she had become the next victim of a murderer obsessed by fire.

    Jody Parrish laughed at the legend until she heard the eerie music and knew...

    It seemed only natural that Kay should possess the family fortunethat Kay should be the queen and Martha her lady-in-waiting, that Kay should be married to the man whom Martha secretly loved.Kay Spaulding's name was in the headlines for the last time. Beautiful and rich, her marriages and her reckless exploits had kept her in the news. Now she had been found dead in a shabby stolen car, mugged and robbed with an ice pick plunged into her back, and the police were calling it premeditated murder. They suspect her half-sister Martha -- who they believe was in love with Kay's husband -- even after someone attempts to poison her.Now there was nothing to stand between Martha and fabulous wealth, between Martha and the man she adored... between Martha and the unknown killer who now stalked her. Only when she is trapped on a mountainside does Martha learn the truth about a monstrous gamble that nearly paid off -- that may yet pay off, depending on who reaches her first.

    She had come to face the ordeal of hearing her beloved father's will read.Now, after many lonely years, suddenly Leonie was heiress to a fortune and mistress of the mist-shrouded mansion where her cold, beautiful mother and her hateful "Uncle" Sean still lived. Almost at once she was aware of the terrible secret that motivated evil in the lives of everyone at Inverness.What were the mysterious circumstances surrounding a strange woman and her father's sudden death? And what was the danger that lurked behind her growing attraction to the darkly handsome Peter Montego...?

    The aunt and uncle who had brought her up for her twenty-one years were sworn to secrecy regarding Anne's origins. Now suddenly the past was unfolding before her. Behind the massive castle fortress with its battlements, gargoyle steeple, and keep, strangers waited for Anne. The St. Legers and the MacPhersons. They told her she was now the Baroness Lith, successor to her older sister Elizabeth, who had recently died in a mysterious accident.One by one the St. Leger and MacPherson men came courting. But Anne could not trust any of them. She did not really understand why she was there. She knew only that she was becoming a prisoner and that she was alone.But she was not entirely alone. There was one who could find the truth for her. Find the truth before she ended up like Elizabeth...murdered.

    

    Teaching at a small school in London, Prue discovers an organized campaign of terror that threatens both her and the man she loves.

    Twenty-one and just out of college, she was still "experiencing life," "searching for herself," as she liked to express it. Spending the summer at secluded Tower Park as a governess would be just the thing she needed to help find herself.But her dreams of self-discovery swiftly became a waking nightmare as the ancient tragedy of Tower Park began to envelop her in its strange and cunning grasp. And what she discovered at the old estate was not herself, but a monstrous web of madness and death in which she had already become helplessly entangled...

    Her white dress was cut low, and swirled in soft folds around her feet. Her arms held roses; two of them had fallen, making soft splashes of color half buried in that whiteness. Her face was oval, her hair red-gold, and I knew without looking that her eyes were amber. For, when I wore white, my eyes were amber, and looking at this woman was like looking into a mirror at myself. It was a woman of a hundred years ago. My great-grandmother. As I turned, a chilling touch brushed by my cheek. An odor of mildew and old fabrics invaded the air. The ran down the stairs in terror, falling, falling...

    Her wealthy relatives welcomed her with open arms. The two children she was to teach were perfect dreams. Life was sunlit and joyful.That was before Caroline discovered the horror that hunted the ancient house, the evil that turned the innocent children into imps of Satan, the cruel yet irresistible passion of the swaggering master of the manor. there was magic at Greystone Hall, but the magic was black--and Caroline was its victim...EMPRESS GOTHICS are selected to bring you Gothic novels far more substantial and engrossing than any others. They are your sure guarantee of royal reading pleasure.

    Some are better than others. (This is one of the others since her main thesis -- a variant of the "Oh what a tangled web": once having lied, one is "tethered" to the stake) -- is never quite clinched. Heather, hesitant Heather, dismissed and excluded by her husband, first lies to cover for her sister's adultery. From then on she is in and out of another kind of mess involving her son and her au pair girl and there are successive revelations and reverses. More womanly than feminine but managing a certain insight to spoonfeed the story. (Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 1972)