Described as an all-new gothic horror series, HOUSE OF FURIES is indeed exciting!
House Of Furies by New York Times Bestselling author Madeleine Roux is definitely a must read! From its spooky and haunting cover to its gripping synopsis, it does not fail to attract readers.
Epic Reads has posted the first six chapters of the story online. Check it out below and prepare to get hooked!
Chapter One
Malton, England
Autumn, 1809The road to Coldthistle House was dark and dangerous. So said the woman taking me there, the English rain driving as slow and steady as the wagon.
She found me at the Malton market, where I told fortunes and read palms for pennies. It earned me clucked tongues and black looks from passersby, God-fearing folk who would alert the local parson and see me driven out of their town. But pennies, even ill-gotten ones, will feed you.
Telling a fortune is no easy thing. Indeed, it appears simple, but to tell the future convincingly, one must make the deed all feel as natural and wending as a river cutting its path. Truly, it comes down to reading what resides in people’s eyes, how they breathe, how their glance shifts, how they dress and walk and hand over their coins.
I was on my last fortune of the morning when the old woman stumbled upon me. The market day would happen rain or shine, and this was another day of rain in a long, drizzly spell of dreary days. Nobody lingered. Nobody but me, it seemed, and I lacked the respectable reasons of the farmers and craftsmen selling their wares.
The girl in front of me blushed and kept her head down under a thick woolen scarf. It matched her plain, sturdy frock and the coat buttoned over it. Little bursts of tufted yellow-and-gray wool peeked through the weave. She had a fanciful streak. A dreamer. Her ruddy cheeks grew redder and redder still as I told her future.
“Ah, I see it now. There is a love in your life,” I said softly, echoing her expression. An old, cheap trick, but it worked. She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. The teachers at Pitney School had all but beaten the accent out of my voice, but now I let it come back, let the soft Irish lilt color the words the way this girl wanted them colored. Pinks and purples as vivid as her cheeks. “But ’tis not a sure thing, is it?”
“How did you know that?” she whispered, her eyes opening on a gasp.
I didn’t.
A dreamer. A reacher. Truly girls of this age—my age—were as open to me as a map. I’d traded such fortunes for sweets and books at Pitney, risking the rod or worse.
“His family dislikes the match,” I added, studying her closely.
Her expression fell, her gloved hands in mine clutching with a new desperation. “They think I’m low because of the pig farm. But we never go hungry! So much snobbery and over pigs!”
“But he is your true love, aye?” I could not help myself. Just as I needed the pennies to eat and that eating to live, I needed this, too. The power. Did it work every time? No. But when it did . . . The girl nodded, wetting her lips and searching out my gaze.
“I would do anything for him. Anything at all. Oh, if you could only see Peter. If you could see us together! He brings me apples at luncheon, apples he buys with his own coin. And he wrote me a poem, the sweetest poem.”
“A poem?” Well, then they were practically married. I gave her a secretive smile. “I sense a future for you two, but it will not be easy.”
“No?”
“No. ’Tis a hard road unfolding ahead, but if you take the greatest risk, you will reap the greatest reward.” Her mouth fell open a little, the desperate thing, and I let my smile dwindle to deliver her fate. “An elopement is your only hope.”
Running away. A choice that would likely end in the two lovers being disowned and shunned. He might get another chance at a life and a wife, but she would not. The words burned a little in my throat after the fact. Why tell the girl such a thing, Louisa? It felt different, even wrong, when in the past, tricking my snobby schoolmates at Pitney had felt like a personal victory.
The young woman’s eyes widened at me in alarm. “E-Elope?”
READ THE FULL SIX CHAPTERS HERE
Check out the cover and synopsis of House Of Furies from Goodreads below!
Synopsis:
After escaping a harsh school where punishment was the lesson of the day, seventeen-year-old Louisa Ditton is thrilled to find employment as a maid at a boarding house. But soon after her arrival at Coldthistle House, Louisa begins to realize that the house’s mysterious owner, Mr. Morningside, is providing much more than lodging for his guests. Far from a place of rest, the house is a place of judgment, and Mr. Morningside and his unusual staff are meant to execute their own justice on those who are past being saved.
Louisa begins to fear for a young man named Lee who is not like the other guests. He is charismatic and kind, and Louisa knows that it may be up to her to save him from an untimely judgment. But in this house of distortions and lies, how can Louisa be sure whom to trust?
Featuring stunning interior illustrations from artist Iris Compiet, plus photo-collages that bring Coldthistle House to chilling life, House of Furies invites readers to a world where the line between monsters and men is ghostly thin.
House Of Furies hits bookshelves on May 30, 2017. You can preorder a copy from Amazon here.