Balcony of Evil — Georgia M. Shewmake

When dark-haired Alexandra Belle Graham is laid off her job, she finally has the time to visit her only remaining relatives. She looks forward to renewing a friendship with her cousin, but the beautiful Linda has grown into a spoiled and sarcastic young woman who is preoccupied with the handsome Harvey Boyd, a promising young executive in one of Uncle Dean's many businesses. Alex is welcomed by Aunt Carol and Uncle Dean, and immediately notices her uncle's worried manner. As for Ashley House itself, the somber mansion atop a mountain peak is as gloomy and foreboding as Alex remembered it from her last visit when she was six. Nor is she cheered by her own dark Victorian apartment on the largely unused third floor.

Left on her own her first night in the house, Alex briefly meets the attractive bu mysterious Anthony Kerry, who unexplained wealth enabled him to build her own castlelike mansion nearby. Later that evening Alex remembers her father's warnings about the third-floor balcony and decides to explore. The moment she steps out on the balcony she has a feeling of almost palpable evil and quickly returns. In the morning her questions about the balcony go unanswered; all she get in reply are vague hints of past tragedies.

Alex comes to learn the history of the original owners of Ashley House when there is a suspicious accident on the balcony and all the local superstitions of a curse upon the house and its occupants seem to come true.