Kirkland Revels is a Gothic novel by Victoria Holt. Set in a 16th-century former abbey in Yorkshire, this melodrama deals with the life of a young unexpected bride. The novel follows its first-person narrator, Catherine Corder
(later Rockwell) as she goes to live in her husband’s manor house, Kirkland Revels, where he apparently commits suicide by jumping from a balcony. Catherine is not convinced that his death is suicide and sets out to prove that he was murdered. Her investigations uncover a range of family secrets. She discovers that her mother is not dead, as she supposed, but confined in a private asylum and is not her biological mother but rather her adoptive mother and also her aunt. The local doctor, Deveril Smith, believes himself to be the unacknowledged, illegitimate son of Catherine’s wealthy father-in-law. Deveril feels that he should be the heir of Kirkland Revels, but is prevented from inheriting by
his illegitimacy.