Laura Benedict Books In Order

Publication Order of Bliss House Novels Books

Publication Order of Trouble Cat Mysteries Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Akashic Noir Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Laura Benedict is American award-winning author of Horror, Mystery, Thrillers, Literature and Fiction books best known for her Bliss House series. She has been nominated for ITW Thriller and Edgar Awards. She has always been fascinated by mysterious and dark stories by authors such as Stephen King, Brontes, Edgar Allan Poe, and Agatha Christie. Her interest in writing sparked as a little girl, and she would always find excitement between book covers.

Her first short story was featured in Ellery Queen Magazine and several anthologies. For the past ten years, the author has worked as a freelance book reviewer for The Grand Rapids and other newspapers. She is a resident of Southern Illinois where she lives with her husband and two children.

Charlotte’s Story

Charlotte’s Story is the first book in Bliss House series. We are introduced to Charlotte Bliss who has everything in her life. A loving husband, two adorable children and old house filled with space and light. However, everything comes crumbling down when one of her children dies.

She had been alone in this old house with her children, taking a nap after an afternoon of champagne when one of her daughter, Eva drowns in the bathtub. She blames herself for her daughter’s death. She knows that if she hadn’t slept that afternoon, her daughter wouldn’t have drowned and would be alive. Her beloved husband Press at first doesn’t blame her but in the weeks and months after his daughter’s death things start to change. And as Charlotte’s husband changes, so does the Bliss House.

It starts with Charlotte’s sighting of Olivia during Eva’s funeral. Weird as it may sound, she believes that her mother in law reached out to her from the grave and now she thinks her daughter, Eva could as well do the same. However, Charlotte’s dreams of seeing her dead daughter again soon turn into a nightmare as the old house starts to reveal its dark and evil secrets.

Charlotte’s story kicks off almost innocently. The author tricks you into welcoming the idea that Charlotte might be so stressed by the loss of her daughter that she slowly spirals into madness. But the truth is that Bliss House is a house up to no good.

Poor Charlotte, her simple life was so sweet until her mother in law died. Well, while Eva’s death affects Charlotte, it’s her mother-in-law death that set things in motion even though Charlotte never notices anything out of the ordinary in the old house until her daughter’s funeral. It’s like a switch flipped during the funeral. Her husband becomes less loving and doesn’t seem to tune with her anymore, and the ghosts in the old house begin to reveal themselves. Bliss House is a house of nightmares, and if you’ve read the previous installments, you’ll realize that this old cursed house tends to reveal to people what they are most scared of. It reveals things that will set them over the edge into madness land. The house itself has witnessed much pain and suffering all which have been absorbed to its walls throughout the years probably the reason it’s up to no good.

If you’re looking for something scary that will send shivers down your spine and sneak up on you, Bliss House Series is highly recommended. It’s not a must to read the novels in the series in any particular order. The books order of releases moves in a backward chronology, with Cold Alone set before Bliss House and Charlotte’s story set before the two books. Ideally, you can approach Bliss House series in any order you like.

The Abandoned Heart

This is the third book in Laura Benedict’s Bliss House series. There’s no bliss in Bliss house. In the ancient gate, Virginia stands a luxurious house erected by Randolph Bliss, a handsome man who in 1878 ignored his grim warning to construct his house elsewhere. The ground underneath the Bliss House is full of tragedy that curses generations, flowing through the foundation and infecting madness in its wake. Randolph’s first and second wives and his mistress witness his growing insanity with tales of his beastly manipulations and their struggles for better lives for themselves and their children. Their desire to love, live, and vengeance also fills this old house. Spanning for more than five decades, The Abandoned Heart is the third and final book in a trilogy of Gothic books in which a haunted house sires haunted lives.

Bliss House is a mansion characterized by secret rooms, an evil history full of unlucky omens, secrets, ghosts, madness, and perversion.

The characters in this book include the first wife Amelia who’s lured to the Virginia estate from her Long Island home. There’s Tamora, their infantile daughter who suffers from a mental condition and Kiku a Japanese girl who becomes Randolph’s sexual pet. Lastly, there’s Lucy a socialite yearning for freedom but imprisoned by secrets of her own. The house is characters itself build on a site selected on purpose for its evil past, and then there is Randolph, charming, perverted, and a cruel mad man. The first chapter and prologue lay the foundation of the story. The prologue outlines what happens first and also details what happens in the last. From that point, the chapter also builds up the yet separate but connected stories that are the wrecked lives of Lucy and Amelia, women who live in the haunted house.

Both Lucy and Amelia share sorrow. They are children who physically constitute the abnormality of their father. Randolph bears a child with the Japanese mistress, and like the other women, her love for her child transforms into a thirst for vengeance that becomes a part of Bliss House.

The Abandoned Heart features a sophisticated but yet simple plot with a timely introduction of the main and supporting cast to make it easier for the reader to follow along. The characters are beautifully crafted, and the writing is taut and lovely one doesn’t get lost in the story.