First published 2026
Madalena grows up in 1877 Pernambuco memorizing Dante's verses and dreading her mother's wrath. When she becomes pregnant outside marriage, her mother delivers an ultimatum: find a husband or lose the child. Madalena expects Leandro Neves, the baby's father, to marry her. A storm crashes their carriage before she can tell him the news. She wakes up inside his remote family estate under the watch of Doctor Lobo, a commanding physician with unclear motives. Leandro has changed. He speaks little, stares constantly, and behaves like a stranger. The house holds disturbing secrets. A locked room carries strange scents. Book pages disappear overnight. Mirrors vanish after Madalena glimpses a horrifying figure in the glass. Leandro grows more unstable while Doctor Lobo conceals darker intentions. Madalena realizes she cannot leave the crumbling mansion. She must discover what happened to transform her lover and what bargain the family made before both men destroy her and her unborn child.
Genres: historical-fiction, adult-fiction, psychological-thriller, gothic-horror, 19th-century, dark-romance
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, gothic, haunting, psychological, suspenseful
Tropes: dark-secrets, forced-proximity, gaslighting, trapped-protagonist, unreliable-reality
Setting: Pernambuco, Leandro Neves family estate
Period: 1877
304 pages · Hardcover · Dutton
Content warnings: emotional-abuse, gaslighting