Product Description \nLady Georgiana Rannoch is just back from her honeymoon with dashing Darcy O’Mara when a friend in need pulls her into a twisted Gothic tale of betrayal, deception and, most definitely, murder. . . .\nI am a bit at loose ends at the moment. My cook, Queenie, is making my new role as mistress of Eynsleigh something akin to constant torture as Darcy is off on another one of his top secret jaunts. And Grandad is busy helping wayward youths avoid lives of crime. So when my dearest friend, Belinda, inherits an old cottage in Cornwall and begs me to go with her to inspect the property, I jump at the chance.\\nAfter a heart-stopping journey in Belinda’s beast of a motorcar, we arrive at the creaky old cottage called White Sails and quickly realize that it is completely uninhabitable. Just when I’m starting to wonder if I would have been better off trying to get Queenie to cook a roast that hasn’t been burnt beyond all recognition, we meet Rose Summers, a woman Belinda knew as a child when she spent time in Cornwall. Rose invites us to stay at Trewoma Hall, the lovely estate now owned by her husband, Tony.\\nBelinda confesses that she never liked Rose and had a fling with Tony years ago, so staying with them is far from ideal but beggars can’t be choosers as they say. Trewoma is not the idyllic house Belinda remembers. There’s something claustrophobic and foreboding about the place. Matters aren’t helped by the oppressively efficient housekeeper Mrs. Mannering or by the fact that Tony seems to want to rekindle whatever he and Belinda once had right under his wife’s nose.\\nOur increasingly awkward visit soon turns deadly when a member of the household is found murdered and all clues point to Belinda as the prime suspect. I soon learn that some long buried secrets have come back to haunt those in residence at Trewoma Hall and I’ll need to sift through the ruins of their past so Belinda doesn’t lose her chance at freedom in the present. . . .\n About the Author \nRhys Bowen, a\nNew York Times bestselling author, has been nominated for every major award in mystery writing, including the Edgar®, and has won many, including both the Agatha and Anthony awards. She is the author of the Royal Spyness Mysteries, set in 1930s London, the Molly Murphy Mysteries, set in turn-of-the-century New York, and the Constable Evans Mysteries, set in Wales. She was born in England and now divides her time between Northern California and Arizona.\n Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. \nChapter 1\\nMonday, October 14, 1935\\nEynsleigh, Sussex\\nLast night I had a strange dream. I dreamed that I was mistress of an enormous house. It was so large that I couldn't find my way around it. I kept running down long dark hallways and opening doors but nothing looked familiar. Empty rooms. Furniture covered in dust sheets. I knew that somewhere was a man who would take care of me, but I had no idea how to find him. I awoke, sweating, reached out for Darcy and found only a cold empty bed beside me. I sat up, heart pounding, before I realized that he had gone away.\\nBy the light of day I analyzed that dream. The strange thing about it was that it was all true. I had achieved my ultimate desire: I was married to a gorgeous and sexy man, and really was mistress of a big, empty house called Eynsleigh. I know-it's still mind-boggling to me! It was mid-October. We had been married for almost three months and much of that time had been wonderful. Darcy and I had been to Kenya on our honeymoon-a little more dramatic than I had anticipated. I had enjoyed learning to be mistress of a large house for the first time, arranging Eynsleigh to my own satisfaction and slipping into a comfortable routine with my new husband.\\nI had encouraged him to turn down a desk job at the Foreign Office, knowing him too well and suspecting he would be bored with inactivity. But now I was coming to regret this as last week he had accepted so