In 1848 Nathaniel Hawthorne is married and living in Salem, Massachusetts, a stone's throw from where the alleged witches were hanged in 1692. He is burdened with guilt over his ancestor's involvement in their trial, and bored with the stultifying work in the Custom House. Unable to write anything of significance, he is bitter and depressed. Susan Pryor, a young maid in a wealthy Salem household, aspires to become more than just a maid. Though she finds much pleasure in her fellow maid, with whom she sleeps, and in preparing for fine dinners and parties, she and her friend are still just maids and fair game for the two older sons. She longs to escape, to be more than just a servant. Susan and Hawthorne, the two unhappy Salem residents, meet by chance on Gallows Hill. A spark ignites-and smolders. In telling her story, Susan becomes more determined to escape her situation and inspire the brooding and mysterious Hawthorne. A Rose on Gallows Hill pictures the life of this enchanting maid in the year before Hawthorne begins writing his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter. A Rose on Gallows Hill pictures the life of this beautiful maid as she enchants the man who will shortly begin writing his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter.

It's time to come home... The Hull family has owned the Gallows Hill Winery for generations. Their wine wins awards. Their business prospers. Their family thrives. People whisper that the curse has awakened once more. The sprawling old house has long been perched on top of a hill overlooking the nearby town, jealously guarding the estate's secrets. It's been more than a decade since Margot Hull last saw her childhood home. She was young enough when she was sent away that she barely remembers its dark passageways and secret corners. But now she's returned to bury her parents and reconnect with the winery that is her family's legacy―and the bloody truth of exactly what lies buried beneath the crumbling estate. Alone in the sprawling, dilapidated building, Margot is forced to come face to face with the horrors of the past―and realize that she may be the next victim of a house that never rests...

Could a witch hunt happen again in Salem? New York Times bestselling author of The Lace Reader Brunonia Barry returns to Salem with this spellbinding new thriller, a complex brew of suspense, seduction and murder. When a teenage boy dies suspiciously on Halloween night, Salem's chief of police, John Rafferty, wonders if there is a connection between his death and Salem’s most notorious cold case, a triple homicide dubbed "The Goddess Murders," in which three young women, all descended from accused Salem witches, were slashed on Halloween night in 1989. He finds unexpected help in Callie Cahill, the daughter of one of the victims newly returned to town. Neither believes that the main suspect, Rose Whelan, respected local historian, is guilty of murder or witchcraft. But exonerating Rose might mean crossing paths with a dangerous force. Were the women victims of an all-too-human vengeance, or was the devil raised in Salem that night? And if they cannot discover what truly happened, will evil rise again?

In the lush literary tradition of such acclaimed Southern writers as Flannery O'Connor and Katherine Anne Porter comes an extraordinary tale of one woman's search to uncover a past full of haunting family secrets. Thirty-one-year-old Ellie Moon intends to use the summer of 1967 to regroup after her recent divorce. When her estranged father, Tiny, unexpectedly shows up at her Missouri home and asks her to go with him to New Orleans, Ellie seizes the chance to get away-and to maybe understand why her father abandoned his young family twenty years ago. Father and daughter follow the Mississippi River flyway from St. Louis to the Big Easy, dodging a crazed Kentucky sheriff hell-bent on catching Tiny and running into an eccentric cast of colorful characters. In the midst of late-night poker games, eating contests, and a near-drowning in the Mississippi River, Ellie's proximity to her father triggers blurred recollections of being dirty, of washing her hands again and again but never feeling clean. And when the images snap into focus, Ellie remembers the dark secrets she hid from herself since childhood.

Briony knows she is a witch. She knows that she is guilty of hurting her beloved stepmother. She also knows that, now her stepmother is dead, she must look after her beautiful but complicated twin sister, Rose. Then the energetic, electric, golden-haired Eldric arrives in her home town of Swampsea, and everything that Briony thinks she knows about herself and her life is turned magically, dizzyingly, upside down.

Bears, wolves and weird tangles of fate, these eight Strange Tales for 9-12s from master storyteller Daniel Morden have it all. In these pages you will meet travellers, tricksters, unlikely heroes, and animals who may not be what they seem... Honed folk and fairy tales favourites from a lifetime of performance, retold with a contemporary twist, stories such as 'Tatterhood', 'Fearless' and 'The Luck Child' will become family favourites for those who love the uncanny, the unnerving and the downright bizarre.