There were things at Teind House that strangers must never find; things that must be kept concealed from the prying world at all costs . . .Selina March has lived in the remote Scottish hamlet of Inchcape, with its mysterious Round Tower, for nearly fifty years. Brought up by elderly relatives, long since dead, she now lives alone, shunning the outside world as much as she can.But when she reluctantly accepts a paying guest, Selina's secluded life will change for ever. Crime writer Joanna Savile has come to Inchcape to research her latest novel by interviewing inmates at Moy, the asylum for the criminally insane situated nearby. Her secret aim is to question former child murderer, Mary Maskelyne, Moy's most infamous patient.Joanna's prying will yield unexpected results. For, although they have never met, Selina March and Mary Maskelyne are connected by a shared family tragedy: a terrible act of unspeakable cruelty that took place in India fifty years before. And there are secrets in Selina's more recent past, too. Secrets that are about to be uncovered with the most devastating and shocking consequences . . .

The descendants of Elizabeth Bathory, a bloodthirsty Hungarian countess who terrorized the Carpathian countryside in the 16th century, are determined that her line shall not die. Fearing her heredity, Catherine, a paternal descendant, has escaped to a convent. Here she meets journalist Michael Devlin who is haunted by the last thing he saw before losing his sight.

Calvary Gaol, standing bleak and forbidding on the Cumbrian hillside, exerts a curious hold over Georgina Grey. For her family's history is closely bound up in its dark and terrible past. It's there that her great-grandfather worked as a prison doctor in the 1930s; where his involvement in a bizarre experiment would change the course of his life forever.TV presenter Chad Ingram is fascinated by Calvary too. For he plans to conduct a new experiment in the now-disused gaol - an experiment that will take place in the brooding desolation of the old execution chamber.Chad's experiment and Georgina's curiosity will have horrifying consequences. For someone has their own reasons for suppressing the shocking truth about Calvary. Someone who will go to any lengths to ensure the past remains buried . . .**

When novelist Theo Kendal inherits the remote Norfolk house in which his cousin Charmery was murdered, he believes it will bring him closer to the truth about her death. It will also be the ideal place to finish his new book. But the bleak Fenn House is a lonely and sometimes uncomfortable place to spend the winter. And the strangest thing is that Theo’s new novel seems to be writing itself - and heading in an unplanned direction. Theo finds himself describing a young boy called Matthew who lives in constant fear of a visit from the cold-eyed men. Struggling to understand the dangerous secrets that surround him and his family, Matthew inhabits a terrifying world where people die in macabre circumstances, where they can be imprisoned without trial or reason, their identities wiped from the world forever. And then Theo discovers that Matthew and his family really existed, part of a dark and violent segment of recent history that threatens to reach across the years to tear his life apart. And somehow it all connects to the death of his cousin Charmery.

Fosse House, home of the reclusive Luisa Gilmore, harbours curious secrets - secrets that stretch back almost a century, to the ill-fated Palestrina Choir in its remote Belgian convent. When Oxford don Michael Flint travels to the house to trace the origins of the long-dead Choir, he is at once aware of the house's eerie menace. Who is the shadowy young man who lurks in the grounds, and why does his exact likeness appear in a sketch from 1917? What is the strange whispering that echoes through the corridors? And why is Luisa so afraid when a storm makes it necessary for Michael to spend the night inside the house? Back in Oxford, when Nell West uncovers the story of the infamous 1917 'Holzminden sketch' - the lost, legendary drawing from World War I - a dark fragment of the past begins to stir. A fragment that Michael, in the lonely old house, may not be able to resist.**

When school teacher Trixie Smith turns up asking questions about legendary film actress Lucretia von Wolff, Lucy Trent is not unduly alarmed. She rather enjoys the notoriety surrounding her glamorous but infamous grandmother, whose lovers were legion, whose scandals were numerous, whose life ended abruptly in a bizarre double murder and suicide at the Ashwood film studios in 1952. Trixie Smith has uncovered information which she believes throws new light on the Ashwood case. In particular, she wants to know more about Alraune, the illegitimate child Lucretia was alleged to have borne at the outbreak of WWII. The child whose existence is surrounded in mystery. The child who may never have existed at all.But Trixie Smith's enquiries are brought to an untimely end. Some days later, her mutilated corpse is discovered at the derelict site of the old Ashwood studios.In the ensuing murder investigation, Lucy is to discover disturbing facts about her family's poignant and often tragic history - a history which stretches from the glittering concert halls of 1920s Vienna to the bleak environs of wartime Auschwitz - and at the heart of it all lies the shocking truth about the mysterious child called Alraune.

For several hundred years the Ingram family has lived under a curse—the taint of homicidal madness which manifests itself in the females every 80 or 90 years—and it appears the madness has struck again in the beautiful Imogen. But Dan Tudor, a writer commissioned to produce a feature on the family, is not convinced. His investigations are about to lead him to a horror beyond imagining.

Patrick Chance was a notorious Victorian rake whose memoirs of his travels through Tibet caused a sensation at the time. But, having retraced his ancestor's footsteps, Sir Lewis Chance is the only one who knows the truth. For he has also stumbled on the strange, secret tribe who guard the sinister Stone Tablets in remote Tibet. A group whose perverted beliefs, blood rituals and horrific customs have torturous, hellish consequences.

When the village of Priors Bramley was shut off in the 1950s so that the area could be used for chemical weapons-testing during the Cold War, a long history of dark secrets was also closed off to the outside world. Now, sixty years later, the village has been declared safe again, but there are those living in nearby Bramley who would much rather that the past remain hidden.When the village is reopened, Ella Haywood, who used to play there as a child, is haunted by the discovery of two bodies. Shortly before the isolation of the village, she and her two oldest friends had a violent and terrifying encounter with a stranger - with terrible consequences. They made a pact of silence at the time, but the past has a habit of forcing the truth to the surface. With the mystery surrounding the now derelict Cadence Manor drawing increasing local interest, Ella finds that she will have to resort to ever more drastic measures if she is to make sure that no one discovers what really happened all those years ago.About the AuthorThe author of seven terrifying novels of psychological suspense, Sarah Rayne lives in Staffordshire. Visit www.sarahrayne.co.uk

A 400-year-old crime continues to menace the present in this spine-chilling tale of supernatural suspense. When Nell West starts extending her Oxford antiques shop, she is not expecting to uncover strange fragments of its past: fragments that include a frightened message scribbled on old plasterwork, dated 1850 and referring to someone called Thaisa. She also uncovers a mysterious link with a village on the Dorset coast – a village with an ancient bell tower and dark memories of a piece of music known locally as Thaisa's Song. The sea is gradually encroaching on the derelict tower, but the old Glaum Bell still hangs in the lonely bell chamber and although it was silenced after an act of appalling brutality during the reign of Henry VIII, local people whisper that its chime is still occasionally heard. As Nell and Michael Flint discover, the tower is mysteriously entangled with the story of Thaisa and a 400-year-old tragedy that has...

A long-ago crime continues to menace the present in this spine-chilling tale of supernatural suspense.When Michael Flint is asked by a colleague to investigate a reputedly haunted house, he is intrigued. Leo Rosendale's childhood was blighted by a macabre tragedy in the grim Deadlight Hall – a tragedy that occurred towards the end of World War II, involving a set of twins who vanished. The fate of Sophie and Susannah Reiss was never discovered, and Leo has never been able to forget them.When Michael, together with his fiancee Nell, begins to explore Deadlight Hall's history, he discovers that in the 1880s another pair of sisters vanished from the house – and that there may also be much older and darker secrets lurking within its walls.As Michael and Nell gradually peel back the sinister layers of the Hall's unhappy past, they are unprepared for the eerie and threatening resonances they encounter – nor for the shocking...