A macabre, terrifying thriller."-Library Journal "A nightmare of sex, murder, and madness."-Kirkus Reviews "Told with great power. . . . A stunning achievement."-The Boston Globe "Nancy Zaroulis has a fierce sense of history. . . . A magnificent storyteller."-The Plain Dealer "Fascinating. . . . It would be interesting to see what Alfred Hitchcock would do with this material."-Publishers Weekly A woman with a secret of adulterous love in her past and a still-ravenous desire burning within her, a daughter who had grown to be her mother's rival in voluptuous beauty and rapacious lust, and the young man who comes to their old New England mansion on a scholar's visit-and is willing to do anything in exchange for the forbidden secret they possess-stays to be seduced body and soul. Nancy Zaroulis is the author of five novels, as well as three Beacon Hill Mysteries, published under the pseudonym Cynthia Peale. Her sole nonfiction work, Who Spoke Up?, a history of the anti-Vietnam War movement, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She lives with her family in Massachusetts. Visit Zaroulis at www.thepoepapers.com.