Under Lock and Key: A Story. Volume 1 (of 3)
1869
A young woman arrives at a forbidding estate with no memory of her past, only the clothes on her back and a name that might not be her own. Janet Holme has just left Park Hill Seminary after the death of the only mother figure she ever knew, and now stands before Dupley Walls, where Lady Pollexfen waits with secrets written in cold politeness. The servants regard her with curious suspicion. The house itself seems to hold its breath. What is Janet's true connection to this austere woman? Why does no one speak of her parents? The first volume of this three-part Victorian mystery establishes all the chess pieces: a heroine of uncertain birth, a household wrapped in evasion, and the slow creeping suspicion that Janet's very identity may be the deepest secret of all. For readers who savor the slow-burn chills of Wilkie Collins and the class puzzles of Victorian sensation fiction.
