A cursed ring. A forgotten grave. A magical enemy. Can Annabella escape her family's fate? Annabella has done her best to put behind her all memories of her childhood being raised as an unwanted ward in the gothic family mansion. As the secretary to the flamboyant Errol, Duke of Winchester, she's seen the world and avoided her family's clutches. But now she must return to that elegantly-decayed, antebellum house on the historic Battery in Charleston, South Carolina, where the "moonlight and magnolias" atmosphere hides some deadly family secrets. Returning for the wake of her aged relative, Henrietta, who hasn't left her South of Broad showplace for decades, Annabella walks into the chilly embrace of her Cousin Beatrix and the woman's much-too-attractive new assistant, Armand, whose words of encouragement and warning keep arriving inexplicably in her mind. In just a few hours, the house reclaims her. She finds herself waking up in her deceased relative's bed and clothes, Henrietta's ring on an unremovable chain around her neck. And, even as she begins to realize that magic is real and her friends and Armand hope to save her with it, it's starting to look as though the terrifying mansion and its demonic secrets may never let her leave. Katherine Gilbert, author of the quirky urban fantasies Protecting the Dead and Unearthly Remains, shows a more serious side in this chilling Southern Gothic tale (but not without a bit of quirk!). On a Gilbert wackiness scale of 1-to-10 sarcastic talking cats*, this one is about a 3. *Warning: Not all stories contain talking cats. Wackiness may take other forms.

Jeremiah Ransom sat by helpless for years as his girls suffered at the hands of Zeke Malone. The spell that had been put in place by Camilla and Liza would soon be broken and Jeremiah would be able to see his beautiful Magnolias, as his so lovingly called them. He would bring them together in their time of need. Jeremiah would not be able to help them alone. Hazel, Alizabeth, Maddilone, and Annabelle would also need the help of the women who had come before them. The fight was not only with Zeke, but also with a ghost from the family's past that refused to stay buried.

Moonlight, Magnolias, and Madness is a social history of the perceptions and treatment of the mentally ill in South Carolina over two centuries. Examining insanity in both an institutional and a community context, Peter McCandless shows how policies and attitudes changed dramatically from the colonial era to the early twentieth century. He also sheds new light on the ways sectionalism and race affected the plight of the insane in a state whose fortunes worsened markedly after the Civil War. Antebellum asylum reformers in the state were inspired by many of the same ideals as their northern counterparts, such as therapeutic optimism and moral treatment. But McCandless shows that treatment ideologies in South Carolina, which had a majority black population, were complicated by the issue of race, and that blacks received markedly inferior care. By re-creating the different experiences of the insane--black and white, inside the asylum and within the community--McCandless highlights the importance of regional variation in the treatment of mental illness.

A century ago, a legacy of love and magic came to life in a Scottish castle in East Texas, and the saga of the MacInnes women began in Magnolia Bloom With divorce looming, Paige MacInnes fears her ever after will be anything but happy. Everyone, herself included, believed she had a magical marriage?until she didn't.After the death of her beloved aunt, she returns to Magnolia Bloom to manage the MacInnes estate. There, she comes to realize that in the daily grind of being mom, wife, and paralegal, Paige the woman has lost sight of her dreams. Surrounded by loving family and lifelong friends, she sets out to design a destiny of her own choosing, even if it means facing the future alone. Just as she glimpses a new beginning with a sexy Scotsman beneath the fragrant magnolias, she wonders if she should put her faith in a second chance.Even if she no longer believes in the castle's magic, Paige is determined to do whatever it takes to safeguard her family's legacy-and ensure her own happily ever after.