Elianor Cooper is an archivist for dangerous estates, cursed libraries, and magical collections best left undisturbed. When she is hired to catalogue the private library of Lockewood House after the death of its young mistress, she expects grief, dust, and difficult paperwork.
She does not expect the house to remember her.
Lockewood is full of locked rooms, shifting corridors, and books that rewrite themselves after midnight. Its dead women whisper from their portraits. Its floor plans lie. And every woman connected to the Lockewood line has died before her twenty-fifth birthday.
Marian Lockewood was the latest.
She may not be the last.
With only a ledger, a little iron, and her own dangerous fae blood, Elianor must uncover the truth behind the family curse before the house claims another woman for its walls.
But Lockewood was not built to protect its family.
It was built to keep someone in.
The Archivist of Lockewood House is a gothic fantasy mystery tale filled with haunted rooms, old bargains, family secrets, and women history tried to erase.
Title: The Archivist of Lockewood House
Author: Jenni Ward
Publisher: Miraworth Books
Genre: Gothic Fantasy Mystery
Word Count: ≈ 22 000 words
Publication Date: 14th May 2026
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-923575-03-5
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-923575-04-2
BISAC Codes:
FICTION / Fantasy / Historical
FICTION / Fantasy / Paranormal
FICTION / Fantasy / Gaslamp
This story contains:
Romance: No romance; the focus is on a professional partnership and mutual respect born of necessity. No sexual content.
Language: Very clean; era-appropriate mild exclamations only
Violence: Gothic horror elements including hauntings, a predatory house, ancestral bargains, and the supernatural loss of personal memories. Contains mentions of a defaced portrait (eyes scratched out) and the historical deaths of young women.
Tone: Atmospheric, eerie, and intellectually driven. While the setting is unsettling, the protagonist remains pragmatic and professional.
A "cozy-adjacent" Victorian Gothic mystery with a strong, competent female lead, minimal gore, and a heavy focus on atmosphere and puzzle-solving.
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