Hester Fox Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Hester Fox is a Historical Fiction, Horror and Romance author who loves to describe herself as a mother and full-time author. Fox previously worked as a preventative maintenance technician and also did some museum work in historical archeology. She worked in places such as Historic New England and the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum before she quit to become a professional author. She grew up in New England and had always been intrigued by local history and as such read a lot of historical fiction and watched movies about different historical periods. This is why she decided to pursue a degree in art history and medieval studies and a master’s in historical archeology that led to a career as a museum collections maintenance technician. During her time working for the museum’s collections, she was responsible for caring and cleaning collections that ranged from early American furniture, ancient artifacts, and paintings from old masters. She started writing when she was still working at a historical house museum and published her first novel “The Witch of Willow Hall” in 2018. When she is not writing, she loves to spend her weekend drinking lattes, browsing bookshops and exploring historical sites in Boston, where she lives with her husband.

Fox has been writing for as long as she can remember and says that when she was six, she wrote a magazine for her pets. Her first short fiction was named “Squeaky and his Adventures” a story about a mouse. In writing her novels, she was highly influenced by her interest in storytelling and history but never planned on becoming a professional author. Hester Fox first got interested in romance when she was in her 20s. She had always kept away from it as she thought it smutty, frivolous and something to be ashamed of. Growing up, she had spent much time reading the likes of the Brontes, Dickens, Hardy and other literary fiction heavyweights since she loved literature from the 19th and 18th centuries. She first got turned on by romance when she read “Outlander” and just could not flip through the pages fast enough to take in the relationship dynamics and love story. From then on, she was hooked and read tons of romance material from the likes of Tessa Dare, Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas, and Alyssa Cole. She particularly loved the combination of the supernatural history and romance in the novels in the novels of Simone St. James and Susanna Kearsley.

Hester Fox has said that the idea for “The Witch of Willow Hall” crept into her mind and built up over time. She was working on several properties for Historic New England and had to visit Barrett House, a beautiful house in a rural setting that seemed to be the perfect setting for her novel. From there, she fleshed out the idea and characters for her debut. Her novels draw heavily from the intriguing 19th-century Gothic tropes such as the ominous atmosphere full of foreboding, a gutsy and independent heroine and a dark hero. Combining romance, mystery and some historical references, they make for great reads for a cool autumn evening. Her debut novel “The Witch of Willow Hill” is set in Northeastern Massachusetts in the city of Boston. The setting of the novel is two hundred years after the Salem Witch Trials. Most of the witches had been eliminated from society but there is one left and even she does not know that she is one. The novel has been compared to Alice Hoffman’s “The Rules of Magic,” and Louisa Morgan’s “A Secret History of Witches.” It has also been compared to the Gothic classics from the likes of Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” and Daphne Maurier’s “Rebecca.” Her second novel “The Widow of Pale Harbor” is set in Maine and just like the first novel they have a magical component thought the novel is more of a romance mystery. It has been compared to Beauty and the Beast with an agoraphobic widow playing the role of beast in a town that is convinced she killed her husband. She cannot make any friends in town and lives a lonely life until she meets and develops a relationship with a young preacher from Concord who moves into town.

“The Witch of Willow Hall” is the story of Lydia Montrose, a prim AF lady of the house and daughter of a rich business man in early 19th century Boston. Catherine the eldest sister is the most accomplished of the three sisters though she is not as carefree or as imaginative as Emeline the youngest. They are an influential family in the city but are forced to leave after rumors start spreading about Catherine. They head out to Willow Hall their summer house in the small town of New Oldsberry, where they intend to start a new life. Catherine and her mother hate that they have to leave Boston but Emeline does not mind given that she has been told that she can now play with mermaids in her new home. Luckily, Lydia had recently broken off her engagement and now all she wants is to avoid another scandal that would smear the family. What the family does not know is that Lydia has a lot of secrets which Willow Hall may just unearth. But as the family is getting settled in Willow Hall, Lydia increasingly seems to be a magnet for bizarre happenings. She hears hearty laughter in the hall, sees little boys running around the grounds, and hears painful deep wailing as from a woman in mourning. She ignores the signs for a time until the Montrose family is hit by a tragedy that unearths some very dark family secrets.

“The Widow of Pale Harbor” is a novel set in mid-19th century Maine. The lead in the novel is a mysterious widow named Sophronia Carver who lives with her maid Helen on Castle Carver, her clifftop home. Her husband had died a few years past and the villagers believe that she is a witch that killed him. She never goes into the village anymore as she is afraid of what they might do to her. She is relatively comfortable and is not bored as she runs the magazine her husband left her. She also takes long walks on her expansive property for relaxation. But things might be changing since the arrival of Gabriel Stone who is pretending to be a transcendentalist minister. Gabriel had been traveling with the minister who died on the road and he took the opportunity to fulfill his wife’s wishes and while at it do some good. He is soon brought up to speed about the happenings in Pale Harbour and told that Sophronia the old witch is responsible for all their troubles. The villagers tell him to stay away from her but that only makes him more interested in the reclusive woman. When he makes her acquaintance, he finds that he is attracted to her and that she the opposite of what was advertised. He now needs to help her prove that she is not the one behind the evil happening in Pale Harbor by finding the person responsible.

“The Orphan of Cemetery Hill” by Hester Fox is set in 1844 Boston, where Tabby is a dangerous but special woman that can communicate with recently deceased people. She had been orphaned and had been living with her aunt Bellafonte but had to flee with Alice her sister. Her aunt was only interested in using her gift for profit, given that there was an explosion in the demand for séances. That had been a few years ago and she is now separated from Alice and is a grown woman. She is working with Eli her adopted father, who is the groundskeeper for a cemetery in Boston. But then a group of grave robbers conducts a series of daring robberies and callously frame Tabby for them. The only thing that could save or damn them is her gift.