Dark Masquerade

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(by)Alexandra Manners

Only in her wildest dreams could Helen Comyn hope to return to Gallowmerry. She had grown up a servant's child on the Grant family's estate, and had savored the memory of its elegance as well as her love for young Lennox Grant for long years after she'd been abandoned by her parents and forced to leave. Now, unexpectedly an heiress, Helen found she could go back to Gallowmerry. She could fulfill her desire to live among the Grants as an equal... .But the Gallowmerry to which she returned was not the fond home of her childhood. It had become a house of dark secrets and unspoken hatreds whose poisons had infected the entire Grant family. It had become a house of horror luring Helen herself to the brink of madness.

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(by) Kathleen Kinder

Synopsis - The house was built on Raven’s Moor. White stone in a sombre setting, colonnaded, tiered round with balconies, it had gleamed in the moorland half light like some huge sinister wedding cake. The long windows had shone with the glow of a hundred candles; there was dancing in the ballroom; music from the great gallery; and on the terrace the silken couples strolling, and the soft murmur of theri laughter. But all that was past. By the time Emily Dove came to Raven’s Moor in the autumn of 1876, to be servant to Albert and Sophie Stone, things had changed. Only the servants wing was in occupation now a chilly, comfortless apartment for Emily and her employers. Outside, nettles grew hight in the formal gardens, and the paths were moss grown and cracked. Ivy cloaked the house, shrouded its balconies, blinded is very windows. And somewhere under its crumbling icing, the great cake of Raven’s Moor was rotten. If she had not fallen in love with Albert, Emily’s youth and innocence might have protected her and kept her ignorant. But, loving Albert himself an innocent, and destined victim of the evil that inhabited the house her eyes were opened. She saw that death stalked Raven’s Moor. And worse than death: Sophia, last daughter of the bad blood of the Tremaines, patrolled the empty corridors and prowled by night the locked and shuttered rooms. On what old, unspeakable secret did she brood? And when that secret was revealed, what catastrophe would come to Raven’s Moor and those who lived there? The Raven and the Dove is gothic horror at its most sensitive and most powerful. Here is a novel for readers who like to feel that special chill at the base of the spine; who like to pick up a book and then find they simply can’t put it down.

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[by] Dolores Hitchens

> **Three women are caught in the grip of the past in this Southern gothic mystery from the beloved twentieth-century American author.** >There’s nothing to stop Pock Myles, single and unattached, from traveling to Louisiana to comfort her recently widowed and pregnant sister, Rye. But this is no ordinary visit. Recently, there have been bizarre happenings at Larchwood, the vast estate where Rye’s staying with their aunt. >When Pock arrives, Rye takes her to the nearby cemetery where her husband is buried — and his grave desecrated. An odd doll and cruel messages had previously been left there, and now, scorched into the surrounding grass are the words *Not Here*. Pock is caught off guard by her aunt’s dismissal of such things as a prank — and by her most unwelcoming attitude. One thing’s certain: something wrong and unexplained stalks the halls of Larchwood. A strange evil seems directed at Rye, and it’s up to Pock to uncover it . . .

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Stiven King

Insomnia is a 1994 horror/fantasy novel by American writer Stephen King. It follows retired widower Ralph Roberts whose increasing insomnia allows him to perceive auras and other hidden things, leading him to join a conflict between the forces of the Purpose and the Random. Like It and Dreamcatcher, the story is set in the fictional town of Derry, Maine. It includes connections to other Stephen King stories, particularly his novel series The Dark Tower.