Books like Vermilion by Phyllis A. Whitney

The classic Shakespeare tragedy follows Prince Hamlet of Denmark as he seeks revenge for his father's murder, exploring themes of vengeance, madness, and mortality in a richly dramatic play.

In an elite New England college, a charismatic classics professor lures a group of eccentric students into obsessive study, leading them from intellectual curiosity to corruption, betrayal, and ultimately murder.

A young bride, the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter, arrives at Manderley on the Cornish coast and finds her new home haunted by the memory and housekeeper’s obsession with her mysterious, stylish predecessor—Rebecca.

A family saga that traces the shifting ownership of a house from a wealthy couple to a newly rich businessman and his children, exploring themes of inheritance, sibling rivalry, poverty, and stepmother dynamics.

When mystery novelist Grace McCabe returns to Washington, D.C., to visit her estranged sister, she discovers her sister's hidden life as a phone‑sex operator. After Kathleen is strangled, Grace turns detective and sets a deadly trap for the killer.

Twelve‑year‑old Tess DeNunzio writes a heartfelt letter to her missing sister Zoe, exploring grief, adolescence, and healing while seeking meaning in a world of loss and uncertainty.

Camilla King returns to the decaying Thunder Heights mansion after an invitation from her ailing, wealthy grandfather, only to confront a harsh tyrant, mourning aunts, a greedy heir, and a mysterious trap tied to her mother's death.

When widowed Paul Parker dies, his three daughters – a New York social worker, a Brooklyn baker, and an aspiring LA actress – discover that his final will contains unexpected gifts and revelations that reshape their family ties and their own ambitions.

Gothic retelling of Jane Eyre set in early 19th-century London, where a woman traumatized by her aunt and a cruel schoolmaster turns to vengeance and becomes a governess amid dark secrets and a possible serial killer.

Mallie Rice confronts the haunted Silverhill, where mirrors distort reality and family secrets surface, as she battles for love, sanity and survival under the shadow of Grandmother Julia and her half‑demented Aunt Arvilla.

A clinical psychologist returns to her former husband's secluded Blue Ridge home, where an unsettling letter, a troubled stepdaughter, and a haunting murder mystery converge, all set to the eerie call of the "Singing Stones."

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.

Jessica Abbott arrives at Hampden House in the Virgin Islands, where she must confront the ruthless Catherine Drew and protect a child’s future while navigating a tangled love for Kingdon Drew.

When reclusive novelist Vida Winter’s health wanes, she tasks biographer Margaret Lea with revealing the truth of her life, though Margaret must sift through Winter’s penchant for exaggeration to arrive at facts.

In the quiet coastal town of Goose Harbor, Maine, former FBI trainee Zoe West returns after her father’s murder, only to find a killer still on the loose and a reluctant agent courting danger and a fragile romance.

In sultry New Orleans, Skye Cameron is torn between a brutal, wrongful‑conviction murderer, Justin Law, and the respectable brother Courtney, whose marriage she feels forced into by family pressure.

Hallie Knight’s search for her missing friend Susan Trench leads her back to Topsail Island, where family secrets and a tense investigation unfold on the North Carolina coast.

Two intertwined Catholic romance stories: Cindy Thompson secretly loves her brother‑in‑law, while widowed single father Flynn Mallory asks for her help; and Grace Stanton, mourning a tragic accident and a broken engagement, must restore faith with Dr. Noah Brady’s support.

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.