Just as Lord Venn is making a passionate proposal to the sixth heiress on his list, a hooded spectre appears in a flash of lightning. This hereditary curse is becoming inconvenient - particularly as Venn is next on the list to come to a terrible end.

Clarinda Greendale has other reasons for rejecting Venn besides the curse: - such as his being a wild, brawling social outcast and a fortune hunter.

Harley Venn dismisses the history of the curse as a series of conjuring tricks. Clarinda would like to help Venn fight the curse if she could; only she does not want to marry him and take on his outrageous household in the haunted Stoke Castle. Besides, wholly unlike the rackety Venn, Clarinda is spiritual and serious minded, and wishes to keep her independence.

They make an incongruous pair, though the wicked Venn has always set off unmaidenly tinglings in Clarinda. Meanwhile the curse closes in. Can the drunken charlatan Venn hires to help him prove that it is all a hoax be of any use at all?

A winner of the coveted B.R.A.G medallion for outstanding self-published fiction, this historically accurate and sensual spoof of classic Gothic should delight readers with a lively sense of humour.