House Of Shadows – Nicola Cornick

Suddenly the silence and the darkness felt thick and oppressive. Atavistic fear breathed gooseflesh along her skin. “Bonnie!” She wanted to shout but her voice came out as a dry croak. For a moment Bonnie did not respond, then she looked at Holly and wagged her tail slightly. With one last lingering stare she trotted across the clearing to Holly’s side. A tawny owl coasted down from the trees like a ghost. Holly’s heart was pounding. She spun around, making for the picket gate and the shelter of the mill.

Through the close press of the woodland, for a split second, she caught a flash of white: a house glimpsed through the darkness, tall and pale and perfect in the moonlight, the golden ball on the cupola gleaming. Walking quickly, refusing to look either to the left or the right, Holly marched back to the mill with Bonnie pressing close at her heels.

She almost ran inside and slammed the door, thrusting the bolt home with hands that were shaking. The bright light, the ordinary familiarity of the room, seemed to make a mockery of the fear that had gripped her a moment before and she felt her heartbeat steady. “Damn it!” Holly let out a sharp sigh, leaning against the table for support whilst her nerves settled. She was starting to feel as though she was teetering on the edge of sanity, seeing a house where none existed, getting spooked by Bonnie when all the dog had been doing was sniffing the night air, feeling as though Lavinia was starting to haunt her, flitting through her thoughts like a shadow.

It was easy to let the darkness and the silence get to her when she was not used to the isolation. She had not drawn the curtains and reached over the back of the sofa to twitch the old gingham pattern closed. As she leant across, something caught her eye, a set of initials, RV and a date of 1801 etched on the glass in the bottom right corner of the pane. She traced the writing with one finger, feeling the roughness of the scratches against her skin.

The glass felt cold. 1801. That had been when Lavinia said the surveyor called Verity had come to Ashdown. And on Ben’s list there had been a third name: Robert Verity.

The wooded hills of Oxfordshire conceal the remains of the aptly named Ashdown House—a wasted pile of cinders and regret. Once home to the daughter of a king, Ashdown and its secrets will unite three women across four centuries in a tangle of intrigue, deceit and destiny… In the winter of 1662, Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen, is on her deathbed. She entrusts an ancient pearl, rumored to have magic power, to her faithful cavalier William Craven for safekeeping.

In his grief, William orders the construction of Ashdown Estate in her memory and places the pearl at its center. One hundred and fifty years later, notorious courtesan Lavinia Flyte hears the maids at Ashdown House whisper of a hidden treasure, and bears witness as her protector Lord Evershot—desperate to find it—burns the building to the ground.

Now, a battered mirror and the diary of a Regency courtesan are the only clues Holly Ansell has to finding her brother, who has gone missing researching the mystery of Elizabeth Stuart and her alleged affair with Lord Craven. As she retraces his footsteps, Holly’s quest will soon reveal the truth about Lavinia and compel her to confront the stunning revelation about the legacy of the Winter Queen. OceanofPDF.com OceanofPDF.com Look for Nicola Cornick’s next novel THE PHANTOM TREE available soon from Graydon House Books OceanofPDF.com Praise for House of Shadows “Fans of Kate Morton will enjoy this gripping tale.”

—Candis “A must-read for fans of romantic time-slip novels. An intriguing journey that weaves between the 17th-century life of the Winter Queen, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and a modern-day missing-person case.” —Historical Novel Society “A gripping read.” —BBC Radio “For fans of Barbara Erskine and Kate Morton comes an unforgettable novel…. House of Shadows delivers all that it promises.” —Heroes and Heartbreakers OceanofPDF.com Nicola Cornick is a historian and author. She studied at London University and Ruskin College, Oxford, and works for the National Trust as a guide at the seventeenth-century hunting lodge Ashdown House in Oxfordshire.

Her award-winning books are international bestsellers and have been translated into twenty-six languages. OceanofPDF.com To Andrew, who has lived with my obsession with Ashdown House and William Craven for many years. All my love, as always.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: bc6c5d879020b269
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,392,550 bytes (1.328 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 426
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 654.23 minutes
• Total Words: 130,845
• Total Characters: 722,140
• Average Words per Page: 307.15
• Average Characters per Page: 1695.16

Most Frequent Words

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