Enchanted Hill: A Novel

by Emily Bain Murphy

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Prohibition-era Hollywood makes for a delectable stage and a colorful cast of characters makes for the perfect players. Mix that with a dark mystery and a second-chance romance and you’ve got the winning recipe that is Enchanted Hill.

Escape to Enchanted Hill in this historical mystery where two people with a dark, shared past collide while working undercover at a glittering mansion on the California coast.
 
The year is 1930 and Cora McCavanagh is posing as a maid at Hollywood magnate Truman Byrd’s legendary estate. She’s closing in on the damning evidence she needs for a high-profile client. 
 
An aspiring PI, Cora was trained by her father, a former prison guard at the notorious Pelican Island, where Cora grew up surrounded by hardened criminals.
 
Which is why she recognizes Jack Yates as soon as he walks through the door. The last time she saw him was on an ill-fated night that changed the course of her life and still haunts her more than a decade later. Cora never expected to see Jack again—and now a single misstep could cause both their secret identities to come crashing down.
 
They strike a tentative truce to help each other during a week of parties overflowing with champagne and caviar. But there are puzzles hidden in every corner of Truman Byrd’s labyrinthine estate, and if Cora is to finally learn the truth about Jack Yates, she must unravel a sinister history that the rich and powerful will do anything to keep concealed.
 
Filled with intrigue and Old Hollywood glamour, Enchanted Hill is an unforgettable historical romance set in a world you won’t want to leave, and is perfect for fans of historical fiction books like the Molly Murphy Mysteries, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and Kate Morton books.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781454949824
Publisher:	Union Square & Co.
Publication date:	11/07/2023
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Emily Bain Murphy was born in Indiana and raised in Hong Kong and Japan. She graduated from Tufts University and has also called Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California home. Murphy is the author of two critically acclaimed young adult novels: The Disappearances, which was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, and Splinters of Scarlet. Murphy lives in St. Louis with her husband and three children, where she's always on the lookout for beautiful old mansions hiding new stories. Find her online at Instagram @emilybainmurphy and www.emilybainmurphy.com. 

Read an Excerpt

When she turned toward him, her eyes were fire.
“Why are you here with a name other than your own?” Jack asked.  
“I could ask you the same question,” she retorted. “I’m wondering what the going reward might be for turning you in.”
“So you haven’t turned me in, then,” he said, watching her face carefully.
“Yet,” she said.
They stared at one another for a long moment, hardly breathing, and he had a sudden memory of the Western radio shows that Leo used to listen to when they were young. Two outlaws, facing off. He saw the rise and fall of her chest. Her hazel eyes were alert and dilated, framed by a fringe of lashes.
            “You’re working as a maid here, but you don’t want anyone to know your real name,” he said. “Interesting.” He kept his eyes on her. “You wouldn’t need to go to any of that trouble on my account. Unless…” He fiddled with the button on his cuffs, thinking. “You’re actually not here for me, after all.”
            His smile became easier when he rolled up his sleeves. More relaxed, like a fist loosening, and with a fierce, hot swell, Cora looked as though she hated him. It was fascinating to watch the grooves of her face, the way she had grown from a girl into a woman. He had never seen her truly angry—scared or annoyed, sometimes, and sad, and so many other emotions that had played out across her face as a young girl, but this was something else entirely.
“It appears we both are different people than everyone else thinks we are,” he said. He leaned forward, just a bit. Almost conspiratorially.
            “And yet that’s where the similarities between us end,” she said, drawing away from him. “Because only one of us is a killer who should either be locked up or rotting away in the Bay.”
            He nodded agreeably, as if she had merely commented on the weather. He was feeling more confident the longer this went on, even though he had no idea what she was playing at. He shrugged. “Then turn me in,” he said. Almost as if he were daring her to.
            She didn’t react. She still had the faint groove in her forehead from when she had fallen as a child and needed a stitch. At her silence, he said:
            “It seems that you have your reasons for being here. And I have mine. So perhaps we can keep it that way. For a few short days.”
            She laughed suddenly, the sound of it so bitter that it practically hit him in the face. “I’m not interested in making any more deals with the devil,” she said. “I did that once already, and I learned my lesson.”  
            He nodded and took a deep breath. “It’s only right that you should be the one to turn me in. Seems like my luck just ran out.”
            “And surely you’re about to follow it,” Cora said.
            “No,” he said grimly. “I won’t. I’m not leaving this house until I’ve gotten what I’m here for.”
            “And what is that?”
            “I doubt I’ll find it tonight.” He shook his head. “But my lot starts and ends here. I’ve been on a path for so long, and it was always meant to end here, one way or the other.” The sun was turning the skylight above their heads into a thousand colors, violet and gold and azure, as though they were inside of a bubble. Cora’s lip curled. She was no fool, he could tell. She never had been—but now she had a hardened shell, the sort that only comes from getting burned.
How many lives were ruined in the wake of the Bastion? All because of one single, fateful decision he would do anything to go back and change?
 “I do believe that I owe you, Cora McCavanagh, and someday I would like to repay that debt,” he said. “But I will give up your real identity if you give up mine. I came here for something and I’m not leaving without it—even if it means I have to blackmail you into holding your silence just a little bit longer.”
“Ella?” Daisy asked again. She was standing in the shadows, waiting.
Cora turned to him. “Find me at the party tonight,” she whispered. “I’ll hold my tongue as long as you give me the answers I want. And you’d do well to remember something this time, Jack.” She leaned toward him, her breath as soft as a kiss. “I’m not the naïve little girl I used to be.”
She placed the Nevada Dunes matchbook she had stolen from his room in his palm, and closed his hand around it hard enough to hurt.
 

Editorial Reviews

"A piercing and poetic look at the grit beneath the glitter of America’s rich and powerful in 1930, Enchanted Hill offers beautifully sculpted passages and unexpected twists. Glamour, tricks, and betrayals keep the pace galloping and the story enthralling. Captivating, from start to finish." —Shana Abé,New York Timesbestselling author of The Second Mrs. Astor

"Set amid the opulence and corruption of a thinly disguised Hearst’s San Simeon during the Golden Age of Hollywood, this compelling story takes the reader on a breathtaking ride of redemption and revenge." —Rhys Bowen, New York Times bestselling author of The Venice Sketchbook

“Evocative and compelling from the first sentence, Murphy’s Enchanted Hill artfully transports the reader to the storied mansion of a 1930s Hollywood magnate where the silver screen sparkle blinds guests to the seedy underbelly housed in its halls—which is just as well for Cora, who is hiding secrets of her own after growing up on an isolated prison island. Mysterious, romantic, rich with historical detail, and impeccably written, Enchanted Hill is impossible to put down, the kind of novel that made me fall in love with historical fiction!"
—Joy Callaway, international bestselling author of All the Pretty Places

"Murphy’s particular blend of historical fiction, mystery, and romance hits all the right notes, and its twists make it a dangerous read for those who promise ‘just one more chapter’ before finding themselves up all night. The journey through Enchanted Hill is an exciting one. Once it has been picked up, it’s hard to put down."–St. Louis Magazine

“…likable characters and riveting backstory.”–Kirkus Reviews

"A legendary Hollywood estate becomes the setting for sinister secrets in Enchanted Hill."–PopSugar



“A will-they-won’t-they romance adds to the intrigue and fans of both historical mystery and romance will find much to like here.”–Library Journal

From the Publisher

2023-09-21
Haunted by past mistakes, an aspiring private investigator goes undercover to make a name for herself in Murphy's adult fiction debut.

It's 1930. Rejected by the police department for her gender, Cora McCavanagh is forced to make her own way as a private investigator. She's hired by Mabel Byrd, the scorned wife of media mogul Truman Byrd, to go undercover as a maid at Truman's infamous Enchanted Hill estate with instructions to obtain photographs of her husband in a compromising position with his latest mistress, Clementine Garver. The shocking appearance of presumed-dead Jack Yates, unrecognized by the other guests, soon throws a wrench into her careful plans. Fifteen years after escaping from prison, Jack seeks justice for his wrongful conviction, and he's not thrilled to see the girl who helped him break out but could turn him in at any moment. Sparks, of course, fly, but they deliver more sizzle than steak. For a detective mystery there is remarkably little detecting here. Instead, the author crafts an ample, and more interesting, backstory full of daring prison escapes, murders, and art heists for her two protagonists. By comparison, the present-day mysteries prove lackluster, and rarely do the characters encounter true foils or danger. A heavily sprinkled bird motif provides an opportunity for Cora—and Jack—to showcase some actual PI skills, but it's all too fleeting. Indeed, their greatest challenge seems to be their distraction with each other, in spite of mob threats, gunshots, and wrathful wives. Too somber for a cozy but lacking the bite of a gumshoe, this mystery's saving grace is its likable characters and riveting backstory.

Would have benefited from tighter edits and more risks.

Kirkus Reviews