Dovecombe

Arson, obsession, unrequited love, and a blighted aristocratic family with secrets lie at the center of this twisted Gothic mystery set in a crumbling English manor. Intense, repressed Dorrie is secretly in love with vivid, self-assured Alys. When Dorrie’s abusive marriage implodes, the two women flee to Alys’ remote family home, Dovecombe Manor. Hoping for a haven, Dorrie finds instead a ruin sunk deep in eerie woodland, haunted by a historic curse and held in limbo by a decade-old unsolved arson. When suspicions about the fire focus on Alys, eroding her sanity, Dorrie sets out to protect the woman she loves. Dorrie’s quest draws her into the sinful pasts of the manor and its secretive and vengeful occupants, including calculating matriarch Caroline, who will stop at nothing to restore Dovecombe and her family to their former grandeur. But in this bleak, wild landscape stalked by violence, pulsing with malice and dread, the most dangerous thing of all might be Dorrie. Written in an evocative literary style, rich in atmosphere and sensory details, Dovecombe is a modern gothic for readers of Daphne du Maurier and Sarah Waters.