On a small island in a remote corner of northwest Scotland lies Maundrell castle, owned by its wealthy namesake family for centuries-until now. Edwina Nunn is shocked to learn a relative she never heard of has bequeathed the castle and its land to her. What awaits Edie and her teenage daughter, Neve, is even more startling, for the castle is home to a multitude of ghosts.
Yet there's a strange beauty in the austere architecture and the eerie, bloody waters of Loch na Scáthanna, the Lake of Shadows. Beguiled by a frightened ghost who gazes longingly out of the castle's windows, Edie and Neve are drawn to the legends shrouding the island and the mystery of the Maundrell Red-a priceless diamond that disappeared decades before.
Is the gem really cursed, and the cause of the family tragedies that have all occurred on Samhain-Scottish Halloween? As Samhain approaches once more, Edie and Neve race to peel back the dark secrets entwining the living and the dead-a twisted story of bitter cruelty and hidden love-or they will become another Maundrell tragedy trapped in the lonely hours . . .
Set in a haunted manor house in a picturesque English village, this debut novel is a modern-day ghost story filled with emotional complexity and family secrets. Will be irresistible for fans of Eve Chase, Kate Morton, and Shirley Jackson.
Francine Thwaite has lived all her fifty-five years in her family's ancestral home, a rambling Elizabethan manor in England's Lake District. No other living soul resides there, but Francine isn't alone. There are ghosts in Thwaite Manor, harmless and familiar. Most beloved is Bree, the mischievous ghost girl who has been Francine's companion since childhood.
When Francine's estranged sister, Madeleine, returns to the manor after years away, she brings with her a story that threatens everything Francine has always believed. It is a tale of cruelty and desperation, of terror and unbearable heartache. And as Francine learns more about the darkness in her family's past-and the role she may have played in it-she realizes that confronting the truth may mean losing what she holds most dear.
As moving and poignant as it is chilling, Her Little Flowers is a story of grief and enduring love-and of the haunting regrets only forgiveness can dispel.
