Tis the season…what better time to get lost in A World of Gothic?
A group of authors from countries all over the world were drawn together by our love of the classic gothic mysteries by authors such as Daphne du Maurier, Victoria Holt and Phyllis A. Whitney.
While the stories are stand-alone, they each share a recurring thread of a Spinel stone, which can play a small or large part in the plot. We have stories set in Scotland, Greece, Oklahoma, Florida, France, Ireland, and more.
Sea of Darkness A World of Gothic: France by Amanda McCabe
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France, 1890. Sandrine Duplessis was raised to be a fine Parisian lady. But when her scholarly father dies and leaves her penniless, she must take a position as lady’s companion at the crumbling Chateau de Pierpont in faraway Normandy. Her employer suffers from a mysterious illness in the old house, which is filled with strange and beautiful Tahitian artifacts, and the servants are silent. Mystery–and possibly love, with the enigmatic Mathieu Favril–are in the chilly air.
Excerpt:
Chapter One—Rouen, 1890
I couldn’t help but feel that I was suddenly living a life that was not my own.
I folded my hands tightly on the handle of the valise on my lap, the old, cracked leather case that held nearly all I owned in the world, and studied the room around me. That sense of cold distance, as if I saw everything in a dream, grew stronger as I watched the receptionist at his desk, the crowds that hurried past in a blur of identical dark suits. No one spoke loudly there, in the city council’s mairie. They merely murmured to each other, making the rustle of papers on the receptionist’s desk all the louder.
A mairie was always a discreet place, especially the section that housed the foreign services, as I remembered well from when I accompanied my father there as a child. Then, as we journeyed there from our comfortable apartment so he could give them his translation work, I had been awed by it all. The soaring, vaulted ceilings of the old buildings, the stone staircases, the solemn air of quiet, secret importance. It was almost frightening, and I was always glad when we returned home to our books and fires, our own company.
Now, though, there was no one to return to, no Papa waiting for me, no fine apartment. There was only a tiny room in a dusty boarding house along a back street. A room I would soon be hard-pressed to pay for, since I had lost my most recent position as a governess.
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Check out all the stories here…
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Author Alicia Dean 