How did Lucy Greythorne die? From the moment Nell Featherstone arrives at Greythorne Manor as a governess to eight-year-old Sophie, she finds herself haunted by the fate of the mistress of the house, and entranced by the child's father, the enigmatic Professor Nathaniel Greythorne. When a violent storm reveals Lucy's body is not in her grave, Nell becomes suspicious about the Professor's research. But what she discovers in his laboratory will turn all her ideas about life and death, morality and creation on their head. Enthralled by a man walking a fine line between passion and madness, Nell must make an impossible choice between life, death, and life after death, where any mistake could be her last. Perfect for fans of Daphne DuMaurier, Susan Hill and Kate Mosse. L.M. Merrington was born in Melbourne, Australia. An only child, she grew up reading extensively and imagining herself into her favourite stories – for several years she was the unknown sixth member of the Famous Five. Her first story, written at age six, was a terribly derivative fairytale called 'Rose Red and the Nine Pixies', but it started something and she has barely stopped writing since. First published at age 12, she wrote a series of half-finished fantasy novels and angsty poetry throughout her teenage years, before completing a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) at the University of Melbourne, majoring in media and communications and Chinese, and freelancing extensively as a journalist. Her journalism and academic writing has appeared in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin, East Asia Forum, Inside Story and South Asia Masala, among others. Deciding that she liked research, she then went on to do a PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra, where she worked on China–India relations, but she quickly realised that writing a dissertation left little time for writing anything else. After graduating in 2012, it took participation in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) to get her creative juices flowing again, and she completed her first novel, Greythorne, in late 2013. She is currently researching bushrangers and min-min lights in anticipation of he r next novel, as well as endeavouring to finish an academic monograph, tentatively titled India and China in the Asia-Pacific, 1890–2030.