The Death of Jane Lawrence: A Novel

Synopsis

From the Bram Stoker-nominated author of The Luminous Dead comes a gothic fantasy horror--The Death of Jane Lawrence.

“Intense and amazing! It’s like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell meets Mexican Gothic meets Crimson Peak.” —BookRiot

Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town.

Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man—one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to.

Set in a dark-mirror version of post-war England, Caitlin Starling crafts a new kind of gothic horror from the bones of the beloved canon. This Crimson Peak-inspired story assembles, then upends, every expectation set in place by Shirley Jackson and Rebecca, and will leave readers shaken, desperate to begin again as soon as they are finished.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

“Claustrophobic in a way that Starling does best, The Death Of Jane Lawrence is tense and unsettling, treading the finest line between brilliance and madness. I absolutely adored it.” —Emily Duncan, New York Times bestselling author of the Something Dark and Holy trilogy

"A magnificent ode to gothic horror, Starling meticulously unravels beloved tropes to create a horrifically-satisfying creation of her own. I loved every moment of this unsettling and brilliant tale!" —Erin Craig, New York Times bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows