The Trembling Hills

From the New York Times–bestselling “master of suspense”: A woman’s mysterious past is unearthed during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (Mary Higgins Clark).
 
Sara Bishop was raised in Chicago, but her heart belongs in San Francisco, where her childhood sweetheart, Ritchie Temple, has moved to pursue a career in architecture. Convinced he feels the same way for her, she hopes his fiancée, the manipulative Judith Renwick, is just a passing fancy. And now Sara has packed her bags to prove it. Sarah’s mother is not only concerned by her daughter’s pursuit of an elusive romance, she’s also scared of the city itself—and the secret she and Sara’s father buried there years ago.
 
Once Sara arrives on the far side of the Golden Gate, she finds herself in the midst of a tantalizing puzzle involving Ritchie, Judith, and Judith’s mysterious brother. She soon discovers a monstrously wicked matriarch nursing a strange and unfathomable vengeance in her Nob Hill mansion. And one fateful morning, when the earth moves and the city is set afire, the pieces of Sara’s past will emerge from the ashes—but will it be too late to save her?
 
A recipient of the Agatha Award for Lifetime Achievement, Phyllis A. Whitney is the acknowledged “Queen of the American gothics” (The New York Times).

 
 

Born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 9, 1903, Phyllis A. Whitney was a prolific author of award-winning adult and children’s fiction. Her sixty-year writing career and the publication of seventy-six books, which together sold over fifty million copies worldwide, established her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century and earned her the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”

Whitney resided in several places, including New Jersey. She traveled to every location mentioned in her books in order to better depict the settings of her stories. She earned the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1988, the Agatha in 1990, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Midland Authors in 1995. Whitney was working on her autobiography at the time of her passing at the age of 104.