The House Without a Summer
- Reads 22
- Votes 1
- Parts 3
Ongoing32m
Last published Fri, Dec 30, 2016
Northamptonshire, England. 1816.
It has been a harsh winter, with killing temperatures and heavy snow. The Christmas holidays have passed. Colin deserves to escape from the old family ruins--or, rather, one of the grandest country houses in England, Penderbrook--and resume his post-Napoleonic debauchery in London. He has a rather large allowance to waste in profligacy, and he hasn't even made a dent in it yet.
His older brother William, the heir to Penderbrook, had too weak a heart to fight in the wars. Instead he has been progressing the amount of scientific knowledge of England--a quieter war, but not without its own battles. Ones that he is patiently winning, becoming one of the most renowned naturalists of his time.
Then one day William walks out onto the frozen pond in the middle of a blizzard and shoots himself.
Colin and William's studious, schoolmarmish fiancee Lucy are left behind to discover what caused William to self-murder. A lost journal, a dead factotum dealing mainly in orphans, a factory plagued by a fungus that seems to be colored with blood, dark shapes moving through the neverending snow...
The clues point toward something more monstrous than even a rake like Colin could ever imagine.
WORK IN PROGRESS. I need support on this one, it's like my fifth major rewrite on this thing. Please say something nice. Lie if you have to...
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