Ocean State Libraries

At this challenge, Mary Shelley began work on the 'ghost story' that was to evolve into the most celebrated horror novel in literary history. Frankenstein was published the next year and become the rage of London. In the generations since, the story of Victor Frankenstein and the monster he created has been read by millions all over the world. It has inspired hundreds of imitations, but it has never been equaled for its masterful manipulation of the...

"The story of two sisters who have become recluses after the arsenic poisoning of four members of their family."

"1902, the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara are obsessed with each other and with Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. The girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society. Their bodies are discovered in a nearby apple orchard, with a copy of Mary's book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Within five years three more people die on the property--...

When a London housewife and mother is terrorized by anonymous phone calls and threats, her husband questions her sanity.

"When Matthew Lewis's The Monk was published in 1796, readers were shocked by this gripping and horrific novel. Lewis's story, which drove the House of Commons - of which he was a member - to deem him licentious and perverse, follows the abbot Ambrosio as he is tempted into a world of incest, murder, and torture by a young girl who has concealed herself in his monastery disguised as a boy. As Ambrosio spirals into hell, the reader encounters an array...

"Gaston Leroux is one of the originators of the detective story, and The Phantom of the Opera""is his tour de force, as well as being the basis for the hit Broadway musical. A superb suspense story and a dark tale of obsession, The Phantom of the Opera has thrilled and entertained audiences in adaptations throughout the century. This new translation--the first completely modern and Americanized translation--unfurls the full impact of this classic...

A governess is not a murder investigator. To new governess Lorna MacDougal, that seemed a safe and reasonable assumption. Until her employer, the grand matriarch of the Cameron family sees fit to change all the rules of childcare. The woman seriously expects Lorna to discover who murdered her husband. The family's three sons are obvious suspects: Stephen with his shallow wife, Gentle Charles who wouldn't hurt a fly, and the most dangerous of them...

"London, 1893. When Cora Seaborne's husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was an unhappy one. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space, she leaves for coastal Essex, accompanied by her eleven-year-old son and his nanny. Once there, they hear rumors that after nearly three hundred years, the mythical Essex Serpent, a fearsome creature that once roamed the marshes, has returned. When a young...

Schedoni, a sinister monk, contrives to prevent the marriage of Vincentio di Vivaldi to Ellena Rosalba, at the request of Vincentio's mother.

Summoned to a chateau in France to restore old paintings, a severe young Englishwoman pieces together fragments of secret scandals among her employers.