Books like Amethyst Dreams by Phyllis A. Whitney

Jeannette Walls' memoir chronicles her turbulent childhood in a dysfunctional, itinerant family, detailing poverty, alcoholism, and homelessness across the United States as she seeks stability and personal growth.

Whitney Stone returns to England after Paris triumphs, poised to win her childhood love. To protect his fortunes, her father marries the proud Duke of Claymore, turning Whitney into a prized bargaining chip among high society.

When a wealthy executive’s private jet crashes, his wife Sid finds herself blamed for his disappearance and forced to unravel a web of lies, corporate intrigue, and FBI scrutiny.

When a young girl's skeleton is found in the neighborhood of a long‑missing childhood friend, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan must decide whether the two victims are the same person.

The engaging and sassy owner of Botswana's only detective agency, Precious Ramotswe, expands her business to include car repair and a beauty pageant, but her sense of justice remains unshaken by scandal and deceit, as in THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY and TEARS OF THE GIRAFFE.

A family’s idyllic summer party at a grand estate in Cornwall turns into a desperate search when six‑year‑old Theo vanishes, leaving the house abandoned and the siblings torn apart.

Set in a crumbling Georgian manor in rural Warwickshire, *The Little Stranger* follows a doctor arriving at a long‑standing family home where a death‑bed patient and chilling supernatural forces intertwine against the backdrop of post‑war Britain.

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes travel incognito to India, searching for a missing spy who inspired Rudyard Kipling’s "Kim" and uncovering dangerous intrigue.

Christy Moreland returns to the Spindrift estate in Newport to uncover the truth behind her father’s death, confronting a domineering mother‑in‑law and unraveling a web of deception that threatens her son.

A daughter of a celebrated novelist and a former Hollywood actress navigates grief, family secrets, and a chilling mystery in Bergen, Norway, as she seeks answers about her parents and the unsolved murder tied to a forgotten film.

Judge Knott's murder mystery in Beaufort, North Carolina, with a past lover as the suspect.

Marel Gordon, an aspiring children's book illustrator, lands a job at a literary agency and marries writer Chris Mallory. Together they juggle careers and home life, learning the delicate balance of love and ambition.

After the Great Fire of London devastates her life, Amethyst Goldsmith finds solace in the Earl of Graystone, but societal expectations threaten their romance.

When a journalist’s search for a missing friend turns into a dangerous mystery, she must confront a double life, a suspicious lookalike, and her own buried secrets to clear her name in rural Pennsylvania.

A young tour guide named Lisa Somers leaves her father’s shadow to discover her own path while exploring the United Nations in this engaging children's mystery.

A North Carolina judge investigates the arson of black churches.

Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot investigates a mysterious murder in the Yorkshire Dales, while Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, once a lover, comes to help and uncover the darker aspects of his family's past.

Thunder Heights To Camilla King, her trip up the Hudson to the huge Gothic mansion named Thunder Heights was in a way a return to the home that had never been hers. From there her grandfather, Orrin Judd, the financier, ran his vast empire. When Camilla had been a child her mother had returned there for a visit and mysteriously died. From that point on, for reasons she had never understood, Camilla's father had cut himself off completely from the Judd family. And later Camilla, now an orphan and quite alone, had been making her way as a governess in New York City. The summons from the old man had come as a complete surprise. Yet Camilla obeyed it willingly, half out of curiosity, half in the hope of discovering a home and family of her own. She found a sick old man anxious to make his peace with her before he died. She found two extraordinary aunts--imperious Aunt Hortense, dressed in bygone fashions, and fey, ghostlike Aunt Letty, haunted by some strange guilt or sorrow. She found also Hortense's adopted son, Booth, a strange, sardonic young man who seemed content to idle away his considerable talents as a painter, and Ross Granger, who had been brought there as an aide to her grandfather and who treated her with the most rigid formality. Over the enormous house hung an atmosphere of gloom, impending danger, and strange crosscurrents. And out of these elements Phyllis Whitney has fashioned an extraordinarily holding story. Old Orrin Judd's amazing will, young Booth's unfinished portrait of Camilla's mother, the house itself, which took on a character of its own, and one near-accident after another, seemingly aimed at driving Camilla away, all play their parts. The Window on the Square THE SCENE IS NEW YORK CITY IN THE 1870's. A letter summons young Megan Kincaid to the house on Washington Square. In a startling interview the master of the house, Brandon Reid, informs her that he wishes her to devote herself to moody, unbalanced Jeremy, Mrs. Reid's son by her previous husband, Brandon's younger brother Dwight. Dwight Reid's brilliant career as New York District Attorney had been ended by a shocking and tragic accident with a gun--or so the newspapers had claimed--at the hands of this same guilt-ridden child, then aged seven. Against her better judgment, Megan accepts the challenge. From the beginning Megan feels uneasy in the house; she senses the presence of lurking evil, of mysterious emotional undercurrents, of relationships that are not what they appear to be. She does not know whom to trust--the haughty yet strangely sad beauty, Leslie Reid, or the somber, fascinating master of the house, whose warm voice belies his cold, grave manner. She finds herself irresistibly drawn toward him, and their growing mutual attraction is duly noted by interested members of the household. When Megan realizes fully the extent of her own feelings, she knows she cannot honorably remain in the Reid home. Yet she also knows that if she goes, Jeremy will be left alone in world, irretrievably lost.