Occupation: Editorial Assistant
Dear Ms. St. Clair,
I just wanted to tell you how much The Secret of Wyldcliffe Heights means to me. I read it for the first time when I was fourteen and it saved my life. I’d never felt like someone really saw me until then, and since, I’ve reread it a dozen times. Sometimes I feel like Jayne exploring the winding hallways and secret passageways of Wyldcliffe Heights, sometimes I feel like Violet waiting to be released from her tower, and sometimes I feel like Wyldcliffe Heights itself, a big heap of secrets and lies teetering on the brink of the abyss. It’s the book that made me into a reader. My only complaint is that there isn’t more! I still think about Jayne and Violet and wonder what happened to them after the fire. Have you considered writing a sequel? I would be the first on line to buy it. And maybe then you could finally reveal the secret of Wyldcliffe Heights—ha ha! 🙂
Yours truly,
A Curious Fan
Dear Curious Fan:
Ms. St. Clair is not able to reply personally to each and every letter from her fans at this time but she would like you to know that she is grateful for your kind words about her novel The Secret of Wyldecliffe Heights and your interest in a possible sequel. Many readers (including me!) have expressed a desire for a sequel but as of now, there are no plans for one. We’ll just have to make do with rereading the book we have. Thank you for your interest in Gatehouse Books. I’ve enclosed a flier for our other upcoming titles.
Sincerely,
Agnes Corey, Editorial Assistant, Gatehouse Books
P.S. In the future, please don’t include pressed dead violets in your letters. Because of Anthrax scares, finding strange powder in an envelope is triggering to some members of our staff.
Dear Agnes,
I hope you don’t mind me calling you Agnes. How thrilling it must be to work at the publisher that brought The Secret of Wyldecliffe Heights into being! I’m really jealous 🙂 . I could tell from your letter that we’re kindred spirits and that you want a sequel as much as I do! I bet if Veronica St. Clair knew how much her readers want a sequel, she would write one for us. Have you considered going up to her house and asking her in person? Doesn’t she live just a hundred miles north of the city in an estate on the Hudson? I’ve been doing a little sleuthing (haha just like Jayne in the book!) and I think I’ve figured out that the house is in Wyldecliffe-on-Hudson (duh! It has the same name!). Why don’t we meet up at the train station and go up there together?
Yours truly,
A Dedicated Fan
P.S. Really? I can’t imagine anyone would mistake these pretty dried violets with something vile like Anthrax. I enclose a few more so you can see they don’t look threatening at all.
Dear Dedicated Fan:
I can neither confirm nor deny the location of Ms. St. Clair’s residence (just because the town has the same name as the house doesn’t mean anything) and I urge you not to go traipsing around in people’s backyards looking for a fictional place. And if Ms. St. Clair’s house was there, I have to warn you that she employs an armed groundskeeper, so please don’t go sleuthing no matter how much you think it makes you like a fictional character you admire. Authors deserve their privacy too!
Sincerely,
Agnes Corey, Editorial Assistant, Gatehouse Books
Return to Wyldcliffe Heights
Genre: Domestic Thriller
Release: July 2024
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link
Jane Eyre meets The Thirteenth Tale in this new modern gothic mystery from two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award–winner Carol Goodman, about a reclusive writer who is desperate to rewrite the past.
Losing yourself inside of a book can be dangerous. Not everyone finds their way out.
Agnes Corey, a junior editor at a small independent publisher, has been hired by enigmatic author Veronica St. Clair to transcribe the sequel to her 1993 hit phenomenon, The Secret of Wyldcliffe Heights. St. Clair has been a recluse since the publication of the Jane Eyre-esque book, which coincided with a terrible fire that blinded and scarred her. Arriving in the Hudson Valley at St. Clair’s crumbling estate, which was once a psychiatric hospital for “wayward women,” Agnes is eager to ensure St. Clair’s devoted fans will get the sequel they’ve been anticipating for the past thirty years.
As St. Clair dictates, Agnes realizes there are clues in the story that reveal the true—and terrifying—events three decades ago that inspired the original novel. The line between fact and fiction becomes increasingly blurred, and Agnes discovers terrible secrets about an unresolved murder from long ago, which have startling connections to her own life. As St. Clair’s twisting tale infiltrates Agnes’s psyche, Agnes begins to question her own sanity—and safety. In order to save herself, Agnes must uncover what really happened to St. Clair, and in doing so, set free the stories of all the women victimized by Wyldcliffe Heights.
About the author
Carol Goodman is the author of twenty-five novels, including The Lake of Dead Languages and The Seduction of Water, which won the 2003 Hammett Prize, The Widow’s House, which won the 2018 Mary Higgins Clark Award, and The Night Visitors, which won the 2020 Mary Higgins Clark Award. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family, and teaches literature and writing at The New School and SUNY New Paltz. Her most recent novel is Return to Wyldcliffe Heights.