The Third Wife of Faraday House

Myers (A Dreadful Splendor) delivers a classic Regency gothic with all the trimmings. Beautiful Emeline, the orphaned ward of a Halifax, Nova Scotia, judge and his wife, is old enough to make some rich and powerful man a lovely bride. Her sights are set on the dashing Lieutenant Fletcher of the British Navy, but before she can escape with him to his house in Bermuda, their affair is discovered. Emeline is promptly promised to the suitor least likely to have heard about the scandal, Captain Graves, and shipped off to Faraday House, his run-down, isolated manor on a private island, to become his third wife. Except his second wife, Georgina, is not yet dead, only very seriously ill. Emeline hatches a plan to keep Georgina alive, and herself therefore unmarried, until Lieutenant Fletcher can arrive to rescue her. But the more she learns about the two young wives whose place she is fated to take, the more it becomes clear that something terrible lurks in Faraday House—and if Emeline can’t save Georgina, she herself will be the next victim. Rural Nova Scotia delivers all the requisite atmospheric grimness, and Myers ensures that absolutely nobody can be trusted. This pushes all the right buttons. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (Aug.)