witchcraft. And a deep-rooted female power that sings across the centuries.

Once there was a young woman from a well-to-do New England family who never quite fit with the drawing rooms and parlors of her kin.

Called instead to the tangled woods and wild cliffs surrounding her family's estate, Margaret Harlowe grew both stranger and more beautiful as she cultivated her uncanny power. Soon, whispers of "witch" dogged her footsteps, and Margaret's power began to wind itself with the tendrils of something darker.

One hundred and fifty years later, Augusta Podos takes a dream job at Harlowe House, the historic home of a wealthy New England family that has been turned into a small museum in Tynemouth, Massachusetts. When Augusta stumbles across an oblique reference to a daughter of the Harlowes who has nearly been expunged from the historical record, the mystery is too intriguing to ignore.

But as she digs deeper, something sinister unfurls from its sleep, a dark power that binds one woman to the other across lines of blood and time. If Augusta can't resist its allure, everything she knows and loves--including her very life--could be lost forever.

Delve into the magical power of flowers in Hester Fox's captivating new novel, THE BOOK OF THORNS, where long-lost sisters reunite on opposite sides of the Napoleonic Wars and must uncover the secrets of their mother's disappearance and their mystical powers...

Look for these other gothic mysteries from Hester Fox:

• The Last Heir to Blackwood Library
• The Witch of Willow Hall
• The Widow of Pale Harbor
• The Orphan of Cemetery Hill