A Nell West and Michael Flint Haunted House Story

5 primary works

The Silence

by Sarah Rayne

Published 22 January 2013

A century old crime menaces the present in this spine-tingling tale of supernatural suspense. Antiques dealer Nell West is valuing the contents of her late husband Brad's childhood home. Stilter House, set in the remote Derbyshire Peaks, is said to stand on haunted ground. And once there was a much older property there - a house in which the notorious Isobel Acton committed a vicious crime. In Oxford, Nell's lover Michael Flint is contacted by an elderly aunt of Brad West's, who warns him that Nell and her small daughter Beth must not spend a night in Stilter House. "Because Esmond is still there," says the aunt. "And Beth is so very like Brad ..." Then, soon after Nell and Beth arrive at the isolated old house, Nell hears soft piano music, even though the music room is closed up, the piano locked and the key missing. And then she discovers that the mysterious music has been heard before. Nell and Michael begin to realise that the music is not just linked to Esmond, but is tangled with Isobel Acton's macabre fate more than a hundred years earlier. A fate whose consequences still menace the present.

The Whispering

by Sarah Rayne

Published 16 January 2014

Fosse House, home of the reclusive Luisa Gilmore, harbours curious secrets - secrets that stretch back almost a century, to the ill-fated Palestrina Choir in its remote Belgian convent. When Oxford don Michael Flint travels to the house to trace the origins of the long-dead Choir, he is at once aware of the house's eerie menace. Who is the shadowy young man who lurks in the grounds, and why does his exact likeness appear in a sketch from 1917? What is the strange whispering that echoes through the corridors? And why is Luisa so afraid when a storm makes it necessary for Michael to spend the night inside the house? Back in Oxford, when Nell West uncovers the story of the infamous 1917 'Holzminden sketch' - the lost, legendary drawing from World War I - a dark fragment of the past begins to stir. A fragment that Michael, in the lonely old house, may not be able to resist.

Deadlight Hall

by Sarah Rayne

Published 28 August 2014

When Michael Flint is asked by a colleague to investigate a reputedly haunted house, he is intrigued. Leo Rosendale's childhood was blighted by a macabre tragedy in the grim Deadlight Hall - a tragedy that occurred towards the end of World War II, involving a set of twins who vanished. The fate of Sophie and Susannah Reiss was never discovered, and Leo has never been able to forget them.

When Michael, together with his fiancee Nell, begins to explore Deadlight Hall's history, he discovers that in the 1880s another pair of sisters vanished from the house - and that there may also be much older and darker secrets lurking within its walls.

As Michael and Nell gradually peel back the sinister layers of the Hall's unhappy past, they are unprepared for the eerie and threatening resonances they encounter - nor for the shocking truth of what took place there one long-ago midnight.

The Bell Tower

by Sarah Rayne

Published 31 August 2016

A 400-year-old crime continues to menace the present in this spine-chilling tale of supernatural suspense.

When Nell West starts extending her Oxford antiques shop, she is not expecting to uncover strange fragments of its past: fragments that include a frightened message scribbled on old plasterwork, dated 1850 and referring to someone called Thaisa.

She also uncovers a mysterious link with a village on the Dorset coast - a village with an ancient bell tower and dark memories of a piece of music known locally as Thaisa's Song. The sea is gradually encroaching on the derelict tower, but the old Glaum Bell still hangs in the lonely bell chamber and although it was silenced after an act of appalling brutality during the reign of Henry VIII, local people whisper that its chime is still occasionally heard.

As Nell and Michael Flint discover, the tower is mysteriously entangled with the story of Thaisa and a 400-year-old tragedy that has echoed down the centuries.

The Bell Tower

by Sarah Rayne

Published 30 October 2015

A 400-year-old crime continues to menace the present ...

When Nell West starts extending her Oxford antiques shop, she is not expecting to uncover strange fragments of its past: fragments that include a frightened message scribbled on old plasterwork, dated 1850 and referring to someone called Thaisa.

She also uncovers a mysterious link with a village on the Dorset coast - a village with an ancient bell tower and dark memories of a piece of music known locally as Thaisa's Song. The sea is gradually encroaching on the derelict tower, but the old Glaum Bell still hangs in the lonely bell chamber and although it was silenced after an act of appalling brutality during the reign of Henry VIII, local people whisper that its chime is still occasionally heard.

As Nell and Michael Flint discover, the tower is mysteriously entangled with the story of Thaisa and a 400-year-old tragedy that has echoed down the centuries.