Although June has traditionally been the most popular month for weddings, recent trends see brides shifting the big day further into fall. Crisp leaves, cool weather, and colorful earth tones are now the preferred palette - but there is a difference between cool and "chilling!" September has us combining the thrilling suspense of the Gothic Romance with the sweet anticipation of a wedding day. However, instead of a happily ever after, these brides are thrown into situations that are more terrifying than tender...
If you like: family secrets, first-person narratives, luxury tinged with terror
The Brides of Bellenmore, by Anne Maybury
"Young, beautiful, innocent - Elizabeth Bellenmore had no reason to suspect that someone in her grandmother's house wanted her dead. Yet a strong pair of hands had reached out of the shadows to push her down the curving stairwell - the very stairwell that had already claimed two lives. To whom did those hands belong - her grandmother, who thought honor was more important than life? her aunt, whose genteel manner masked a will of iron? her lovely cousin Armorel, whose jealousy was akin to insanity? her cousin James, whose affections she rejected? or Mark, whom she loved, who lived in the shadow of violence? Someone believed Elizabeth was a threat to the Bellenmore secret - someone who would go to any lengths to keep that quiet. Who was arranging another fatal accident? Was it one of them, or some of them - or all?"
If you like: marriages of convenience, grand estates, horror with happy endings
Bride of Menace, by Ann Forman Barron
"The first time Elisabeth Courtland caught a glimpse of Marc Barrier she was fascinated - and frightened. Marc Barrier, a self-made millionaire with a reputation for ruthlessness, was a man who took what he wanted - or bought it. Now he wanted Elisabeth. Marriage to Elisabeth would make him respectable, and it would be a marriage in name only. It was an offer Elisabeth could not refuse. Elisabeth found Marc's enigmatic and vibrant personality very disturbing, especially after the strange accidents began. Elisabeth knew the attempts were aimed at her, but they had misfired and others had been killed. She tried to hate Marc, but she couldn't, and slowly her feelings about him began to change. Could she be falling in love with a husband who was trying to kill her?"
If you like: the American Civil War, historical horror, heavy on the mystery & light on the romance
The Widowed Bride of Raven Oaks, by Peggy Darty
"As a widowed Yankee moving South after the Civil War to live with her in-laws, Katherine Winfield didn't expect to be greeted with open arms. But Joel, her Rebel husband, had begged her, with his dying breath, to go back to his beloved Alabama plantation and restore it to its former grandeur. She even hoped she might find happiness there - but she was in for a rude shock. From the moment she arrived at the crumbling, storm-tossed mansion, Katherine knew she wasn't welcome at Raven Oaks. Joel's glowering, eccentric aunt and gentle wheelchair-bound cousin shunned her and whispered behind her back. She heard footsteps on the attic stairs, saw weird shifting shadows in the abandoned cupola, and found a stranger's long blonde hairs in her silver-backed hairbrush. Katherine tried to ignore the slammed doors, the odd-tasting tea, but she couldn't ignore the warning of handsome Paul Browning when he took her for a horseback ride - and discovered that her horse's reins had been weakened to the breaking point. Finally, Katherine began to realize the shocking truth: somebody wanted her dead."
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