Tomorrow marks the official release of The Vanishing at Verdant Hall, the first novel in my newest series, The Nora Halewell Timekeeper Archive. It’s always a little surreal, bringing a new character into the world, and Nora Halewell has arrived with all the quiet tenacity and curious intellect that I so love writing. Some of you may find something familiar in her. And you’re not wrong.
If you’ve walked beside Clara Everhart through clockwork riddles and mirror-scripted mysteries, you may sense a kinship here. Like Clara, Nora is a woman deeply rooted in the world of stories—an archivist who believes the past has something to teach us, if only we listen carefully. But where Clara’s adventures twist through known histories and crafted inventions, Nora’s journey is more personal, more haunted by inheritance and memory. Her story begins not with a trunk or a coded letter, but with a key, a manor, and a book that quite literally swallows her whole.
In The Vanishing at Verdant Hall, Nora inherits Greystone Manor from a distant relative she’s never met. Hidden within the library is a volume glowing with impossible energy. The moment she touches it, Nora is transported, swept into the 19th century and into the heart of a mystery that will test her resolve, her wit, and her ability to decipher the truth in a world that is not her own.
Verdant Hall is the kind of place I adore writing about: rich with secrets, cloaked in mist, and humming with the echoes of a vanished past. Within its walls, a woman has disappeared, a wedding hangs in limbo, and time itself is quietly, relentlessly slipping.
Nora’s story feels both fresh and familiar to me. She’s quieter than Clara, more cautious perhaps, but no less determined. And where Clara often runs toward the unraveling of time, Nora finds herself caught in it, gently but firmly compelled to understand what has been lost.
For readers who have followed me through Arabella Grey’s village mysteries and Clara Everhart’s temporal puzzles, I hope Nora Halewell offers a new perspective on the mysteries of time and self. Her story is about inheritance, not just of property, but of silence, of truth, and of hidden strength.
The Vanishing at Verdant Hall is available now in pre-release and officially launches tomorrow. If you love historical mystery, a touch of the uncanny, and heroines who find courage between the lines of dusty manuscripts, I believe you’ll find something special in Nora’s journey.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
Warmly,
Mandy
