On Christmas Eve, a party of friends descends on a purportedly haunted country retreat, charged with the task of discovering evidence of the supernatural. Sequestered in their rooms for the holiday, the friends reconvene on Twelfth Night at a great feast and share their stories of spectral encounter. "Conducted" by Charles Dickens and counting Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins among its contributors, "The Haunted House" examines quintessentially Victorian themes-sex and longing, nostalgia and loss-in ways that continue to resonate today. Ingeniously conceived and written, and spiked with flashes of Dickensian humor, this volume is a strange and sheer delight.

One of "The Wall Street Journal'"s Best fiction books of 2011

England, 1923. A gentleman critic named Leslie Shepherd tells the macabre story of a gifted young composer, Charles Jessold. On the eve of his revolutionary new opera's premiere, Jessold murders his wife and her lover, and then commits suicide in a scenario that strangely echoes the plot of his opera---which Shepherd has helped to write. The opera will never be performed.

Shepherd first shares his police testimony, then recalls his relationship with Jessold in his role as critic, biographer, and friend. And with each retelling of the story, significant new details cast light on the identity of the real victim in Jessold's tragedy.

This ambitiously intricate novel is set against a turbulent moment in music history, when atonal sounds first reverberated through the concert halls of Europe, just as the continent readied itself for war. What if Jessold's opera was not only a betrayal of Shepherd, but of England as well?

Wesley Stace has crafted a dazzling story of counter-melodies and counter-narratives that will keep you guessing to the end.

Two years ago, singer-songwriter Wesley Stace blew onto the literary scene with his bold and free-wheeling Dickensian comedy Misfortune. Now, he is back with another wonderfully entertaining and inventive novel. By George is the twisting story of four generations of the curious Fisher family, as told by two boys named George Fisher: one, a schoolboy in the 1970s; the other, a ventriloquist's dummy in the second World War. It's a story of love, loss and family ties, and of two boys separated by years but driven by the same desires: to find a voice, and to be loved.
Praise for BY GEORGE:
"By George is one of those rare works of fiction with an essential triple helix -- it's funny, it's clever and it's perfectly woven together with story. If writing is how we imagine not being lobely, as Wesley Stace suggests, then his conjuring trick as a writer is that he brings a large crowd along with him. This is a wonderful follow-up to his debut novel, Misfortune" -- Colum McCann, author of Zoliand Dancer
"Filled with wit, warmth and imagination... Stace amasses enough gently ironic humor, emotion and insight to carry his voices beautifully." -- "Publishers Weekly"

On a moonlit night on the outskirts of London, Lord Geoffroy Loveall findsthe answer to his prayers: an abandoned baby, somehow still alive amid thejunk of a rubbish heap. Rescuing the infant from certain death, Lord Geoffroy adopts her as his only child, heir to the fabulous Love Hall fortune. He names her Rose in memory of his long-dead sister and gives hera childhood of unparalleled gaiety and unstinting pleasure. But every house has a secret, and as Rose approaches adolescence, the secret of Love Hall becomes impossible to hide. As much as Lord Geoffroy wanted a daughter, the baby he brought home is, in fact, a boy. As a flock