Amy Cross

Some houses are never truly empty. Some brides never stop waiting. Seeking solitude and a clean break from his past, Owen Stone retreats to the crumbling isolation of Ashbyrn House, far from the bustle of London. The house is remote, abandoned for decades, and perfect for someone who wants to disappear. But the silence doesn’t last. Locals speak in hushed tones of a pale face seen behind the upper windows, veiled in lace and sorrow. Of a woman who once lived and died within those walls, show more her heart broken, her vengeance unfinished. Her name was Katinka Ashbyrn. And she still wants what was taken from her. As Owen begins to unravel the house’s dark history, he finds himself haunted not only by whispers and shadows, but by a presence that grows more determined with each passing night. A bride buried by time. A groom she’s waited far too long to meet. The Bride of Ashbyrn House is a chilling gothic horror novel about love turned to obsession, revenge that refuses to fade, and the dreadful price of being chosen.
If you like dark, creepy paranormal stories that will literally haunt you long after the last word is read and the book is closed.... this is YOUR book! It's a really dark, dark paranormal story.

Our bride is Katinka Ashbyrn. It doesn't matter that she's now well over 100 years old since she lived in the early 1800s....She's back. Well actually she never left and has absolutely no intentions of doing so. She died on her wedding day, those many, many years ago. It's now the 21st century and her ghost has made itself right at home in Ashbyrn House. She's on a search for something...actually, she on a search for someone... the man who was to be her husband...the man who had survived her.

Now Ashbyrn house has a new owner. A writer who only wants to have a little time to himself. He has no idea what lurks in the shadows of his house, or how Katinka plans to claim him as her rightful husband...oh...but he'll soon find out.

I discovered Amy Cross a few years ago and was instantly hooked. This author truly KNOWS how to write horror! Her characters are usually mostly clueless about what is awaiting them...until it's way, way, way, too late. At first, I felt rather sorry for Owen, the new owner. Poor guy only wanted to write his book...but as the story went on, I thought this man must be a few bricks short of a full load. To begin with his house is fill with gross, creepy, nasty eight-legged creatures that I found much more horrifying than any ghost...SPIDERS!! SPIDERS EVERYWHERE!!! (Spiders are the only animals in the world that I am horrified of.) Give me a ghost any day!

The bride was fodder for the "looney bin" even when she was alive. I was really convinced of that when we learned that her idea of the "ideal bridegroom" was a man "that resembled her father! She had killed her sister after finding out her sister and the fiancé were having an affair. An innocent man was hanged for it. On her wedding day, she killed the man's son...after other strange things happened to her...just know that NOONE is safe from her, and she's still looking for that "perfect wedding". If you receive an invitation...DON'T GO! show less

“We'll bury her so deep, even her ghost will have a mouth full of dirt!” When Rebecca Wallace arrives at Auercliff to check on her aged aunt, she's in for a shock. Her aunt's mind is crumbling, and the old woman refuses to let Rebecca stay overnight. And just as she thinks she's starting to understand the truth, Rebecca makes a horrifying discovery in one of the house's many spare rooms. A dead body. A woman. Old and rotten. And her aunt insists she has no idea where it came from. The show more truth lies buried in the past. For generations, the occupants of Auercliff have been tormented by the repercussions of a horrific secret. And somehow everything seems to be centered upon the mausoleum in the house's ground, where every member of the family is entombed once they die. Whose body was left to rot in one of the house's rooms?
We have the makings of yet another good ghost story by Amy Cross...an old house and the many generations of the families that have lived there. There is enough drama in this book to satisfy all "ghost story junkies" of which I am one. It has dark buried secrets, love, jealously, murder, child stealing, a few dead bodies, insanity, and a ghost or two.... did I mention a few dead bodies? Actually, an entire basement full.

I discovered this author looking for a book to fit a challenge category and I have been hooked on her work ever since. This author knows how to do horror! Stephen King would be proud. I have read at least eight of Amy Cross' books now and all have been incredible reads. The Body at Auercliff is not the exception. The characters are brought to life...some maybe should have been left in the basement. I found it was nearly impossible to put down.

Years ago, Rebecca had visited the house, but after the traumatic visit, Rebecca's parents took her away and vowed never to return; but now Rebecca is back... back to look after her aunt and to put the horror of her past visit, hopefully behind her. However, she finds that the house that she remembers is no longer there. It's now a ruined and neglected monstrosity, and her aunt seems "a brick short of a full load"...lucid one minute and completely senile the next. Then Rebecca discovers a body in one of the rooms and her aunt has no idea who it is. Rebecca sets out to try and discover both the identity of the body as well as the secrets that the house has held for generations.

The story moves seamlessly through the years, so we learn about the past events which took place at Auercliff before the story returns to the present day enabling the plot to move along. I love this author's books. As I said she does indeed know how to do horror and produce nightmares. All of her books are so well worth the reading time. This story is completely chillingly engaging. There are parts of it that had the ability to make the reader feel that they were a part of what was happening. When Rebecca finds herself trapped in the mausoleum.... you are trapped along with her. Her description of the experience as it was occurring was brilliantly terrifying!

Overall... the reader hears the different point of views as told by characters belonging to several different time periods, and then we learn the detailed story of a crime... a tragedy, actually a twisted trail of many tragedies; and finally, we are allowed a happy ending! If you are a fan of any of these great horror and paranormal authors; Stephen King, Anne Rice, H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Dean Koontz, Neil Gaiman, Richard Matheson, Peter Straub...to name a few; you may want to add Amy Cross to them. show less

I picked up this horror novel fairly blindly as one of the 99p Kindle daily deals a couple of years ago. It turns out that it is not the sort of thing I would normally read; my taste in horror is very much gothic atmosphere- building, rather than blood and gore, and this was much closer to the latter end of the market, despite the promise offered by the title of a more historically based and hopefully more thoughtful story. Nykolas Freeman is a hunter of witches and Catholic priests in show more Jacobean England and commits a particularly egregious and horrific crime in 1608 in a house in the west country of England, which he then burns down. In the present day, the house having been restored, a small family of a single mother and her two daughters comes to stay to start a new life after the death of the husband/father. The action alternates between the two time zones, which bleed into each other. While this is an interesting enough scenario, I was put off by the extreme violence and by what I thought was an unnecessary dwelling on the details of torture and bestial cruelty, at the expense of building up an atmosphere. I didn't find any of the characters well written or interesting, and I am not likely to read any more by this author, whose output of horror novels over the past decade seems to be quite vast (though there is a sequel to this novel, which I might possibly pick up from curiosity when I am feeling strong-stomached). show less

Sebastian Stait is a young potato farmer in 18th Century America. His family land is blighted and every year they fight starvation and ruin. One evening Sebastian encounters a young woman who is being pursued by a man who intends to turn her over to the authorities as a witch. Sebastian fights off the man and rescues the woman, who turns out to be a witch and in return a charm on the land leads to a massive potato harvest. Captivated by the woman, Sebastian sets out to make her his wife and show more learn her powers.
The second book in the Deal Trilogy takes a step back from The Devil, The Witch and The Whore, and looks at the origins of the conflict between the 'devil' (Sebastian) and the witch, that will ultimately lead to the end of the world. This was so much better than the first book in the trilogy, as the author had clearly grown into her characters and shifted the focus away from a presentation of shock and gore to more subtle story telling. Skilfullly weaving together the origin story of Sebastian with the events in 21st Century Deal, this was a good page-turner and I look forward to the third instalment show less