Joyce Carol Oates, bestselling author of American Appetites, has won national acclaim, awards from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a National Book Award for her carefully crafted tales. The Virgin in the Rose-Bower is a Gothic tale of monstrous deeds and heart-stopping suspense. With its mesmerizing visions of dark forces, it takes its place among chilling stories like those of Edgar Allan Poe.

One May morning, news of a “hideous catastrophe” sweeps through the sleepy town of Winterthurn. In an ornate bed chamber of gloomy Glen Mawr Manor, a babe sleeping in his mother’s arms has been cruelly murdered.

Joyce Carol Oates has turned to shadowy 19th-century New England for this spellbinding foray into the macabre. Part one in a trio of compelling mysteries, The Virgin in the Rose-Bower introduces the hero: handsome amateur detective Xavier Kilgarvan.