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The Mistaken Wife

Autumn, 1797. With Napoleon’s forces sweeping through Europe, a young English woman travels to Paris, risking her life on a secret mission that just might end the war for good…Mary Finch is no stranger to adventure, but even she hesitates before accepting her new assignment, travelling as the wife of an American artist into the very heart of enemy territory. The plan is so secret she can’t even tell Captain Holland, with whom she is supposed to have ‘an understanding’. After a terrifying journey through revolutionary France she arrives in Paris only to discover that her American ‘husband’ is not quite what he appears. With the French chasing a deadly new weapon and an old nemesis threatening to unmask her as a spy, Mary soon finds herself in mortal danger…Thrilling and deeply satisfying, The Mistaken Wife is a spirited and gripping historical mystery from the author of the acclaimed The Blackstone Key.

31 Bond Street

The sensational murder of Dr. Harvey Burdell in his lower Manhattan townhouse was the biggest news story in the United States before the Civil War; ‘Who killed Dr. Burdell?’ was the question that gripped the nation. Deftly interweaving fiction and fact, 31 Bond Street is a clever historical narrative that blends romance, politics, greed and sexual intrigue in a suspenseful drama.

When an errand boy discovers Burdell’s nearly decapitated body in the bedroom of his posh Bond Street home, there are no witnesses and virtually no clues. With the city up in arms over the vicious killing, District Attorney Abraham Oakey Hall immediately suspects Emma Cunningham, the striking young widow who has been living at 31 Bond Street with her two teenaged daughters, caring for Burdell’s home in exchange for a marriage proposal. But Burdell’s past is murky and his true intentions towards Emma Cunningham were questionable, leaving Emma with a plausible motive for murder. With the help of her defence attorney, Henry Clinton, Emma embarks on a legal drama to prove her innocence and spare herself from the gallows.

Set against the background of a bustling and corrupt New York City in 1857, 31 Bond Street is a fascinating archeological dig, taking the reader through the minutiae of a buried past, only to uncover circumstances that are shockingly contemporary: a sensationalist press, burgeoning new wealth, a booming real estate market, and race and gender conflicts. Ellen Horan’s gripping novel vividly exposes a small slice of lost history as it explores New York City on the eve of the Civil War.

Dead Write

When it comes to solving murder, sometimes the pen can be mightier than the sword …

Handwriting expert Claudia Rose heads to the Big Apple at the behest of Grusha Olinetsky, the notorious founder of an elite dating service whose members are mysteriously dying. Drawn into the feckless lives of the rich and single, Claudia finds herself in a twisted world of love and lies fueled by desperation. But is one among them desperate enough to kill?

Claudia must find clues in the suspects’ handwriting before more victims are scribbled into the killer’s black book…

A Witch in Time

Stony Mill, Indiana’s newest witch, Maggie O’Neill, has been attached at the hip to the smoking-hot Marcus Quinn. Things couldn’t get any better- until her sister Mel gives birth to not one, but two babies…

Maggie’s visiting Mel in the hospital when a whispered conversation in a cafeteria sends chills down her spine. She can’t make out what they’re saying, but Maggie knows malice when she hears it. The next night, death visits the hospital…twice. Nobody bats an eye, but Maggie knows something sinister is haunting the hospital. Now she’ll need help if she’s going to tie two murders to one killer.

The Heretic’s Wife

Tudor England is a perilous place for booksellers Kate Gough and her brother John, who sell forbidden translations of the Bible. Caught between warring factions – English Catholics opposed to the Lutheran reformation, and Henry VIII’s growing impatience with the Pope’s refusal to sanction his marriage to Anne Boleyn – Kate embarks on a daring adventure that will lead her into a dangerous marriage and a web of intrigue that pits her against powerful enemies. From the king’s lavish banquet halls to secret dungeons and the inner sanctums of Thomas More, Brenda Rickman Vantrease’s glorious new novel illuminates the public pageantry and the private passions of men and women of conscience in treacherous times.

Haunt Me Still

A legendary theatrical curse . . . A rune-engraved blade, a mysterious mirror, and an ancient cauldron . . . And a ritually murdered body laid out in the manner of ancient pagan burials.

Kate Stanley, Jennifer Lee Carrell’s dauntless Shakespearean scholarturned- director, made a memorable – and New York Times bestselling – debut in Interred with Their Bones. Having chased down her mentor’s killer (and recovering one of Shakespeare’s lost plays in the process), Kate’s fame as a director with an expertise in ‘occult Shakespeare’ catapults her – and Ben Pearl, her partner in crime-solving – into a new production of Macbeth, showcasing a fabled collection of objects relating both to the play and the historical Scottish king for whom it is named.

The Bard’s witch-haunted play is famously cursed, its reputation for malevolence so strong that many actors refuse to quote or even name the play aloud. And as rehearsals begin at the foot of Scotland’s Dunsinnan Hill, it doesn’t take long for the curse to stir. Strange references to the boy actor who first played Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s day – and died in the role – pop up. A trench atop Dunsinnan Hill is found filled with blood, and a severed human thumb turns up among the props. And Kate begins sleepwalking, waking early one morning alone atop the hill, her hands smeared with blood.

Kate has no memory of how she got there, but later that day a local woman is found dead on the hill in circumstances that suggest not just ritual murder but ancient pagan sacrifice. With the police more focused on Kate as a suspect than as a possible future victim, she and Ben find themselves in a desperate race to discover a lost version of Macbeth, said to contain rituals of witchcraft aimed at conjuring demonic forces to gain forbidden knowledge. However much Kate would like to dismiss such rituals as superstition, someone else appears willing to kill for them – and for the manuscript said to spell them out.

Marked for sacrifice, can Kate Stanley uncover the killer before she becomes the next victim?

Burning Lamp

The Arcane Society was born in turmoil when the friendship of its two founders evolved into a fierce rivalry. Sylvester Jones and Nicholas Winters each sought to enhance their individual psychic talents. Winters’ efforts led to the creation of a device of unknown powers called the Burning Lamp. Each generation the Winters man who inherits it is destined to develop multiple talents – and the curse of madness.

Plagued by hallucinations and nightmares, notorious crime lord Griffin Winters is convinced he has been struck with the Winters Curse. And the instincts that have helped him survive the streets and rise to power are now drawing him toward Adelaide Pyne, the bothersome social reformer. But even as he arranges a meeting with the mysterious woman, he has no idea how closely their fates are bound, for Adelaide holds the Burning Lamp in her possession.

A dreamlight reader, Adelaide should be able to manipulate the Lamp’s light to save both Griffin’s sanity and his life. But their dangerous psychical experiment makes them the target of forces both inside and outside of the Arcane Society. And though desire strengthens their power their different lives will keep them apart – if death doesn’t take them together.