The raven and thedove

the long version

Synopsis - The house was built on Raven’s Moor. White stone in a sombre setting, colonnaded, tiered round with balconies, it had gleamed in the moorland half light like some huge sinister wedding cake. The long windows had shone with the glow of a hundred candles; there was dancing in the ballroom; music from the great gallery; and on the terrace the silken couples strolling, and the soft murmur of theri laughter. But all that was past. By the time Emily Dove came to Raven’s Moor in the autumn of 1876, to be servant to Albert and Sophie Stone, things had changed. Only the servants wing was in occupation now a chilly, comfortless apartment for Emily and her employers. Outside, nettles grew hight in the formal gardens, and the paths were moss grown and cracked. Ivy cloaked the house, shrouded its balconies, blinded is very windows. And somewhere under its crumbling icing, the great cake of Raven’s Moor was rotten. If she had not fallen in love with Albert, Emily’s youth and innocence might have protected her and kept her ignorant. But, loving Albert himself an innocent, and destined victim of the evil that inhabited the house her eyes were opened. She saw that death stalked Raven’s Moor. And worse than death: Sophia, last daughter of the bad blood of the Tremaines, patrolled the empty corridors and prowled by night the locked and shuttered rooms. On what old, unspeakable secret did she brood? And when that secret was revealed, what catastrophe would come to Raven’s Moor and those who lived there? The Raven and the Dove is gothic horror at its most sensitive and most powerful. Here is a novel for readers who like to feel that special chill at the base of the spine; who like to pick up a book and then find they simply can’t put it down.