Showing results for "life" in Gothic

Three young sisters are trapped in a childhood of unrelenting abuse at the hands of their cruel father. In order to survive their nightmare, Helen, Sis and Sweetypie create a secret world for themselves where only their love for each other sustains them. But children grow up and the day comes when the sisters know they must end their torment, whatever it takes. They plot a brutal revenge on their father, but not all goes as planned.

Emotionally guarded Daphne Amos always believed she’d found a kindred spirit in her fiancé, Heath. Both very private people, they’ve kept their pasts hidden from the world, and each other, until Heath’s escalating nightmares begin to put an undeniable strain on their relationship. Determined to give their impending marriage the best chance of succeeding, Heath insists that Daphne join him on a seven-day retreat with Dr. Matthew Cerny, a psychologist celebrated for getting to the root of repressed memories.

Blood and power bind three generations of women in the Ozark Mountains. So does an evil that’s followed them across the decades. 1931. Gracelynn Doherty lives peacefully on Tin Mountain, helping her adoptive granny work her cures. Despite whispers that the women are witches, the superstitious locals still seek them out, whether to remedy arthritis or a broken heart. But when evangelist Josiah Bellflower comes to town promising miracle healing, full bellies, and prosperity, his revivals soon hold Tin Mountain in thrall—and Granny in abject fear. Granny recognizes Josiah.

Dunkel, verführerisch sexy, und süchtig machend. Dramatisch und so spannend, dass du dich bei jeder Seite fragen wirst… Wer ist dieser König von Afterlife? Keira ist neu in der Stadt und flieht vor ihrer Vergangenheit. Eine Vergangenheit, die ihre Träume heimsucht, bis ein neuer Alptraum sie anfängt zu jagen… groß, dunkel und sexy. Ihr neuer Boss, Dominic Draven. Die Frage ist, was läuft in diesem berüchtigten Gothic Nachtclub in der kleinen Stadt Evergreen Falls? Und noch wichtiger, was hat sein mächtiger Besitzer mit ihr vor?

Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot, and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water - until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes...not drowned, not lost, simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together.

Reformed party girl Meg Ashley leads a life of privilege, thanks to a bestselling horror novel her mother wrote decades ago. But Meg knows that the glow of their very public life hides a darker reality of lies, manipulation, and the heartbreak of her own solitary childhood. Desperate to break free of her mother, Meg accepts a proposal to write a scandalous, tell-all memoir.

Naomi Alderman's The Lessons reflects the truth that the lessons life teaches often come too late. Hidden away in an Oxford backstreet is a crumbling Georgian mansion, unknown to any but the few who possess keys to its unassuming front gate. Its owner is the mercurial, charismatic Mark Winters, whose rackety trust-fund upbringing has left him as troubled and unpredictable as he is wildly promiscuous.

Anglo-Saxon England, AD 997. Brother Galen is anxious about leaving the haven of his abbey. Suddenly reconciled with his father after being disowned, he fears he will never again fit in with his estranged family. But when he’s commissioned to produce a manuscript for the king, the shy scribe has the chance to visit his relatives after three years of banishment.

Stephen Norman is to inherit her father’s vast fortune and estate. She seeks to ask Leonard Everard (a wastrel) to marry her, but only to prove that she can ask a man to marry her and defy 19th-century convention which says a man can only ask a woman to marry. This sets into motion a showdown between two old rivals for her hand in marriage, as Harold An Wolf (a gentleman) is in love with her.

Beneath the light of a full moon, the Nightbloods and Seers are dancing. They are dancing as they await another Awakening, a dream that defines every witch's destiny. It doesn't matter that the coven is cheering and anticipating her turn into womanhood, because Calli doesn't want any of it.

A single sentence was all it took to define Cammy's life. They came as her beloved artist aunt was dying, a teenage Cammy standing by her bedside: 'Did your mother ever tell you about the curse?' Cammy is warned that the women in her family are destined always to lose the one they love. She thinks nothing of it - until the day when, in her late twenties, her new boyfriend is hit by a car. Convinced she is to blame, Cammy begins to investigate the one-hundred-and-fifty-year story of a family that is both ordinary and remarkable, tragic and beautiful.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was born on August 28th, 1814, at 45 Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, into a literary family with Huguenot, Irish and English roots. Between 1838 and 1840 Le Fanu had written and published twelve stories which purported to be the literary remains of an 18th-century Catholic priest called Father Purcell. Set mostly in Ireland they include classic stories of gothic horror, with grim, shadowed castles, as well as supernatural visitations from beyond the grave, together with madness and suicide.

Nine-year-old Olivia Friel is delighted to be spending the summer at Greyfriars House, a place where her parents, their family and friends are always happy. But this year there's an underlying tension that Olivia doesn't understand. Then one night she sees something she's not meant to, and accidentally lets slip a devastating betrayal. Charlotte Friel gets a call from her ailing mother, asking something she's never asked before: for Charlotte to come home. There are things Olivia needs to tell her daughter before it's too late, secrets to be shared about forgotten relatives and a mysterious house.

Thirteen years ago, Jori Trahan’s boyfriend vanished without a trace. Now, after moving back home to Alabama to care for her ailing grandmother and autistic brother, she comes face-to-face with the deadly mystery behind his disappearance. Jori has a rare form of synesthesia, meaning she can “hear” colors; to her, tones of voice are as unique as fingerprints. With the help of this ability and a sympathetic cop, Jori comes dangerously close to uncovering the truth. But those responsible will go to any length - including murder - to keep their dark secrets buried.

Five years ago Susannah Harper's son, Joel, went missing without trace. Bereft of her son and then of her husband, Susannah has rebuilt her life around helping others. But then, on the last night of Hull Fair, a fortune-teller makes an eerie prediction. She tells her that this Christmas Eve, Joel will finally come back to her. As her carefully constructed life begins to unravel, Susannah is forced to confront the buried truths of her family's past.

Ten-year-old Helen and her summer guardian, Flora, are isolated together in Helen's decaying family house while her father is doing secret war work in Oak Ridge during the final months of World War II. At three Helen lost her mother and the beloved grandmother who raised her has just died. A fiercely imaginative child, Helen is desperate to keep her house intact with all its ghosts and stories. Flora, her late mother's twenty-two-year old first cousin, who cries at the drop of a hat, is ardently determined to do her best for Helen.

Sapien is a relic of a bygone age, searching for meaning in a world where his outdated allegiances to a time long past have left him isolated and hopeless. Seeking peace and quiet, he retires to a beach house at Barren Cove, a stately Victorian manor even more antiquated than he. He becomes increasingly fascinated with the family whose lives are entwined with the home - angry and rebellious Clark; flamboyant Kent; fragile, beautiful Mary; and, most of all, Beachstone, the mysterious man whose history may hold all the answers Sapien has been searching for.

'Young Adult Classics' is a new series from Naxos AudioBooks which aims to bring key works of literature to a young audience in abridged form. Lively, accessible readings with music is the key. Jane Eyre is the tale of a young governess who becomes entangled with the powerful Mr Rochester, finding mystery and uneasiness in his house.

'Exquisite' Veronica Henry

*****

Orphans Clara and Jacob Marley live by their wits, scavenging for scraps in the poorest alleyways of London, in the shadow...