Congratulations to the winners of Ellen Byron/Maria DiRico’s Four Parties and a Funeral. Ellen will send copies to Jane D. from Valparaiso, IN, Anita K. from Harrisburg, PA, and Kathryn Z. from Sacramento, CA.
This week, I’m giving away two books with gothic overtones. Katy Hays’ The Cloisters, is a debut. In this “sinister, jaw-dropping” (Sarah Penner, author of The Lost Apothecary) debut novel, a circle of researchers uncover a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York’s famed Met Cloisters.
When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination. Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.
Or maybe you’d prefer M.E. Hilliard’s Three Can Keep a Secret. Greer Hogan is a librarian turned sleuth, an avid reader of crime fiction who possesses an uncanny knack for deduction—and now, she’s drawn into another murder case as late autumn slowly turns to winter in the idyllic village of Raven Hill. When Anita Hunzeker, chair of the library board of trustees, is run off the road and killed, no one seems all that sorry. Anita was widely disliked, and the townsfolk would just as soon be rid of her. But when a local professor turns up dead as well, his connection to Anita and to other local residents leaves the suspect pool covering the entire county. Greer starts poking around, and the more she digs, the more it seems like everyone she knows is trying to hide something. When she unearths a clue in the old manor cemetery, she finally discovers the shocking truth—a cache of dark secrets stretching back decades that could rock the town to its core. Everyone who’s come close to the truth has ended up dead—and if Greer doesn’t tread lightly, she could be the next librarian to get archived for good.
Which book would you like to win? You can enter to win both, but I need separate entries. Email me at Lesa.Holstine@gmail.com. Your subject heading should read either “Win The Cloisters” or “Win Three Can Keep a Secret.” You must include your name and mailing address. The giveaway will end Thursday, July 6 at 5 PM CT. Entries from the U.S. only, please.
Congrats to the winners!
Just about to send you their addresses, Ellen! Thank you!