The Antiques Roadshow, if Stephen King was the host...When art appraiser Anita Cassatt is sent to catalogue the extensive collection of reclusive artist Leo Kubin, it isn't the chill of the secluded house making her shiver, it's the silent audience of portraits clustered on every wall, watching her.The lawyer didn't share the dead artist's instructions for handling his art, and Anita and her team start work ignorant of the instructions designed to keep them safe. Safe from the art.There are secrets hiding in Kubin's house. But as Anita and her team discover, some secrets don't want to stay hidden.Described as Caravaggio meets Poltergeist - Painted is a gothic horror novel with a decent serving of psychological unease and a healthy fear of the dark. Perfect for lovers of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.What readers are saying about Painted: "Refreshing to encounter this subtle, delicate narrative where horror peeps slyly out..." "Painted is an effective haunted house book, favoring tension and subtlety over outright violence and kills." "McKenzie does an incredible job in the characterization of the people in her novel. With each and every one, I came away with the feeling that I knew them--down to even the secrets they kept hidden from each other." "This novel literally took my breath away in places." "The plot is sensationally addictive and the creepy factor kept me alert page after page." "No gore or cheap scares here, this is a subtle and delicate chiller written in the spirit of a Shirley Jackson novel."

Painted

Literature & Fiction

McKenzie, Kirsten

Genre Fiction

Squabbling Sparrows Press

Doctor Perry prefers his patients old, lonely and unloved. Because no one misses them when they disappear. 
"Doctor Perry is a spine-tingling read and a slamming indictment on the blind trust we give to doctors."\nHiding from a traumatic past, retiree Elijah Cone spends his days at Florida's Rose Haven Retirement Home waiting for death to relieve him of his all-consuming guilt and the worsening pain of his arthritis. But Elijah isn't the only one with a secret. Rose Haven's resident doctor has a secret too, one involving his elderly patients. A profitable secret. A deadly side hustle.\nForced into a fight for their lives, Elijah and the other residents of the care home soon learn that under Doctor Perry's care, death is a better option…\nAfter reading Doctor Perry, you'll be left questioning how much you trust your doctor.\nDoctor Perry is recommended for readers who enjoy reading thrillers tinged with a hint of the paranormal - think Stephen King with a medical degree.\nBoth the paperback and ebook versions contain a page of discussion questions for your next bookclub meeting. The author of Doctor Perry, Kirsten McKenzie, is available to attend your bookclub meetings, either in person, or online, depending on where you are in the world.

Doctor Perry

United States

The hidden stories of two Australian port towns rife with gossip and dubious reputations are uncovered in this history. This study argues that colonial societies offered European settlers the chance to invent new identities, an opportunity they exploited with a vengeance which ultimately influenced imperial policy and became a key element in the emergence of a society deeply divided by class and race. Touching on the themes of masculinity and commercial culture, female sexuality in civil litigation, and gossip in political culture, this study offers a fresh and engaging approach to colonial history.

Scandal in the Colonies

History

Australia & Oceania

Melbourne University Publishing

In May 1835 in a Sydney courtroom, a slight, balding man named John Dow stood charged with forgery. The prisoner shocked the room by claiming he was Edward, Viscount Lascelles, eldest son of the powerful Earl of Harewood. The Crown alleged he was a confidence trickster and serial impostor. Was this really the heir to one of Britain's most spectacular fortunes? 
 Part Regency mystery, part imperial history, A Swindler's Progress is an engrossing tale of adventure and deceit across two worlds—British aristocrats and Australian felons—bound together in an emerging age of opportunity and individualism, where personal worth was battling power based on birth alone. The first historian to unravel the mystery of John Dow and Edward Lascelles, Kirsten McKenzie illuminates the darker side of this age of liberty, when freedom could mean the freedom to lie both in the far-flung outposts of empire and within the established bastions of British power. 
 The struggles of the Lascelles family for social and political power, and the tragedy of their disgraced heir, demonstrate that British elites were as fragile as their colonial counterparts. In ways both personal and profound, McKenzie recreates a world in which Britain and the empire were intertwined in the transformation of status and politics in the nineteenth century.

A Swindler's Progress: Nobles and Convicts in the Age of Liberty

Harvard University Press

History shapes those who travel through itDetermined to save the antiques store she has inherited from ruin after the unexplained disappearance of her parents, Sarah Lester discovers a jumbled collection of vintage postcards which lead her on a journey through time.
Unprepared for the story the postcards weave about their reclusive former owner, Sarah’s life is thrown into disarray as she is transported to Victorian London, colonial New Zealand and to the British Raj in nineteenth century India.
Sarah’s journey through time could solve the mystery of her parents’ disappearance. But one impossible question remains: what will staying in the past do to her future?
 Fifteen Postcards is the first book in The Old Curiosity Shop trilogy.

Fifteen Postcards (The Old Curiosity Shop)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Time changes everything, even historyAfter disappearing amidst a spray of bullets, antiques dealer Sarah Lester leaves behind no body, only questions. Sarah’s friends are left dealing with the aftermath of her disappearance, including an investigation into the provenance of her antiques, which threatens to crush The Old Curiosity Shop.
As Sarah struggles to reunite with her father, she continues the search for her mother, unaware the violent colonial past has followed her home, putting herself, and those she loves in danger.
From the remote shores of New Zealand, through India’s hill country stations and onto the streets of Victorian London, Sarah must decide whether family bonds are strong enough to stretch through time.
The Last Letter is the second book The Old Curiosity Shop trilogy.

The Last Letter (The Old Curiosity Shop)

History will change Sarah Lester's mother is missing and the Indian uprising holds her father captive. The police want to question her, and even the church is demanding its pound of flesh. Her return to The Old Curiosity Shop raises more questions than answers. Waiting in the shadows is a vengeful Richard Grey. After discovering Sarah's ability to travel through time, nothing will stop him from restoring his name to its former glory. Not even time. Can Sarah reunite her scattered family before Grey closes the doorway to the past? Telegram Home is the last book The Old Curiosity Shop trilogy.

Telegram Home (The Old Curiosity Shop)

FIVE STRANGERS IN FLORENCE, EACH WITH A DANGEROUS SECRET. AND AN APOCALYPTIC FLOOD THREATENING TO REVEAL EVERYTHING. A wife on the run, a student searching for stolen art, a cleaner who has lined more than his pockets, a policeman whose career is almost over, and a guest who should never have received a wedding invite. Five strangers, entangled in the forger's wicked web. In a race against time, and desperate to save themselves and all they hold dear, will their secrets prove more treacherous than the ominous floodwaters swallowing the historic city? Dive into a world of lies and deceit, where nothing is as it seems on the surface... Set in Florence, Italy, in 1966, the story takes place over three days, amidst the worst flooding in Florence's history.

The Forger and the Thief: A Historical Thriller

Fifteen Postcards: Wingspan Pocket Edition

Ithaca Bound (The Ithaca Trilogy)

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Books by McKenzie, Kirsten