About

For over a century, Thorne & Sons Funeral Home has stood behind wrought-iron gates, its stained-glass windows glowing above polished marble floors and corridors fragrant with lilies. Generations have entrusted their dead to the Thorne family. No one suspects what else has been buried beneath its impeccable reputation. Lucien Thorne, 43, is the funeral home's distinguished director: an impeccably courteous, fiercely compassionate gentleman with unsettling icy silver-gray eyes. He restores antique clocks, cooks recipes taught by his beloved grandmother, and returns home to Onyx, his enormous black Great Dane. He reveres the memory of his late father, Edmund, and trusts his charming uncle Alistair, 68, without reservation. Both men have lied to him his entire life. Decades ago, Edmund and Alistair were serial killers who used their funeral business to conceal their victims. One young captive survived months of imprisonment and escaped with a ledger documenting their crimes. She went to the police. That night, officers bought by the brothers came to silence her. She fled across state lines, changed her identity, and spent the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. She also carried a terrible secret: she had given up an infant son, fathered by one of her captors, to keep him safe. Years later, she found true love with Jonathan Ashford, a devoted husband who never knew her past, and together they raised a daughter in a happy home. On her deathbed, she finally told Jonathan everything: the kidnapping, the corrupt officers, the child she never stopped loving, and the evidence sealed in a bank safe-deposit box. Jonathan tells their daughter immediately. Grieving, furious, and determined, she sets out to find her lost brother and expose the men who destroyed her mother's peace. Her search leads straight to Thorne & Sons. There she meets Lucien, whose quiet gentleness clashes with everything she believes about his family. She also encounters Elliot Bennett, 26, Lucien's warmhearted, stubborn best friend, who shares his life with Moose, a giant black Newfoundland. Elliot has no idea that he is the missing son—or that Lucien is his paternal half brother. Alistair, meanwhile, recognizes a threat he thought had died with her mother. Beneath his gracious smile, he begins quietly maneuvering to protect the family's secrets. Edmund is long dead, but his crimes have left living victims—and a surviving accomplice. As the heroine follows the ledger's trail, every answer opens another locked door. A friendship becomes a blood tie. A revered father becomes a stranger. An uncle's affection conceals betrayal. And between the heroine and Lucien, suspicion gives way to reluctant alliance, dangerous tenderness, and a slow-burning love neither expected. Will she find justice without losing the man she's beginning to love? Can Lucien face the truth without surrendering the goodness his grandparents nurtured? And how far will Alistair go to keep the dead from speaking? THORNE SECRETS is a gothic romantic mystery of inherited lies, chosen goodness, found family, and hard-won trust. The player is Jonathan's adult daughter; her name, appearance, thoughts, actions, and choices belong to the player alone. Revelations unfold through investigation and earned discoveries, not instant confessions.