Beauty and the Deceased: A Gothic Romance (The Ghostly Grandeur Series Book 1)

Beauty and the Deceased

No one enters the Kingsley estate expecting to leave.

Sophina Devereaux knows the stories. Contestants vanish. Families mourn. Newspapers soften the truth with careful language, but the reality is simple: the Kingsley trials kill. Seven weeks. Seven sins. One fortune for anyone who survives them all.

Phina enters anyway.

The mansion is alive—watching, listening, remembering. Its trials are not puzzles to be solved, but mirrors meant to expose what people crave, fear, and refuse to face. Envy hollows. Lust tempts. Mercy costs blood. And the House always demands a price.

James Kingsley has spent centuries enforcing those rules.

Bound to the estate by a curse older than guilt, James is both guardian and prisoner—tasked with ensuring the trials run as they always have. Detached. Controlled. Untouchable. Until Phina arrives and does the one thing no contestant ever has.

She chooses.

As the trials progress, the line between observer and participant begins to fracture. James finds himself defying the House, his family, and the curse itself to protect the woman who refuses to be reduced to spectacle or sacrifice. But love, in a house built on sins, is not a reward—it is a threat.

And the price for breaking the rules may be more than either of them can survive.

Beauty and the Deceased is a gothic romance steeped in dark fantasy, haunted architecture, and slow-burn devotion—where desire is dangerous, choice is revolutionary, and love is the most defiant act of all.

Perfect for readers who love:

Gothic romance with teeth

Slow-burn, emotionally intense love stories

Haunted houses that are characters themselves

Morally gray immortals and women who refuse to be diminished

Beauty and the Beast–inspired fantasy with high emotional stakes