The Dravenhearst Brides: A Kentucky Gothic Romance by Lindsay Barrett

An heiress with a haunted past enters a marriage of convenience with a man as tempting as the devil himself…and likely just as ruinous.

“It’s very dangerous to love a Dravenhearst…even more dangerous, perhaps, to be loved by one.”

After a scandalous debut sent her into recluse, heiress Margaret Greenbrier returns to the Louisville social circuit for the 1933 season. Laudanum prescription or no, Margot is not crazy. She’s not. But perception is reality, and all the money in the world can’t buy the illusion of sanity. Nor, apparently, can it convince even the most red-blooded of men to get into bed with her.

Meanwhile, in the heartland of Kentucky, the Great Depression is sinking its roots into the Bluegrass. Prohibition has not been kind to the whiskey industry, and bourbon aristocrat Merrick Dravenhearst is feeling the squeeze. After a chance encounter with a beautiful heiress, sworn bachelor Merrick impulsively throws his hat in the ring for Margot’s hand. Just the right hint of lust, money, and quiet desperation…the best society marriages have been staked on far less, after all.

Upon arrival at Dravenhearst Distilling as a newlywed, Margot uncovers the legend of the Dravenhearst suicide brides—two generations of wives, both found dead on the grounds of the distillery. Her new manor home is teeming with ghostly glimmers of the women who lived there before her. And her brooding, beguiling new husband is unaware Margot has brought demons of her own to his estate, initiating a cataclysmic chain of events set to bring long-buried blood-tinged family secrets to the surface.

The Dravenhearst Brides is a loose retelling of du Maurier’s Rebecca and is set on a haunted bourbon distillery estate. With a marriage of convenience love story, a brooding Byronic hero, and ghost brides afoot, this book is perfect for fans of Isabel Canas and Crimson Peak.