An American woman and her son unearth the buried secrets and past lives of an English manor house in this masterful and riveting novel from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Belfer. “Infused with the brooding, gothic atmosphere of Jane Eyre or Rebecca . . . a novel that must be savored, one page at a time.”—Melanie Benjamin, author of The Children’s Blizzard ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times “How many lives can you imagine yourself living?” So Hannah Larson wonders. When a close relative falls ill, Hannah and her young son, Nicky, decide to join him for the summer at Ashton Hall, a historic manor house outside Cambridge, England. Hannah gave up her academic career to raise her beloved child, who is neurodivergent and experiences the world differently from others, and she’s grateful to escape her life in New York City, where her marriage has been upended by a devastating betrayal. Soon after their arrival, ever-curious Nicky discovers the skeletal remains of a woman in a forgotten, walled-off wing of the manor, and Hannah is pulled into an all-consuming quest for answers. Working from clues in centuries-old ledgers and the personal papers of the long-departed family, Hannah begins to re-create the Ashton Hall of the Elizabethan era in all its color and conflict. As the secrets of her own life begin to unravel, and the rewards and complications of being Nicky’s mother come into focus, Hannah realizes that Ashton Hall’s women before her had lives not so different from her own. She confronts what women throughout history have had to do to control their own destinies and protect their children. Rich with passion, strength, and ferocity across the ages, Ashton Hall is a novel that reveals how the most profound hauntings are within ourselves.

An American woman and her son unearth the buried secrets and past lives of an English manor house in this masterful and riveting novel from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Belfer. “Infused with the brooding, gothic atmosphere of Jane Eyre or Rebecca . . . a novel that must be savored, one page at a time.”—Melanie Benjamin, author of The Children’s Blizzard ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times “How many lives can you imagine yourself living?” So Hannah Larson wonders. When a close relative falls ill, Hannah and her young son, Nicky, decide to join him for the summer at Ashton Hall, a historic manor house outside Cambridge, England. Hannah gave up her academic career to raise her beloved child, who is neurodivergent and experiences the world differently from others, and she’s grateful to escape her life in New York City, where her marriage has been upended by a devastating betrayal. Soon after their arrival, ever-curious Nicky discovers the skeletal remains of a woman in a forgotten, walled-off wing of the manor, and Hannah is pulled into an all-consuming quest for answers. Working from clues in centuries-old ledgers and the personal papers of the long-departed family, Hannah begins to re-create the Ashton Hall of the Elizabethan era in all its color and conflict. As the secrets of her own life begin to unravel, and the rewards and complications of being Nicky’s mother come into focus, Hannah realizes that Ashton Hall’s women before her had lives not so different from her own. She confronts what women throughout history have had to do to control their own destinies and protect their children. Rich with passion, strength, and ferocity across the ages, Ashton Hall is a novel that reveals how the most profound hauntings are within ourselves.

Stephen Smith is the boy who did not exist. Born out of wedlock in the early 1960s, Steve's parents hid him away from the world by locking him in the cellar...for thirteen years. Starved and beaten, the little boy's world was a darkened room that measured just eight feet by ten with a single makeshift bed, bare light bulb, and a solitary table. Steve would spend his days conjuring up an imaginary world full of monsters he would draw to try and block out the physical and mental torture inflicted on him by his brutal father. Apart from a few admissions to hospital as a result of his 'imprisonment', Steve remained in the coal cellar of the family home where he was deprived of daylight, his childhood, school, and human contact until he'd reached his teenage years. Eventually, he escaped only to fall prey to the instigators of two of the worst cases of institutional abuse in the UK at Aston Hall hospital and St. William's Catholic School. The Boy in the Cellar is a horrifying true story of torture and cruelty, that reveals a human's full capacity to fight for survival and search out happiness and hope.

A Clark Ashton Smith Single. Set the in the Land of Averoigne a narrative by written by the young Christophe Morand about his unaccountable disappearance in 1798.