Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling / Michael Boccacilio / 296 pages / Bram Stoker Award Nominee - October Challenge

Charlotte Markham, governess - and nanny after the violent death of Nanny Prum, to the two Darrow boys, had lost many people in her life - her mother to cholera, her father to heart attack, and her husband to fire, and when they died, they did not come back.  So it was with jealous curiosity that she questioned the alleged Lily Darrow at Darkling House.  Lily Darrow is the deceased mother of Paul and James Darrow, her charges.  On an outing in the woods, Charlotte and the boys cross over into The Ending - "the place for Things Above Death - where humans are a fascination because they do die."  Charlotte discovers sinister connections between this odd world populated by its sinister beings and Blakefield.  This Victorian Gothic novel reveals truths about "family ties, the realm beyond the living, the price you pay to save those you love."