Book excerpt: Georgette Heyer, bestselling Queen of Regency Romance, invites readers to an extraordinary Gothic tale of love, mystery, and intrigue. A surprising invitation Kate Malvern is rescued from penury by her aunt Minerva, who brings her to stay at Staplewood. But the household is strange and strained—Kate's uncle lives in his own private wing, and her handsome, moody cousin Torquil lives in another. A dark family secret As bizarre events unfold and Kate begins to question the reasons for her aunt's unexpected generosity, she has no one to confide in but her cousin Philip. Sympathetic though he may appear, will he tell her what she most needs to know... before it's too late? Praise for Cousin Kate: "Miss Heyer serves up a very different sort of tale in the same period setting, nothing less than a full-fledged Gothic. And a very expert job she does of it, too, complete with a remote and forbidding country house, screams in the night, dark hints of something best left unmentioned... nicely leavened with wit, romance, and wonderful period slang."—Publishers Weekly