Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Gothic

Step into a world where beauty conceals corruption and every whispered secret sends ripples through the surface of polite society. Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray stands as one of literature's most brilliant and haunting meditations on vanity, morality, and the eternal struggle between outward appearance and inner reality.

According to legend, the Pyncheon family has been cursed by their 17th century ancestor, Colonel Pyncheon, who stole the land from Matthew Maule. Maule was later put to death after being accused of witchcraft and the deed for the land could not be found. Now living in the New England mansion fraught with haunted miseries of the past, Hepzibah Pyncheon opens a small shop to pull herself from the poverty-striken curse she has lived under while her brother, Clifford, was serving a decades-long prison sentence for murder.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915), little known now, but a renowned writer in her time, gives us five tales of the "weird" as she might herself have said. Here we have five of her better known stories, peopled with jilted lovers, blood thirsty old ladies, and grand, old houses whose restless ancestors refuse to abandon them! The five tales: "The Cold Embrace", "The Shadow in the Corner", "At Chrighton Abbey", "Good Lady Ducayne", and "Eveline's Visitant".

Jane Eyre is a plain orphan girl, unloved and abused by her Aunt Reed, who is sent away to boarding school. Strong of heart and craving independence, Jane embarks upon a life of governess to a young French girl named Adele, the benefactor of the mysterious Mr. Rochester. Life at Thornfield Hall proves just as mysterious as its owner with haunting laughter and a dark secret living in the attic.

Isabeau Finne’s perfect world completely unravels when she meets Death’s right-hand man one fateful night, sending her life spiraling into a world of chaos and the impossible. Suddenly, she is no longer Isabeau and becomes part of the most secretive inner workings of Death itself. She must quickly learn how to traverse this new life...or lose it. As she delves deeper into the mystery and challenges of her new existence, her every move is shadowed by the darkly mysterious Gideon.

John William Polidori was an English physician and an associate of Byron and Shelley. On a tour with the two poets and Mary Godwin (later Shelley), Polidori participated in a competition to write a short ghost story. Polidori's contribution was The Vampyre, which is considered to be the first modern work of vampire fiction. The central figures in the plot are the mysterious and sinister Lord Ruthven, and a naïve and wealthy young man named Aubrey. Polidori's tale proved very influential.

Writing to her only friend from her deathbed, Mathilda finally reveals the history that led to her isolated life of despairing melancholy. Of her mother dying in childbirth, her father's confession of his incestuous desire and subsequent suicide, and her relationship with a handsome young poet that fails to reverse Matilda's emotional withdrawal or prevent her lonely death. The haunting and relentlessly self-examining voice of Mary Shelley's protagonist is a bare narrative of trauma of a brave woman's failed search for love, atonement, and redemption.

Mary Shelley wished with her classic Gothic novel Frankenstein to "make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart". Mary Shelley succeeded. Victor Frankenstein finally fulfills his dream of creating his own living creature, stitched together from the macabre remains of corpses. To his horror he finds he has created something even more ghastly than in his worst imaginings. Frankenstein has created a monster with a soul!

A superbly crafted Dickens classic, masterfully narrated - a ghostly apparition supervises the trial of his murderer.

Young Giovanni arrives in Padua to discover a lush and mysterious garden on the estate of the mysterious Doctor Rappaccini. Amidst the verdant and exotic foliage, Giovanni finds love in the form of Beatrice - the Doctor's daughter. What deadly secret does the young girl and her father keep hidden?

Forbidden love in name baronial estate. An evil man dies with an evil smile upon his face believing his evil secret is going with him to the grave. And there it remains until the lovers creep into the crypt shortly after the stroke of midnight. An erie tale certain to creep you out and keep you in suspense.

Step into the shadowy streets of Victorian London with Robert Louis Stevenson's timeless tale of duality and moral conflict. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde explores the chilling transformation of Dr. Henry Jekyll, a respected scientist, into the monstrous Edward Hyde—a being of pure evil.

In "Bedfellow from Hell," by Larry Moore, narrated as an audiobook by Mike Vendetti, Leona Wade inherits an old house and experiences terrifying supernatural events orchestrated by Talbot Rhone and his accomplice, Mrs. Graham, to drive her insane. Will her fiancé, Tom Farrell, arrive just in time to save her, rescuing her from the haunted house?

Hannah Murphy faces an uncertain future. Her aunt was dead and soon, strangers would take possession of the only home she had ever known. When a letter arrives informing her she is the sole heir to an unknown uncle’s estate, the news seems like a Godsend. Days later, she finds herself on the road to New Orleans, her life in Richmond quickly fading. Upon her arrival, she feels she has stepped into the pages of a modern-day fairytale. However, she soon learns that in this fairytale not all that glitters is gold. The Lincoln House has its own rules written and bound by blood.