Book picks similar to
Lyonesse Abbey by Jill Tattersall


gothic
romance
historical
wants-vintage

The Lost Daughter


Iris Cole - 2021
    She couldn’t know the terrible price she would pay.Clary’s home is the foundling hospital where she has lived since birth. When a terrible tragedy occurs, Clary is blamed and thrown to the streets with her only possession - a token, left by her birth mother.When Bill Whitely finds Clary beaten in a back alley, he offers her sanctuary, but a startling discovery spurs her forward into a dangerous undertaking.As Clary navigates a forbidden world, secrets and suspicions are rife, forcing her to flee for her life.Alone and destitute on the streets, Clary is lured into a world of debauchery, where she must fight to regain herself and find the answers she is looking for.Will Clary ever discover the truth of her past? And what of Bill? Is he lost to her forever?For fans of Dilly Court and readers who love historical romance.

The Curse of Morton Abbey


Clarissa Harwood - 2021
    But few people in late-Victorian England will entrust their legal affairs to a woman, and Vaughan is desperate to prove herself.Once at Morton, Vaughan discovers that someone is determined to drive her away. An intruder tries to enter her bedroom at night, gunshots are fired outside her window, and an eerie crying echoes from the uninhabited second floor. Even Netherton, the nearest village, seems odd: the picturesque houses and perfect-looking families are haunted by dark secrets connected to Morton Abbey itself.To complete her work and solve the mystery at the heart of Morton, Vaughan needs the help of Joe Dixon, the handsome gardener, and Nicholas Spencer, her employer’s irascible invalid brother. But with her questions diverted, her progress thwarted, and her sleep disrupted by the crying, will Vaughan escape Morton Abbey with her sanity intact or be cursed by the secrets within?

The Business of Blood


Kerrigan Byrne - 2019
    Blood and death are Fiona Mahoney’s trade, and business, as they say, is booming. Dying is the only thing people do with any regularity, and Fiona makes her indecorous living cleaning up after the corpses are carted away. Her childhood best friend, Mary, was the last known victim of Jack the Ripper. It’s been two years since Fiona scrubbed Mary’s blood from the floorboards, and London is no longer buzzing about the Ripper, but Fiona hasn’t forgotten. And she hasn’t stopped searching for Jack. When she’s called to a murder in the middle of the night, Fiona finds a victim mutilated in an eerily similar fashion to those of the Ripper, and only a few doors down from Mary’s old home. The relentless, overbearing, and irritatingly handsome Inspector Grayson Croft warns her away from the case. She might have listened, if she hadn’t found a clue in the blood. A clue that will lead her down a path from which there is no return.As a killer cuts a devastating swath through London, a letter written in blood arrives at her door, and it is only then that Fiona realizes just how perilous her endeavor is. For she has drawn the attention of an obsessive evil, and is no longer the hunter, but the prey. Fiona Mahoney is in the business of blood. But she’s not the only one. With intriguing twists, blood-chilling discoveries, and dazzling prose, USAToday Bestselling author Kerrigan Byrne shows that a woman’s work is never done, even when she is sleuthing out a serial killer.

Cauldstane


Linda Gillard - 2014
    Lust, betrayal and murder have blighted family fortunes for generations, together with an ancient curse. As members of the family confide their sins and their secrets, Jenny learns why Cauldstane’s uncertain future divides father and sons. But someone resents Jenny’s presence. Someone thinks she’s getting too close to Alec MacNab – swordsmith, widower and heir to Cauldstane. Someone will stop at nothing until Jenny has been driven away. Or driven mad. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Especially a dead woman.

The Tilsit Inheritance


Catherine Gaskin - 1963
    When Virginia left for England, she did not know then that she had become the new Tilsit heiress. Nor did she know that this new-found life of wealth and luxury would turn instead into an awesome and terrifying burden. Lawrence had once dreamed of the inheritance. A man hungry and ambitious for success. A man who found only mockery and ruin at the Tilsit house. And there was the beautiful and sensuous Vanessa, whose life of worldly pleasure came crashing down when she, too, entered the ancestral home. Finally there was Mark. The man Virginia loved and wanted but could not have-for he was already possessed by Tilsit. THE TILSIT INHERITANCE-a story of a house and its family, both cursed by a mysterious and dark secret. A secret that would destroy everything and everyone if it were not destroyed first.

In the Shadow of Lakecrest


Elizabeth Blackwell - 2017
    Kate Moore is looking for a way out of the poverty and violence of her childhood. When a chance encounter on a transatlantic ocean liner brings her face-to-face with the handsome heir to a Chicago fortune, she thinks she may have found her escape—as long as she can keep her past concealed.After exchanging wedding vows, Kate quickly discovers that something isn’t quite right with her husband—or her new family. As Mrs. Matthew Lemont, she must contend with her husband’s disturbing past, his domineering mother, and his overly close sister. Isolated at Lakecrest, the sprawling, secluded Lemont estate, she searches desperately for clues to Matthew’s terrors, which she suspects stem from the mysterious disappearance of his aunt years before. As Kate stumbles deeper into a maze of family secrets, she begins to question everyone’s sanity—especially her own. But just how far will she go to break free of this family’s twisted past?

One Touch of Scandal


Liz Carlyle - 2010
    Instead, despised by her aristocratic father’s family because of her mother’s foreign birth, she’s taken a “safe” position as a governess. Now, unprotected and alone in London, accused of the shocking murder of her employer, she has no one to turn to except the mysterious—and possibly dangerous—Lord Ruthveyn.A dark-eyed Lucifer, Ruthveyn guards his secrets carefully. His shadowed past is a source of pain and rumors—only whispered. Grace’s plight—which echoes his own—moves him, as does her quiet beauty. Ruthveyn is determined to save Grace by unmasking a killer. But his growing passion places his own heart at risk and threatens to expose his dark gifts to the world.

Death in Kenya


M.M. Kaye - 1958
    But she doesn't realize that coming to her aunt's home will introduce her to an unstable region still recovering from the bloody Mau Mau revolt, and to a household thrown into grief by a recent murder. Distinguished by its mystery, romance, and exotic setting, Death in Kenya is as graceful as it is chilling-it is the beloved novel of one of our finest and most accomplished writers.

The Stranger She Married


Donna Hatch - 2008
    Desperate to save her family from debtor's prison, Alicia vows to marry the first wealthy man to propose. She meets the dashing Lord Amesbury, and her heart whispers that this is the man she is destined to love, but his tainted past may forever stand in their way. Her choices in potential husbands narrow to either a scarred cripple with the heart of a poet, or a handsome rake with a deadly secret.Cole Amesbury is tormented by his own ghosts, and believes he is beyond redemption, yet he cannot deny his attraction for the girl whose genuine goodness touches the heart he'd thought long dead. He fears the scars in his soul cut so deeply that he may never be able to offer Alicia a love that is true.When yet another bizarre mishap threatens her life, Alicia suspects the seemingly unrelated accidents that have plagued her loved ones are actually a killer's attempt to exterminate every member of her family. Despite the threat looming over her, learning to love the stranger she married may pose the greatest danger to her heart.

The Mysteries of Udolpho


Ann Radcliffe - 1794
    Portraying her heroine's inner life, creating a thick atmosphere of fear, and providing a gripping plot that continues to thrill readers today, The Mysteries of Udolpho is the story of orphan Emily St. Aubert, who finds herself separated from the man she loves and confined within the medieval castle of her aunt's new husband, Montoni. Inside the castle, she must cope with an unwanted suitor, Montoni's threats, and the wild imaginings and terrors that threaten to overwhelm her. This new edition includes an introduction that discusses the publication and early reception of the novel, the genre of Gothic romance, and Radcliffe's use of history, exotic settings, the supernatural, and poetry.

Silence and Shadows


James Long - 2001
    He has returned from his annual pilgrimage to a graveyard in Wales. Now he hopes to take refuge from his memories by heading an archeological dig in the village of Wytchlow. It is a simple project -- checking for ancient relics before a land developer levels the earth -- until a woman with an all-too-familiar face stumbles into the path of his car.Bobby Redhead bears a striking resemblance to a woman he loved and tragically lost years ago. Bobby cannot understand the emotions she evokes in Patrick, but she can sense his deep suffering. What has he done that he cannot forgive? And why is Bobby so drawn to him?As Bobby reaches out, Patrick retreats into silence and shadows, focusing obsessively on the dig. They are hunting ancient Roman mosaics, but there is something more tantalizing in the soil of Wytchlow. It is only a myth, a local folktale, a song sung one night in a pub by an otherwise mute man. The story goes that a Saxon girl called the German Queen has been buried close by. The only evidence is the old song, but it is enough to capture Patrick's imagination as nothing has in years.It has also captured the unwanted interest of a television producer fascinated with Patrick's past. Yet nothing will deter Patrick from the project -- not the television hype, nor the developer's greed, nor the bittersweet relationship of working so close to Bobby. As centuries fall away, the Saxon warrior woman lost to time is suddenly as vividly alive to Patrick as the woman standing beside him. As Patrick struggles with the unforgivable tragedy he cannot forget, he senses a connection between Bobby and the lost queen and discovers his destiny is powerfully entwined with them both. Beneath the shadows of a timeless moon, under layers of earth that have protected her secrets, can the fragile bones of a royal matriarch heal the hearts of those who would dare free her?

Boxes For Beds


Maryann Miller - 2012
    They don't need the heat, and they have the leverage with the sheriff to make him do whatever they want. It seems like a good move to arrest Leslie Richards, the new woman in town, even though there is only thin circumstantial evidence against her. Better for it to be a stranger taking those babies and not one of their own.Leslie has left New York with her ten-year-old daughter, Mandy, hoping to escape from her past and the ruins of a relationship, only to discover that there is little peace for her in Pine Hollow, Arkansas.

A Test of Wills / A Long Shadow / A False Mirror / A Pale Horse


Charles Todd - 2014
    But for Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, recently returned from the battlefields of France, there is no peace. Suffering from shell shock, Rutledge plunges into his work to save his sanity. But his first assignment is a case certain to spell both personal and professional disaster.A Long Shadow—A story that immerses readers in the sights and sounds of post-war Great Britain, as the damaged policeman pursues answers to a constable’s slaying and the three-year-old mystery of a young girl’s disappearance in a tiny Northamptonshire village.A False Mirror—A love triangle turned deadly sends Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge to a small town simmering with secrets.A Pale Horse—A body found in the ruins of an ancient abbey sends Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge off to find a killer, in another superb atmospheric mystery by Charles Todd.

Now and Forever


Margaret Scutt - 2021
    But if she thinks she’s safe at home, she is wrong.Her scheming brother wants to marry her off to a fortune-hunter, and he won’t take no for an answer. Out on a lonely walk, Catherine is attacked and left for dead.Could this be her brother’s doing?Catherine won’t wait to find out. Her childhood friend, Martin Lacey, lives in the manor house across the woods, and there was a time when he would have done anything for her.But in the turmoil of Restoration England, nothing lasts forever. Will turning up at Martin’s door be the saving of her — or the end?

Under the Hidden Sun


MW Kennard - 2012
    Under the Hidden Sun will keep you turning the pages late at night until the very end.(from Amazon.com)