The Secret of the Lantern Keepers (The Averly Sisters #1)

Set in a gothic Victorian asylum on a bleak Cornish moor, this is the first novel in a gripping historical trilogy – about three Victorian sisters, each with an extraordinary gift that allows them to investigate unsolved crimes. An unmissable read for fans of Lucinda Riley and Kate Morton.

When Edith Averly is sent to Green Briar Lunatic Asylum, a dark, rambling gothic institution on the edge of the Cornish moors, it is not as a patient. Or at least, not at first…

Several weeks before her arrival, her beloved father’s will was read, devastating Edith and her triplet sisters, Edith and Lavinia. For they had lived reclusively their whole lives, as their father had seemed determined to protect them from exploitation – not just for being rare surviving triplets. But also for their special, secret, other-worldly abilities.

But now he’s stipulated his three beloved, strangely-gifted daughters must live apart from each other for a whole year in order to retain their family home. As a further condition of their inheritance, he’s assigned them each a crime to solve, one that he was unable to during his recent years of armchair detecting.

The eldest sister, Edith, has the gift of being able to see echoes of violent events from the past. So when she is sent to Green Briar asylum – where the brutal murder of Dr Hawkins took place seven years ago – she fears she’ll be overwhelmed.

But she knows that she must honour her father’s final wish. Even knowing that – to infiltrate the asylum – she will have to pretend to be mad herself. In a place where she could be in the gravest danger. A place that asks more questions than it answers. Such as, why is the darkly-handsome new doctor in charge unable to meet her eye? Where do patients keep disappearing to? And who are the Lantern Keepers and what are the secrets they keep?

Only Edith can find out… if Dr Hawkins’ killer doesn’t find her first.