Manchester 1809. When budding young criminal Mary Jebb swindles Michael Croxton's brother with a blank pound note, he chases her into the night and sets in motion a train of sinister events. Condemned to seven years of transportation to Australia, Mary sends him a 'Penny Heart'-a token of her vow of revenge. Two years later, Michael marries naïve young Grace Moore. Although initially overjoyed at the union, Grace quickly realizes that her husband is more interested in her fortune than her company. Lonely and desperate for companionship, she turns to her new cook to help mend her ailing marriage. But Mary Jebb, shipwrecked, tortured, and recently hired, has different plans for the unsuspecting owners of Delafosse Hall. A Taste for Nightshade is a thrilling historical novel that combines recipes, mystery and a dark struggle between two desperate women, sure to appeal to fans of Sarah Waters and Carolly Erickson.

Nightshade c1993 -- They sure were making cops in interesting packages these days. Night smoke c1994 --He had a reputation for being abrasive, aggressive and annoying.

This is a thoroughly contemporary collection of phantoms, shades and spectres from acclaimed modern writers such as Alison Lurie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joyce Carol Oates, and William Trevor, and from authors as distinctive of earlier decades as Edith Wharton, Muriel Spark or the incomparable Max Beerbohm. Other classic contributions come from Henry James, Isak Dinesen, Franz Kafka and Rudyard Kipling. The hauntings vary from the mundane and worldly to the intensely spiritual, but all offer an irresistible mixture of genuine chills and the best writing.