Recommendations based on "Vacant Possession"

The New York Times bestselling “Grande Dame of historical mystery” (Washington Post) returns with another thrilling tale of mystery,As the l921-22 season begins, the Emersons are enjoying a busy period of excavation in Egypt, when they hear a lurid description of a man’s mysterious death. His widow is convinced he died of a curse, and implores the Emersons to return the “deadly” little statue that killed him to the tomb from which it was stolen--before it adds her to its list of victims. Clearly, it would be a serious error for the Emersons to start chasing tomb robbers, just when they have finally received permission to return to the Valley of the Kings, from which they were barred several years earlier. But the family soon realizes that the curse may be more real than they ever imagined….and they may be the next victims.

When Joss, an adopted child, discovers that her real mother has left the beautiful family home, Belheddon Hall, to her, she is thrilled, until she discovers that the Hall is haunted by a presence which will not tolerate husbands or sons living in the house. When Joss Grant inherits the beautiful old house on the East Anglian coast, it is a dream come true. Eager to begin a new life there with her husband and son, she is also impatient to find out about her newly discovered family who lived there for generations. But Joss begins to hears echoing voices and senses an invisible presence, watching her from the shadows. Are they spirits from the past? Or is it her imagination? As she learns, with mounting horror, of the house's tragic history, her fears intensify, for she realizes that both her family and her own sanity are at the mercy of a violent and powerful energy which seems beyond anyone's control. Despite the threat to her own husband and son, Joss is unable to break free, and, in a last desperate attempt, conjures up the presence to deal with 'it' once and for all.

With her student days behind her and her career well underway, Sue and Bill, now married, together try to run a little hospital in the New England hills that was presented to the community by the town's wealthiest citizen, Elias Todd. Sue is Superintendent of Nurses, and her old friend Kit is helping her along with many of her fellow students from her years of training.After all the exciting nursing adventures these two girls have shared together, one might think they would find their new work rather tame. It is anything but tame for Sue, however, with that irrepressible street urchin, Marianna, as a student nurse; with Jean Ditmarr, sophisticated New Yorker, thinking she could put something over on the young Superintendent; with Dr. Bill so busy being a good doctor that Sue feared for a while he might not prove such a good husband; and above all, with the mysterious disappearance of the hospital sheets! Sue Barton is at her best with all the excitement and fun that this nurse seems destined to find in her nursing profession. The authentic setting of rural hospital life is the perfect backdrop for another great Sue Barton story.

Love and need make unexpected bedfellows, and both are blind. As the grip of a long hard winter tightens on Lydmouth, a dead woman calls the dying in a seance behind net curtains. Two provincial newspapers are in the throes of a bitter circulation war. A lorry-driver broods, and an office boy loses his heart. Britain is basking in the warm glow of post-war tranquillity, but in the quiet town of Lydmouth, darker forces are at play. The rats are fed on bread and milk, a gentleman's yellow kid glove is mislaid on a train, and something disgusting is happening at Mr Prout's toyshop. Returning to a town shrouded in intrigue and suspicion, Jill Francis becomes acting editor of the Gazette. Meanwhile, there's no pleasure left in the life of Detective Chief Inspector Richard Thornhill. Only a corpse, a television set and the promise of trouble to come.

A summer house holds dark secrets—and a terrifying evil—in the New York Times bestselling author’s “compelling gothic mystery” (Publishers Weekly). Lily Dale, New York, is a sleepy, summer resort. A population of psychics and mediums lives within its gates. It is also the place where Julia Garrity and Kristin Shuttleworth formed a fast friendship—one broken only by death. On Halloween night fifteen years ago, Kristin saw something in a house on Summer Street that would haunt her until the end of her days. Since then, Julia has watched both Kristin and her mother fall prey to whomever—or whatever—lurks there. Now Kristin’s blind six-year-old daughter, Dulcie, has come to live in Lily Dale—at that very house on Summer Street. Appointing herself protector, Julia is determined to coax the secrets of the house out into the light, to discover what the little girl “sees” roaming its halls . . . before the murderous force residing there claims them both.

Wire in the blood: "Young girls are disappearing around the country. Everyone assumes they are teenage runaways, headed for the city and bright lights. They vanish without trace - society's disposable children. There is nothing to connect them to each other, let alone the killer whose charming manner hides a warped and sick mind. Nobody moves around inside the messy heads of serial killers like Dr. Tony Hill. Now heading up the recently founded National Profiling Task Force, he sets his team an exercise: they are given the details of thirty missing teenagers and ask to use their new techniques to discover whether there is a sinister link between any of the cases. Only one officer, Shaz Bowman, comes up with a concrete theory, but it is ridiculed by the rest of her group...until a killer murders and mutilates one of their number. Could Bowman's outrageous suspicion possibly be true?"

The nightmare is just beginning... A short story and prequel featuring DCI Matilda Darke, star of Michael Wood’s darkly compelling crime series. Perfect for fans of Angela Marsons and Patricia Gibney. She invited the killer into her home... The body of a young woman is found in an apartment block in a Sheffield suburb. She was attacked at home, in a sudden moment of violence that sends shockwaves through the community. DCI Matilda Darke has no choice but to work with her rival, DI Ben Hales, as the investigation takes them undercover into the dark world of a serial rapist targeting innocent women on the streets of the steel city. But can Matilda and Ben finally put their grievances aside and work together? Or will this case be their last?

Instant New York Times and National Bestseller “A triumph. . . . Winspear creates in Elinor White (the ‘White Lady’), a complex, endearing, achingly flawed hero. This is both fast-paced and thoughtful, bold and nuanced, a thriller that is thrillingly human. I loved it.” —Louise Penny The White Lady introduces yet another extraordinary heroine from Jacqueline Winspear, creator of the best-selling Maisie Dobbs series. This heart-stopping novel, set in Post WWII Britain in 1947, follows the coming of age and maturity of former wartime operative Elinor White—veteran of two wars, trained killer, protective of her anonymity—when she is drawn back into the world of menace she has been desperate to leave behind. A reluctant ex-spy with demons of her own, Elinor finds herself facing down one of the most dangerous organized crime gangs in London, ultimately exposing corruption from Scotland Yard to the highest levels of government. The private, quiet “Miss White" as Elinor is known, lives in a village in rural Kent, England, and to her fellow villagers seems something of an enigma. Well she might, as Elinor occupies a "grace and favor" property, a rare privilege offered to faithful servants of the Crown for services to the nation. But the residents of Shacklehurst have no way of knowing how dangerous Elinor's war work had been, or that their mysterious neighbor is haunted by her past. It will take Susie, the child of a young farmworker, Jim Mackie and his wife, Rose, to break through Miss White's icy demeanor—but Jim has something in common with Elinor. He, too, is desperate to escape his past. When the powerful Mackie crime family demands a return of their prodigal son for an important job, Elinor assumes the task of protecting her neighbors, especially the bright-eyed Susie. Yet in her quest to uncover the truth behind the family’s pursuit of Jim, Elinor unwittingly sets out on a treacherous path—yet it is one that leads to her freedom.

The fourth unputdownable mystery in the thrilling and bestselling SCARLET AND IVY series, perfect for fans of MURDER MOST UNLADYLIKE, SINCLAIR’S MYSTERIES and THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL. Scarlet and Ivy’s school trip takes a turn for the worse as another mystery begins to unfold... It’s summer, and the students of Rookwood School are thrilled to learn of a special trip to Shady Pines Hotel on the shores of Lake Seren.But the old hotel and the waters of the lake are covering up dark secrets. And when mysterious things start happening to hotel guests, it seems that a malicious new threat is haunting Scarlet and Ivy.Locals say that at night you can hear the ringing of the church bells and see lights under the lake. Could it be troubled souls buried in the flooded graveyard who are no longer at rest...? Discover the complete SCARLET AND IVY series, with six mesmerising mysteries to dive into. ‘A true page-turning, nail-biting mystery’ Guardian Children’s Reviews on SCARLET AND IVY

The first book in the series, this bestselling novel introduces Margaret of Ashbury, a fourteenth-century Englishwoman with mystical abilities Margaret of Ashbury wants to write her life story. However, like most women in fourteenth-century England, she is illiterate. Three clerics contemptuously decline to be Margaret’s scribe, and only the threat of starvation persuades Brother Gregory, a Carthusian friar with a mysterious past, to take on the task. As she narrates her life, we discover a woman of startling resourcefulness. Married off at the age of fourteen to a merchant reputed to be the Devil himself, Margaret was left for dead during the Black Plague. Incredibly, she survived, was apprenticed to an herbalist, and became a midwife. But most astonishing of all, Margaret has experienced a Mystic Union—a Vision of Light that endows her with the miraculous gift of healing. Because of this ability, Margaret has become suddenly different—to her tradition-bound parents, to the bishop’s court that tries her for heresy, and ultimately to the man who falls in love with her.