Jean Harrod

Jean Harrod

Jean Harrod

Author of Jess Turner series of international crime thrillers, and the new Grace Winter series set in North Yorkshire

It Began with a Ghost Story

A dark, ghostly thriller based on a true North Yorkshire legend.
On stage at the York Theatre Royal. This novel began life as a play called ‘A Dark Vengeance’.

Do you believe in ghosts? Grace Winter didn’t until her world was turned upside down. Her mother died, and she inherited a house on the North York Moors that her family had kept a secret from her. When Grace takes a break from her job as a busy London doctor and visits the house for the first time with close friends Evie and Samatha, the women find themselves caught up in a murder.

But this is no ordinary murder. A young man has been killed at Lowna Ford, a place locals believe is haunted by Kitty Garthwaite’s ghost and where this ghost is said to have killed men before. As Evie becomes obsessed with the legend of Kitty and starts to lose her grip on reality, the police suspect her of the murder.

Weighed down by grief, Evie’s breakdown, and ghostly sightings in and around the house, Grace starts to doubt her own sanity. Is the ghost of Kitty Garthwaite real? Does her ghost sit naked on the riverbank at Lowna and lure young men to their deaths as the legend says?

As secrets unravel further, Grace and her two friends find themselves in extreme danger. Is Kitty’s ghost coming for them? Or is the killer all too real?