Falconridge

Falconridge is a gothic romance by Jennifer Wilde, published in 1969 and set in a mansion above the sea.

Lauren Moore loses her mother and, with her, her home and her money, which leaves her with nothing when her aunt Helena writes to invite her to Falconridge. The invitation looks like an enormous piece of luck. She arrives to find a brooding house by the sea, a household that keeps its own counsel and a cousin by marriage, Norman Wade, whose dark good looks and arrogance she finds difficult to ignore. Things at Falconridge do not behave as they should: rooms are locked, objects go missing, and the staff are unwilling to explain what is going on. The housekeeper warns her directly to leave, telling her that the house is not kind to people who do not belong and that she is an outsider. Lauren has nowhere else to go, so she stays, and the novel follows what the house is hiding.

Wilde wrote gothic romances with young heroines, old houses and romantic complications, and this early example of her work uses all three in the usual proportions.