The Death of Jane Lawrence

Description

From the Bram Stoker-nominated author, Ninth House meets Mexican Gothic in this a gothic fantasy horror. Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man-one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to. Set in a dark-mirror version of post-war England, Caitlin Starling crafts a new kind of gothic horror from the bones of the beloved canon. This Crimson Peak-inspired story assembles, then upends, every expectation set in place by Shirley Jackson and Rebecca, and will leave readers shaken, desperate to begin again as soon as they are finished. 'Don't read this one alone at night.' - Genevieve Gornichec, author of The Witch's Heart

Caitlin Starling's first novel, "The Luminous Dead", won the LOHF Best Debut Award and was nominated for both the Bram Stoker and Locus Awards. She has previously published gothic tale "Yellow Jessamine", along with a novella in the Vampire: The Masquerade audio collection, "Walk Among Us". Her nonfiction has appeared in Nightmare and Uncanny. Caitlin also works in narrative design, and has been paid to invent body parts. She's always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia. She tweets @see_starling and lives near Portland, OR.