The townsfolk believe she murdered her husband, and children claim she’s a witch. He’s still grieving the death of his wife, who died in childbirth a year prior, when he meets the mysterious and wealthy widow Sophronia Carver, who never leaves her home. In 1845, Gabriel Stone moves to Pale Harbor, Maine, in order to take the vacant position of minister. JFox’s passable sophomore effort (after 2018’s The Witch of Willow Hall) sits squarely in the gothic romance genre. Look for these other gothic mysteries from Hester Fox:

Hester lives outside Boston with her husband.ĭon't miss Hester Fox's next novel, The Last Heir to Blackwood Library.where a young woman inherits a mysterious library and must uncover its secrets! She is a keen painter and has a master's degree in historical archaeology, as well as a background in medieval studies and art history. This job has taken her from historic houses to fine art museums, where she has the privilege of cleaning and caring for collections that range from paintings by old masters to ancient artifacts to early-American furniture. Hester Fox comes to writing from a background in the museum field as a collections maintenance technician. And Gabriel must find answers, or Pale Harbor will suffer a fate worthy of Poe's darkest tales. Sophronia must be a witch, and she almost certainly killed her husband.Īs the incidents escalate, one thing becomes clear: they are the work of a twisted person inspired by the wildly popular stories of Mr. Strange, unsettling things have been happening, and the townspeople claim that only one person can be responsible: Sophronia Carver, a reclusive widow who lives with a spinster maid in the eerie Castle Carver. Gabriel Stone is desperate to escape the ghosts that haunt him in Massachusetts after his wife's death, so he moves to Maine, taking a position as a minister in the remote village of Pale Harbor.īut not all is as it seems in the sleepy town.

The widow of pale harbor by hester fox