The Haunting of Moscow House
By (Author) Olesya Salnikova Gilmore
HarperCollins Publishers
HarperVoyager
14th March 2025
5th December 2024
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Historical fantasy
Dark fantasy
Classic horror and ghost stories
Narrative theme: Politics
Fiction: Traditional stories, myths and fairy tales
Hardback
384
Width 159mm, Height 240mm, Spine 38mm
600g
In this elegant gothic horror tale set in post-revolutionary Russia, two formerly aristocratic sisters race to uncover their family's long-buried secrets in a house haunted by a past dangerous and deadly to remember.
It is the summer of 1921, and a group of Bolsheviks have taken over Irina and Lili Goliteva's ancestral home in Moscow, a stately mansion falling into disrepair and decay. The remaining members of their family are ordered to move into the cramped attic, while the officials take over an entire wing of grand rooms downstairs. The sisters understand it is the way of things and know they must forget their noble upbringing to make their way in this new Soviet Russia. But the house begins to whisper of a traumatic past not as dead as they thought.
Eager to escape it and their unwelcome new landlords, Irina and Lili find jobs with the recently arrived American Relief Administration, meant to ease the post-revolutionary famine in Russia. For the sisters, the ARA provides much-needed food and employment, as well as a chance for sensible Irina to help those less fortunate and artistic Lili to express herself for a good cause. It might just lead them to love, too.
But at home, the spirits of their deceased family awaken, desperate to impart what really happened to them during the Revolution. Soon one of the officials living in the house is found dead. Was his death caused by something supernatural, or by someone all too human And are Irina and Lili and their family next Only unearthing the frightening secrets of Moscow House will reveal all. But this means the sisters must dig deep into a past no one in Russia except the dead are allowed to remember.
Olesya Salnikova Gilmore was born in Moscow, Russia, raised in the United States, and graduated from Pepperdine University with a BA in English and Political Science, and from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law with a JD. She practised litigation at a large law firm for several years before pursuing her dream of becoming an author. She is most happy writing historical fiction and fantasy inspired by Eastern European folklore. She lives in a wooded lakeside suburb of Chicago with her husband and daughter. The Witch and the Tsar is her debut novel.