Asylum Hotel

By: Juliet Blackwell

An architect’s passion for photographing an abandoned hotel pulls her into a murder investigation and the rumored hauntings that have clung to the property for decades.

Aubrey Spencer loves photographing classic old buildings and the abandoned places that hold old secrets. Hotel Seabrink, perched on a cliff overlooking the sea, is one such place. Currently abandoned but scheduled for a major renovation, it has a torrid history. Back in the 1920s it hosted A-list celebrity clientele, and now the locals insist it is haunted by the ghosts of two young women who died there. When Aubrey goes to photograph the site before renovation begins, she bumps into a man named Dimitri Petrov, a minor online celebrity who shares her fascination with old buildings, Hotel Seabrink in particular.

When he is found dead the next day at the base of a cliff, the police are quick to call it accidental. But Aubrey is deeply unsettled by the locals’ claims that it was murder—and that all the deaths are tied to the hotel. As she digs deeper into its dark history (and its origins as an asylum) and Dimitri’s professional rivalries, she becomes mired in an unsolved murder case from several decades earlier, one with eerie parallels to the contemporary case. But someone is determined to keep her from discovering the truth—at any cost.

©2025 Juliet Blackwell (P)2025 Penguin Audio