Brides of Darkness: Tales of Opulent Darkness

By Alyne de Winter

Tales of Gothic Mystery and Suspense
A collection of four short stories and two novelettes about innocents encountering realms of inner darkness.

The Red Masque: A French aristocrat escapes the Paris bloodbath only to find greater horror in his country estate.

The Vampire's Mirror: Analise's fiance unwittingly gives her a most dreadfully cursed engagement gift.

The House Witch: An unlucky gambler loses the ultimate card game.

Priestess: A Roman priestess deserts the Temple of Diana to be hunted by a vengeful lover who vows to turn her in----to her death.

Portrait of a Vampire: When artist Gina's dance-away lover dies, she paints him back to lethal life.

The Strange Marriage of Lady Crawford: A bereaved lady in a creepy castle has a strange coming out party... and an even stranger wedding.

Six stories of psychological terror for the price of three!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alyne de Winter
• Release date: Feb 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311113887

Alyne de Winter

Alyne de Winter is an author of Gothic Mysteries and Occult Thrillers featuring tormented beauties, eerie settings, night religions, secret histories... After years of drawing and painting, by a fluke ended up as an English major. She wrote and published award-winning poetry but always wanted to write fiction. The stories did not come to her until she went to Europe, then they flooded in and still haven't stopped. She loves the tradition of the writer establishing themselves with short stories while building the novels, so you will find many short stories on her page. The short story requires intensity of focus, economy of language (so every word must be effective) and must keep the plot lines tight. She likes to think of the short story as poetry's second cousin. Major influences: Grimms' Fairy Tales, Complete Works of Shakespeare, Angela Carter, Tanith Lee, Daphne du Maurier,Charles Dickins, Anne Rice, Theophile Gautier, Edgar Allen Poe, the films of Barbara Steele and other 1960s horror films. (Not a gore fan) Religion, History, costume, Ancient dance and folk cultures, and witchcraft. The Gothic novel has always been a love letter to the past, a grieving for lost beauty and an elegy to the soul.

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