Where Ivy Dares to Grow: Sneak Peek

By Marielle Thompson

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Mexican Gothic meets Outlander in a debut novel in which a woman struggling with her mental health spends the winter with her cruel in-laws in their eerie, haunting manor that sweeps her back through time and into the arms of her fiancé's mysterious, alluring ancestor in the 19th century.

Traveling to be with her fiancé’s terminally ill mother in her last days, Saoirse Read expected her introduction to the family's ancestral home would be bittersweet. But the stark thrust of Langdon Hall against the cliff and the hundred darkened windows in its battered walls are almost as forbidding as the woman who lies wasting inside. Her fiancé’s parents make no secret of their distaste for Saoirse, and their feelings have long since spread to their son. Or perhaps it is only the shadows of her mind suggesting she’s unwelcome, seizing on her fears while her beloved grieves?

As Saoirse takes to wandering the estate’s winding, dreamlike gardens, overgrown and half-wild with neglect, she slips back through time to 1818. There she meets Theo Page, a man like her fiancé but softer, with all the charms of that gentler age, and who clearly harbors a fervent interest in her. As it becomes clear that Theo is her fiancé’s ancestor, and the tenuous peace of Langdon Hall crumbles around her, Saoirse finds she’s no longer sure which dreams and doubts belong to the present—and which might not be dreams at all . . .

Praise for WHERE IVY DARES TO GROW

“Where Ivy Dares to Grow delivers all the hallmarks of a classic Gothic novel told in a lyrical and hauntingly beautiful new voice.”
—Hester Fox, author of A Lullaby for Witches

“The novel tugs at the heart, filled with yearning for a real love who sees you as you really are, and the journey to step from the shadows to the sun.”
—Kim Taylor Blakemore, author of The Deception

“Richly drawn and evocative, Where Ivy Dares to Grow is a sophisticated and masterful tale […] I couldn't put this one down. Marielle Thompson is a writer to watch!”
—Paulette Kennedy, author of Parting the Veil

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kensington Books
• Release date: Feb 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781496746955

Book preview

Chapter 1

I feel like I might disappear, and I almost wish that were the truth.

There is nothing but gray up here at the top of the world, bleeding the road and the sky into one. Damp grass expands on either side of us, a steady spread before the land drops off into the black pit of the ocean below, only air and the jagged rocks of the cliff between them.

The knuckles of Jack’s left hand have blossomed white where they grip my thigh. I shift, my legs pressing farther into the sleek tan interior of the passenger side door and his hand falls away, mindlessly drifting back to mirror its partner’s grip on the steering wheel. We cut through clouds of fog hovering just above the road as we speed through the fading afternoon light, our disjointed breathing and the thrum of the engine the only sounds. The car envelopes us in a warm bubble of protection from the raging of January beyond the glass and metal.

I reach across to run a hand through the light coif of Jack’s hair, my knees still pressed away, my body facing the door, the window, beyond. There is no light to glint off of the diamond wrapped around my fourth finger, but it still draws my eye, catching my breath as it dances between the golden strands of hair. He doesn’t lean into my touch, doesn’t even seem to notice the spiritless play of my fingers across his scalp.

It’ll be all right, I say, and I wish I could mean it.

He says nothing because there are no words, not really, and I wonder if he even hears me, even knows I’m here. But then his eyes dart from the road, landing on my face for just a moment.

Yeah. Thanks, love. His tone is flat, but it’s enough. It’s the best that could be expected of him, all things considered.

We’d known that his mother’s health had been deteriorating for far too long. She’d been fighting her battle for years now. Even back when Jack and I were still building the foundations of our life together, she’d been on the cliff’s edge of health. But now not even the best medicine that Britain had to offer was enough to pull Alice back. It had tipped us all over the edge with her.

So it was no surprise when, the night before last, Jack had come through the door of our flat, tie hanging askew, a heavy weight pulling down on his gaze. These days, it could have been anything, but I knew what it was immediately. I wasn’t sure that he’d ask me to join him and his parents as they retreated to their family estate up north to hibernate together for his mother’s final months, weeks, days.

But he had. I could’ve said no—I thought about it as I sat there on the stiff leather of our couch, in our flat whose rent I couldn’t afford, our television that I had not really been watching droning listlessly behind his words. Ours, ours, ours.

But I had looked into Jack’s eyes across the space that we shared, that we had built together, and I knew that saying no to this would be saying no to much more, and so the word could not make its way off my coward’s tongue. I had nodded, said, Of course. I had kept reciting my script the way I was meant to.

He hadn’t hugged me, hadn’t laid his head across my lap and let me stroke my hands gently across his hair, his skin, his lips, like he did when our relationship was still in blossom. And I hadn’t let my eyes attack every inch of his appearance, looking for a stray golden hair of the work colleague whose smile opened too wide for him, or a distant gaze that meant his mind was somewhere else, on someone else. I had stopped looking for a reason, stopped caring who had filled the ocean between us, afraid to find that it would be my own empty-eyed reflection staring back at me.

And Jack had simply nodded once, placing a numb kiss upon my forehead