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Wendy Webb is an American bestselling and award-winning author of gothic suspense novels.

Born and raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, she attended the University of Minnesota, where she graduated with a major in political science and a minor in French and history.

Upon graduating, Wendy lived in France for a while with her two lifelong friends before returning back to the US, where she secured an internship with a congressman in Washington, D.C., and a subsequent job with a Minnesota senator.

Afterwards, she returned to Minnesota where she has been working as a journalist.

Wendy has written for both national and local magazines and newspapers, including Duluth Superior Magazine, where she was editor-in-chief for many years.

Although she struggled to balance between her work, being a full-time mom and pursuing her dreams of being a novelist, Wendy finally found the time to write after her son started going to school.

She made her debut as a novelist in 2010 with The Tale of Halcyon Crane, which won the Minnesota Book Award for fiction.

Labeled the Queen of the Northern Gothic due to the fact that her gothic tales are set in the Great Lakes region, Wendy currently lives in her home town of Minneapolis.

More about Wendy Webb

Genres: Goth, Mystery, Suspense

United States

Website: https://wendykwebb.com/

Non Series

  • The Tale of Halcyon Crane (2010)
  • The Fate of Mercy Alban (2013)
  • The Vanishing (2014)
  • The End of Temperance Dare (2017)
  • Daughters of the Lake (2018)
  • The Haunting of Brynn Wilder (2020)
  • The Keepers of Metsan Valo (2021)
  • The Stroke of Winter (2022)

Anthologies

  1. Phobias (1994)
  2. More Phobias: Phobias II (1995)

Detailed book overview

Non Series

The Tale of Halcyon Crane

A young woman travels alone to a remote island to uncover a past she never knew was hers.

When a mysterious letter lands in Hallie James's mailbox, her life is upended. Hallie was raised by her loving father, having been told her mother died in a fire decades earlier. But it turns out that her mother, Madlyn, was alive until very recently. Why would Hallie's father have taken her away from Madlyn? What really happened to her family thirty years ago?

In search of answers, Hallie travels to the place where her mother lived, a remote island in the middle of the Great Lakes. The stiff islanders fix her first with icy stares and then unabashed amazement as they recognize why she looks so familiar, and Hallie quickly realizes her family's dark secrets are enmeshed in the history of this strange place. 

But not everyone greets her with such a chilly reception—a coffee-shop owner and the family's lawyer both warm to Hallie, and the possibility of romance blooms. And then there's the grand Victorian house bequeathed to her—maybe it's the eerie atmosphere or maybe it's the prim, elderly maid who used to work for her mother, but Hallie just can't shake the feeling that strange things are starting to happen...

Author: Wendy Webb
First Release: 2010
ISBN: 978-0805091403
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
The Fate of Mercy Alban

Grace Alban has spent more than twenty years avoiding her childhood home, the stately Alban House on the shores of Lake Superior, for reasons she would rather forget. But when her mother's unexpected death brings Grace and her teenage daughter back, she finds more is haunting the halls and passageways of Alban House than her own personal demons.

Long-buried family secrets, a packet of old love letters, and a lost manuscript plunge Grace into a decades-old mystery about a scandalous party at Alban House, when a world-famous author took his own life and Grace's aunt disappeared without a trace. 

The night has been shrouded in secrecy by the powerful Alban family for all of these years. Her mother intended to tell the truth about that night to a reporter on the very day she died--could it have been murder? Or was she a victim of the supposed Alban curse? Grace soon realizes her family secrets tangle and twist as darkly as the mansion's secret passages.

With the help of the disarmingly kind--and attractive--Reverend Matthew Parker, Grace must uncover the truth about her home and its curse before she and her daughter become the next victims.

Author: Wendy Webb
First Release: 2013
ISBN: 978-1401341930
Publisher: Hachette Books
The Vanishing

Recently widowed and rendered penniless by her Ponzi-scheming husband, Julia Bishop is eager to start anew. So when a stranger appears on her doorstep with a job offer, she finds herself accepting the mysterious yet unique position: caretaker to his mother, Amaris Sinclair, the famous and rather eccentric horror novelist whom Julia has always admired...and who the world believes is dead.

When she arrives at the Sinclairs' enormous estate on Lake Superior, Julia begins to suspect that there may be sinister undercurrents to her "too-good-to-be-true" position. As Julia delves into the reasons of why Amaris chose to abandon her successful writing career and withdraw from the public eye, her search leads to unsettling connections to her own family tree, making her wonder why she really was invited to Havenwood in the first place, and what monstrous secrets are still held prisoner within its walls.

Author: Wendy Webb
First Release: 2014
ISBN: 978-1401341947
Publisher: Hachette Books
The End of Temperance Dare

When Eleanor Harper becomes the director of a renowned artists’ retreat, she knows nothing of Cliffside Manor’s dark past as a tuberculosis sanatorium, a “waiting room for death.” After years of covering murder and violence as a crime reporter, Eleanor hopes that being around artists and writers in this new job will be a peaceful retreat for her as much as for them.

But from her first fog-filled moments on the manor’s grounds, Eleanor is seized by a sense of impending doom and realizes there’s more to the institution than its reputation of being a haven for creativity. After the arrival of the new fellows―including the intriguing, handsome photographer Richard Banks―she begins to suspect that her predecessor chose the group with a dangerous purpose in mind. 

As the chilling mysteries of Cliffside Manor unravel and the eerie sins of the past are exposed, Eleanor must fight to save the fellows―and herself―from sinister forces.

Author: Wendy Webb
First Release: 2017
ISBN: 978-1477824115
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Daughters of the Lake

After the end of her marriage, Kate Granger has retreated to her parents’ home on Lake Superior to pull herself together―only to discover the body of a murdered woman washed into the shallows. Tucked in the folds of the woman’s curiously vintage gown is an infant, as cold and at peace as its mother. No one can identify the woman. Except for Kate. She’s seen her before. In her dreams…

One hundred years ago, a love story ended in tragedy, its mysteries left unsolved. It’s time for the lake to give up its secrets. As each mystery unravels, it pulls Kate deeper into the eddy of a haunting folktale that has been handed down in whispers over generations. Now, it’s Kate’s turn to listen.

As the drowned woman reaches out from the grave, Kate reaches back. They must come together, if only in dreams, to right the sinister wrongs of the past.

Author: Wendy Webb
First Release: 2018
ISBN: 978-1503901339
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
The Haunting of Brynn Wilder

After a devastating loss, Brynn Wilder escapes to Wharton, a tourist town on Lake Superior, to reset. Checking into a quaint boardinghouse for the summer, she hopes to put her life into perspective. In her fellow lodgers, she finds a friendly company of strangers: the frail Alice, cared for by a married couple with a heartbreaking story of their own; LuAnn, the eccentric and lovable owner of the inn; and Dominic, an unsettlingly handsome man inked from head to toe in mesmerizing tattoos.

But in this inviting refuge, where a century of souls has passed, a mystery begins to swirl. Alice knows things about Brynn, about all of them, that she shouldn’t. Bad dreams and night whispers lure Brynn to a shuttered room at the end of the hall, a room still heavy with a recent death. And now she’s become irresistibly drawn to Dominic―even in the shadow of rumors that wherever he goes, suspicious death follows.

Author: Wendy Webb
First Release: 2020
ISBN: 978-1542020121
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
The Keepers of Metsan Valo

In Metsan Valo, her family home on Lake Superior, Anni Halla’s beloved grandmother has died. Among her fond memories, what Anni remembers most vividly is her grandmother’s eerie yet enchanting storytelling. By firelight she spun tall tales of spirits in the nearby forest and waters who could heal―or harm―on a whim. But of course those were only stories…

The reading of the will now occasions a family reunion. Anni and her twin brother, their almost otherworldly mother, and relatives Anni hasn’t seen in forever―some with good reason―are all brought back together under one roof that strains to hold all their tension. But it’s not just Anni’s family who is unsettled. 

Whispers wind through the woods. Laughter bursts from bubbling streams. Raps from unseen hands rupture on the walls. Fireflies swarm and nightmares stir. With each odd occurrence, Anni fears that her return has invited less a welcoming and more a warning.

When another tragedy strikes near home, Anni must dive headfirst into the mysterious happenings to discover the truth about her home, her family, and the wooded island’s ancient lore. Plunging into the past may be the only way to save her family from whatever bedevils Metsan Valo.

Author: Wendy Webb
First Release: 2021
ISBN: 978-1542021623
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
The Stroke of Winter

She’s restoring the old family home on the hill. And unearthing something evil.

In the tourist town of Wharton, on the coast of Lake Superior, Tess Bell is renovating her old family home into a bed-and-breakfast during the icy dead of winter…

As the house’s restoration commences, a shuttered art studio is revealed. Inside are paintings Tess’s late grandfather, beloved and celebrated artist Sebastian Bell, hid away for generations. But these appear to be the works of a twisted mind, almost unrecognizable as paintings she and others familiar with his art would expect. The sinister canvases raise disturbing questions for Tess, sparking nightmares and igniting in her an obsession to unearth the truth around their origins.

What evil has been locked away for so many years? The ominous brushstrokes, scratching at the door, and moving shadows begin to pull Tess further and further into the darkness...

Author: Wendy Webb
First Release: 2022
ISBN: 978-1542037600
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Anthologies

Phobias

A collection of spine-tingling stories of phobias features tales by Andrew Klavan, Valerie Frankel, Charles Grant, Jerry and Sharon Ahern, Nancy Holder, and nineteen other writers.

Author: Wendy Webb
First Release: 1994
ISBN: 978-0671792374
Publisher: Pocket Books
More Phobias: Phobias II

A collection of short stories highlights individuals who are forced to confront their darkest fears, including a man who believes everyone to be a serial killer and another person who is afraid of Santa Claus.

Author: Wendy Webb
First Release: 1995
ISBN: 978-0671895471
Publisher: Pocket Books