Something has awakened in the ruins of Munley Priory...England, 1742. In a windswept corner of the North York Moors, the villagers of Munley are dying under mysterious circumstances. Rumour and hearsay are rife, with many blaming the vengeful spirit of a mad monk said to haunt the ruins of a nearby monastery. Dr William Marlowe, Oxford-educated and a firm believer in Science over Superstition, is determined to prove them wrong. Assisted by the ageing Earl of Munley, patriarch of a failing dynasty, and the gallant Mr Whittaker, suitor to the Earl's beautiful daughter Anne, the young physician attempts to uncover the secret of Munley Priory. Yet the skeletons he unearths threaten to shake the very foundations of his rational world.'They are calling this century "The Enlightenment". When Science and Logic tear down the superstition and mysticism we have clung to for so many centuries. A new dawn after millennia of grovelling in the dark, terrified of shadows and bumps in the night. But it is a false dawn. It seems that the cold light of day, which promised to banish the monsters our ancestors feared, has only drawn them in stark relief.''Munley Priory: A Gothic Story' is a fast-paced and darkly humorous supernatural thriller by New Zealand author D M Smith. A tale of murder, madness, family secrets and forbidden passion, set amid a bleak Northern English landscape, that is sure to delight lovers of traditional Gothic fiction.