Dreadful Splendor

Genevieve Timmons earns her living in Victorian London by pretending to channel the dead and collecting fees from wealthy people who want to hear from their lost loved ones. A single mistake leaves her locked in a cell, facing the gallows. A stranger then visits with an unusual proposal on behalf of his employer, the young Lord Pemberton, who has sunk into despair since his bride-to-be died. If Genevieve can hold a séance persuasive enough to restore the lord's peace of mind, she will be released.

Genevieve expects the task to be simple, but Pemberton is nothing like the heartbroken man she pictured. He is brusque and difficult, though undeniably handsome, and he is convinced his fiancée was murdered, despite having no evidence. He wants a confession, and he proposes that Genevieve use her talent for illusion, together with his knowledge of the household, to stage a haunting convincing enough to lure the killer into the open.

At the Somerset Park estate, however, strange and frightening events begin to unfold, and Genevieve soon finds that her own tricks cannot account for everything. The novel combines a Gothic murder mystery with a growing romance and a steady current of chills, and it is set against the atmosphere of a grand, unsettling country house.