Never Call It Loving


Dorothy Eden - 1981
    Told as a fictional biography, the author has been assisted in her sympathetic and understanding portrait of heroine by discovering Katherine O'Shea's own published account of her passionate and unshakeable love and loyalty of Parnell.The stormy days of Gladstone and the Home Rule Bill for Ireland form a lively background to this most moving and tragic story.

Thunder on the Right


Mary Stewart - 1957
    Or did she?Lies abound in this strange and frightening place, but seeking the truth could lead Jennifer to her own violent death.

The Shrouded Walls


Susan Howatch - 1974
    It was Sir Charles Stowell, a friend of my father's who finally told us the my father's forutnes and estates, including even the town house in London where we had lived all our lives with our mother, had reverted to my father's wife in Manchester. My father had been mcuh too gay and carefree to bother to make a will to provide for his mistress and the tiwns she had borne him...' When her parents die in a road accident, Marianne, illegitimate daughter of a French emigree and an English gentleman, loses her home and all her wordly goods. She faces life as a governess until she meets Axel Branson, a man who must marry within the year in order to inherit his father's wealth. Marianne grabs at the chance of a respectable marriage. A remote house in the Kent Marshes is now her home. But distrust of her husband and fear of the house seem to roll in as steadily as the sea mist...

Cousin Kate


Georgette Heyer - 1968
    She has never met her Aunt Minerva Broome, and hardly knows what to expect at majestic country home of Staplewood. Her aunt, uncle, and cousin welcome her to their estate, buy her new clothes, and provide all the amenities a young lady of quality should have. Soon, Kate begins noticing strange things about the manor. Though the guests are few, even family dinners are formal. Unexplained noises and events occur in the night. Surrounded by her domineering Aunt, handsome but moody cousin Torquil, and cousin Philip, who appears to have taken her in instant dislike, Staplewood soon turns from an inviting stately house to a cold and gloomy mansion

The Shivering Sands


Victoria Holt - 1969
    Caroline Verlaine, a young widow, comes to work at the estate hoping to discover the cause of the mysterious disappearance of her sister, who had been studying the nearby Roman ruins. Caroline found her employers a strange family, haunted by tragedies of the past, scarred by distrust. Yet she found herself irresistibly attracted to them - especially to the family's dark, moody young scion. But not until she had retraced her sister's fatal last steps could she answer the crucial questions about the family's past - and her own future.

Mission to Malaspiga


Evelyn Anthony - 1974
    Katherine’s brother is dead. It was heroin that killed him, but Katherine can’t help but blame his death on the organized crime so rife in Italy. The drug trade may not make much money for the small-time pushers, the petty crooks, and the addicts. But for the men at the top—men like the Malaspigas, who run their yachts and their big houses on the profits of other people’s misery—drugs are big money. The Bureau of Narcotics are determined to nail these men once and for all. It’ll be a dangerous enterprise, full of deceit. And they want Katherine to help them....Moving from New York and Beverly Hills to Rome and the burnished gold loveliness of Florence and the Tuscan hill towns, here is a riveting novel of a beautiful young woman who sets out to pay a debt of love to a dead brother, only to come face to face with her own heritage - a heritage of passion and death.

The Quicksilver Pool


Phyllis A. Whitney - 1955
    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.

Dark Angel


Sally Beauman - 1990
    At the centre of events is the beautiful and dangerous Constance, who casts a spell - which may be a curse - on all the sons of the family.

A Place of Stones


Deirdre Purcell - 1992
    Molly new nothing of her real past. For all she knew, she was a true-blue Irishwoman. When she traveled to America as a rising star of the screen, she fell in love with an irresistible American, not knowing that their love could only lead to a nightmare, and the truth of who Molly really was.

The Walking Stick


Winston Graham - 1967
    A standalone by the author of the Poldark series about a solitary woman who unexpectedly finds herself involved with an intriguing man from a completely different background

Davenport House


Marie Silk - 2016
    She lives isolated in the Pennsylvania countryside with her affluent and secretive family. When her father dies suddenly, Mary becomes pained with grief and increasingly suspicious of those around her. A humble servant girl has the chance of a lifetime to become a lady's companion. Costly dresses, exquisite rooms, and fine dinners are pleasant distractions from what is really happening in the house.

Stormswift


Madeleine Brent - 1984
    But her return holds no joy, for the young woman who greets her at the door of Witchwood Hall insists that she is Jemimah Lawley.Branded an impostor, doubting her very sanity, Jemimah becomes an outcast--until a beautiful benefactress takes her under her wing. But dark, hidden passions shadow her newfound contentment. Only when Jemimah deciphers the cryptic, fevered message Kassim once whispered to her in the Asian wasteland--"Stormswift"--can she hope to find peace and happiness.

The Middle Window


Elizabeth Goudge - 1935
    Stifled, her imagination seizes on a picture she sees in a shop window, a picture of the Scottish wilds. It inspires her.Strong-willed, she prevails on her parents and fiance to change their summer plans and head for cold, damp Scotland--sure that there she will find the freedom she craves.She finds that she knows everything about the old house and glen - and about Ian MacDonald the Laird. She felt so unaccountably at home in her Scottish holiday surroundings. But why is she deathly afraid of the middle window in the parlour?Then in a dream, Judy learns the story of an earlire Judith whose destiny bewitches the modern Judy. The pain and glory of a former love set her young hear free, and she is swept into the magical stream of a spendid past...and a radiant future.The spell of the past was on them... And they were possessed by love. The mountatins, the old house, the people, and especially the young lad...

The Scapegoat


Daphne du Maurier - 1957
    Their resemblance to each other is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking - until at last John falls into a drunken stupor. It's to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, Jean has stolen his identity and disappeared. So the Englishman steps into the Frenchman's shoes, and faces a variety of perplexing roles - as owner of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a fractious family, and master of nothing.Gripping and complex, The Scapegoat is a masterful exploration of doubling and identity, and of the dark side of the self.

Legacy of Secrets


Elizabeth Adler - 1993
    Then Shannon Keefe arrives with her wild tale of murder and ghosts, and it is Maudie who unravels the past for her.Shocked and saddened by the mysterious death of her father, Shannon Keeffe traveled all the way from New York to Ardravarna, the once grand ancestral estate that lay cradled in the green hills of Connemara, Ireland. Had her father really committed … She was the incomparable Lily Molyneux, whose jet hair and sapphire eyes drove men to madness and revenge. Rich, reckless titles, her secrets would scar generations to come.... They could never have enough money or power to capture her elusive heart: three men who amassed fame and fortune in pursuit of the one woman they couldn't deny. And a fourth who dies for her sins....