What do you think?
Rate this book
The Master of Blacktower
Damaris Gordon shuddered at the thought of working for the cruel and bitter Master of Blacktower—but her father's death left her no choice. Suddenly her fate—her life itself—was in the black silk-gloved hands of Gavin Hamilton, a man scarred and tortured by an unspoken past, whose mocking laughter echoes through his ancient Scottish estate. Damaris has heard the whispers that accuse Gavin Hamilton of his wife's death and his young daughter's crippling injury. But the pain and sadness barely hidden behind his blazing dark stare touch Damaris deeply—and a courageous heart is luring her to the estate's topmost tower in search of his dangerous secrets.
352 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
94 people are currently reading
987 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Michaels
96 books696 followersBarbara Michaels was a pen name of Barbara Mertz. She also wrote as Elizabeth Peters, as well as under her own name.
She was born in Canton, Illinois and has written over fifty books including some in Egyptology. Dr. Mertz also holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Egyptology.
She was born in Canton, Illinois and has written over fifty books including some in Egyptology. Dr. Mertz also holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Egyptology.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
March 29, 2015
I liked it much better the second time around.
This old-fashioned gothic was so gothic it almost oozed gothic. Barbara Michaels does gothic stuff but rarely historical stuff like this. Not saying I prefer it over her normal books, but it was a groovy change I dug.
I totally hearted Gavin Hamilton. He was serious, scarred, flawed, tall, rich, oozed goth. Damaris was a good heroine who used her brain, stayed loyal, and - even if she peeked around the corners a little too hesitantly - decently fierce with a sassy tongue when it was warranted.
Besides gothic mystery of the main tale, the unwinding love tale captivated yours truly completely. Side characters like the vicious daughter, dingy maid, and funny suitor made it that more delightful.
The villain was someone I kind of guessed, although I wasn't sure until the end. Even so, it made a twisted, good story to read. There were whispers among the townsfolk about a missing wife, which all added to the charm. Twists and turns kept me on my toes for this one, not just in the story’s revelation, but also the heart pitter-patter of the mains.
The ending was a little too abrupt, but the story worked great overall. Exciting story with some mystery, a heroic love story that leaves a good feeling when the last page has been read. The Master of Blacktower is perfect when in the mood for a classic gothic accompanied with a crumbling castle isolated on a cliff in a foreign time that held as much mystery as it promised.
June 19, 2016
Oh my gawd, I need to get more gothic romance to use as trash books. Why have I been wasting time on thrillers? It was so readable and fun. Tons of descriptions of the castle and clothing. Ridiculous lines that were unintentionally funny. I love all of the time devoted to Toby the cat and Flame the horse. There was some ableism that was unnecessary though.
May 5, 2008
The Master of Black Tower by Barbara Michaels is a Bronte-esc gothic romance. The story is complete with a scarred, wealthy, and supposedly widowed employer, Gavin Hamilton. The heroine in this story, Damaris Gordon is fairy tale beautiful, independent, and intelligent – despite the fact she is nearly flawless, the reader quickly is enchanted. Damaris goes to work as a secretary for Gavin after the death of her father. Soon she becomes entangled in her feelings for Gavin and his dark past. The more deeply she becomes involved with Gavin, the harder it becomes for her to escape. Her life and sanity are threatened by the mysteries around Gavin. Damaris must follow her heart to save herself and the people she cares about.
This book is a shining example of Barbara Michaels’ gothic work. The reader soon becomes lost in the story, hoping everything will work out for Damaris while all the while knowing it will end happily. However, the sense of time is off throughout the story. The reader never doubts that this is a contemporary story set in Victorian times.
This book is a shining example of Barbara Michaels’ gothic work. The reader soon becomes lost in the story, hoping everything will work out for Damaris while all the while knowing it will end happily. However, the sense of time is off throughout the story. The reader never doubts that this is a contemporary story set in Victorian times.
May 11, 2020
This story was like beauty and the beast set in Scotland. It stalled out in the middle and almost lost me. I was very glad when it picked up at the end but I would have liked more details in the ending.
Damaris is a young woman who's father just passed away leaving her with only a small amount of money to live on. The solicitor tells her that she must marry soon or go to live with a cranky aunt. Her options are limited for suitors and she definitely does not want to live with her aunt. She feels it is unfair that she can't support herself working as a secretary since she learned the profession helping her father. Against the wishes of the solicitor she advertises and finds that the solicitor was right when he said they would mistake her intentions. Then she got one more reply to her advertisement. This man was a distant cousin and she was surprised that he knew so much about her family. He had a scar across his face and always wore black gloves over his hands. He was very gruff but she held her own and in the end she decided to go to far off Scotland with him to put his library in order. She also meets his snarky little daughter that cannot walk. She takes pity on the girl when she realizes she has been cooped up in that room all by herself for so long. She can't help but wonder though, why there is no sign of the wife anywhere, not even tucked away in the unused wing. The people in the village told gossip about him killing his wife but she couldn't bring herself to believe that.
Damaris is a young woman who's father just passed away leaving her with only a small amount of money to live on. The solicitor tells her that she must marry soon or go to live with a cranky aunt. Her options are limited for suitors and she definitely does not want to live with her aunt. She feels it is unfair that she can't support herself working as a secretary since she learned the profession helping her father. Against the wishes of the solicitor she advertises and finds that the solicitor was right when he said they would mistake her intentions. Then she got one more reply to her advertisement. This man was a distant cousin and she was surprised that he knew so much about her family. He had a scar across his face and always wore black gloves over his hands. He was very gruff but she held her own and in the end she decided to go to far off Scotland with him to put his library in order. She also meets his snarky little daughter that cannot walk. She takes pity on the girl when she realizes she has been cooped up in that room all by herself for so long. She can't help but wonder though, why there is no sign of the wife anywhere, not even tucked away in the unused wing. The people in the village told gossip about him killing his wife but she couldn't bring herself to believe that.
April 20, 2020
Я ничего не потеряла бы, если бы не стала дочитывать книгу после первой главы. 19 век. Юная дева, поступающая в услужение ко вдовцу со шрамом, тайной и избалованной дочерью. Удаленное шотландское поместье, настойчивые ухажеры и попытки покушения. Все это прекрасно, но как-то вторично. А главная героиня с ее "ах, я не должна, но ах, так хочется, я должна уехать, но я все-таки останусь! боже, я себя не понимаю, но точно знаю, что хочу вот его" вызывает не столько симпатию, сколько желание пристукнуть, чтоб не мучилась.
November 14, 2022
It was April of 1853, Dumaris Gordon was laying her father to rest.
“The memory was a s sharp as knife. When I closed my eyes, I could see it again: the sweep of delicate green broken by white marble crosses and weeping angels, softened by a grey veil of rain – and the austere rectangle of the newly dug grave at my feet…”
And immediately after the funeral, Mr. Downey, her father’s longtime, trusted lawyer turned to Dumaris to indicate it was time to go.
In that moment, she considered Mr. Downey,
“He was at my side because there was no one else to take that place. He had been kind, in his dry, legal way, but as soon as the service was over, he had led me firmly toward the waiting carriage. We had business to discuss, he and I – unpleasant business – and I was as anxious to be done with it as he was.”
They took the carriage to the home she and her father had lived in, meeting in his study,
“A fire was burning in the library when we reached the house. The room was cozy and warm; the ruddy light shone on Father’s big desk, with its cracked leather chair behind it, and on the book-lined walls. At the sight of the familiar room and the empty chair behind the unnaturally tidy desk, my eyes filled with tears…”
As the rain began to fall outside, the lawyer and the lonely young woman began to discuss the business at hand, she expresses how kind Mr. Downey has been and she tells him that she doesn’t want to trespass on his time any further, finally she asks what it is he wishes to speak about.
Mr. Downey seems reluctant,
“Perhaps this is not a good time. Your father told me you were accustomed to assisting him in his affairs; but you are very young…”
He paused, then went on,
“It has been a strange life for a young girl – your mother dead since your infancy, no companions of your own sex and station…”
“I needed none,” Dumaris insists, resenting the implied criticism of her father, “Papa was all I needed – friend, teacher, parent. Please Mr. Downey, don’t…remind me. Tell me the truth, and let’s be done with it. I’m destitute, am I not?”
“Two hundred a year is not destitution.”
“But neither is it independence.”
“A young lady of eighteen has no need of independence.” He made it sound like a nasty word,
“Your aunt will certainly offer you a home.”
Dumaris laughed, “My aunt dislikes me intensely, and has ever since I informed her, at the age of five, that she looked like her own pug dog…”
Mr. Downey gave an exasperated sniff, then asked about her aunt’s son, her cousin…
“Cousin Randall?” Dumaris exclaims, “Yes…I know everyone expects that Randall and I will marry. That, Mr. Downey, is why I was hoping for independence.”
The lawyer attempts to extol the virtues of young Mr. Randall Gordon, as a gentleman of modern, liberal opinions…and even that he’d expressed interest in her to him on more than one occasion.
That’s when she cut in, “Dear Mr. Downey,” she said, leaning forward, touching his hand, “I can’t marry Randall. Not even to oblige you.”
“Then what is your alternative?” The lawyer sighed but sounded less annoyed than she though he might’ve.
She looked him in the eye, then said, rather airily, “I shall seek employment.”
The lawyer quickly asked if she were to apply as a companion or governess to which she expressed her dismay at how unfair it was that these were considered the only respectable positions open to a woman of her age. Then she added,
“For years I’ve been Father’s secretary and assistant. He trained me; he told me no man could have served him better, why can’t I use those skills?”
She watched the lawyer’s jaw drop, “My child, we can’t change the world even if we want to…”
She guessed, based on his expression that it was only his belief that she was mentally unsettled by grief that spared her from a severe lecture.
The lawyer went on to explain that the reason that positions such as governess worked was because they are employed by the lady of the house; a secretary, on the other hand, is employed by a man, and therefore spends hours alone with his employee, behind closed doors…
“Miss Gordon, do I need to say more?”
He went on to say that besides the perceived impropriety, she would not be hired because the custom was for gentlemen to hire male secretaries, and that this tradition was too well established to challenge.
The conversation then goes back and forth between Dumaris insisting that she’ll try advertising her secretarial services, and Mr. Downey advocating, once again for her to consider the interest of her cousin Randall Gordon.
A short time later the lawyer leaves, and the discussion ends at an impasse.
Shortly after, Dumaris posts applications to businesses in the area, the owners of which reply that they are not in need of a secretary. And as time went on, she became discouraged, wondering if perhaps Mr. Downey was right after all.
And to make matters worse, her cousin Randall wrote that he would be coming to visit in one week. She knew he’d arrive with an expectation of a discussion of marriage…she couldn’t stand the thought. Her mind then drifted to the two equally unpleasant possibilities for her future. One, she would become a withered, dry “stick of a woman” as a spinster. Or the other, she’d married Randall…
“He would have the right to touch her whenever he wanted…with his plump, puffy hands that she was sure would be clammy and unpleasantly cold to the touch.
She was deep in gloomy thoughts when Ellen, the maid came in with a note the messenger had just delivered. Dumaris set it on the table, in no hurry to read what she assumed was a letter from Mr. Downey, or yet another rejection from her secretarial applications. Wort of all would be a letter from Randall.
Finally, after two cups of tea, she opened the letter, not recognizing the heavy, black, sprawling handwriting which read,
“If D.G. who advertised herself as a trained secretary, will call tomorrow at the Traveler’s Hotel at 10 a.m. She may present her credentials for a position. Ask for Mr. Gavin Hamilton.”
For a few moments Dumaris hesitated, she didn’t know this Mr. Hamilton, and meeting at a hotel?
But then she recalled her earlier imaginings of being a spinster, or being married to the cold, puffy handed cousin Randall.
She quickly decided that she’d be at the Traveler’s Hotel at 10 o’clock.
It was at that time that she met Mr. Gavin Hamilton, Master of Blacktower…
His face, from brow to chin was marked by a livid scar that puckered his flesh and distorted the shape of his mouth. The rest of his face was regular, although the features were too strongly marked to be called handsome. He was also tall and foreboding.
“Sit down,” he demanded in a harsh voice, “You, I take it, are D.G. what do the initials stand for?”
“Dumaris Gordon” she replied, deciding it was a good time to sit down, before her knees gave out.
Mr. Hamilton then says, “I had thought of offering you a position. But I had not expected to find you so young, and so…”
He seemed to stop himself from continuing, then after a few heartbeats he continued, “Your duties would consist of cataloguing and arranging my library. You would also take dictation. I am prepared to pay a salary of fifty pounds per annum. Does that agreement suit you?”
“Yes,” she answers without even thinking.
Mr. Hamilton then explains that his present home is in northern Scotland, far from the comforts of civilization. He also explains that the only ladies of her class were Mrs. Cannon, one of his employees, and his daughter, an invalid, unable to walk. She is sixteen years old he tells her.
He then shocks her when he describes his daughter as having, “the brains of a gnat,” and a character, he assures her, no more pleasing. He calls her an idiot and suggests that Dumaris avoid her, because that’s exactly what he does.
“Do you still want the position?” He asks.
“I accept the position,” she declares, knowing that despite the peculiarities of the situation, it was preferrable over her other dismal options.
“We leave two days hence, at ten in the morning, for Blacktower House,” he commanded.
And it was just four days later that Dumaris Gordon got her first look at The Black Tower of Dunnoch…
“I saw it first at twilight. The Highland mountains were purple in the fading light, the western sky a brilliant tapestry of gold and crimson. Against the fiery northern sunset, the ruined tower rose in jagged silhouette, still standing guard over Blacktower House, which sprawled along the slope of the hill below…”
A cloud gathered over her spirits. Blacktower House…it was ominous…
And that brought me to the end of chapter one, already I was asking one question after another. And I know if I’m doing that, it’s a sign that I’ll enjoy the story. And in the end, that is exactly what happened in this amazing tale that included “Old Turtle” Angus the valet, Toby the sociable feline, Davey the elusive old minstrel, and Mrs. Cannon the elderly resident of Blacktower who seemed to exist somewhere between the realm of staff and long-term guest of the estate, a character who spent half the story nodding off…often in the strangest places.
And then there was the heroine, Dumaris Gordon, a decidedly courageous and wise teenager who rose, rather amazingly to the challenges put out before her.
The story was atmospheric and while I literally felt the cold starkness of the remote, foreboding location, I also came to understand how enchanting the rugged beauty of this isolated place as well.
Captivating story!
“The memory was a s sharp as knife. When I closed my eyes, I could see it again: the sweep of delicate green broken by white marble crosses and weeping angels, softened by a grey veil of rain – and the austere rectangle of the newly dug grave at my feet…”
And immediately after the funeral, Mr. Downey, her father’s longtime, trusted lawyer turned to Dumaris to indicate it was time to go.
In that moment, she considered Mr. Downey,
“He was at my side because there was no one else to take that place. He had been kind, in his dry, legal way, but as soon as the service was over, he had led me firmly toward the waiting carriage. We had business to discuss, he and I – unpleasant business – and I was as anxious to be done with it as he was.”
They took the carriage to the home she and her father had lived in, meeting in his study,
“A fire was burning in the library when we reached the house. The room was cozy and warm; the ruddy light shone on Father’s big desk, with its cracked leather chair behind it, and on the book-lined walls. At the sight of the familiar room and the empty chair behind the unnaturally tidy desk, my eyes filled with tears…”
As the rain began to fall outside, the lawyer and the lonely young woman began to discuss the business at hand, she expresses how kind Mr. Downey has been and she tells him that she doesn’t want to trespass on his time any further, finally she asks what it is he wishes to speak about.
Mr. Downey seems reluctant,
“Perhaps this is not a good time. Your father told me you were accustomed to assisting him in his affairs; but you are very young…”
He paused, then went on,
“It has been a strange life for a young girl – your mother dead since your infancy, no companions of your own sex and station…”
“I needed none,” Dumaris insists, resenting the implied criticism of her father, “Papa was all I needed – friend, teacher, parent. Please Mr. Downey, don’t…remind me. Tell me the truth, and let’s be done with it. I’m destitute, am I not?”
“Two hundred a year is not destitution.”
“But neither is it independence.”
“A young lady of eighteen has no need of independence.” He made it sound like a nasty word,
“Your aunt will certainly offer you a home.”
Dumaris laughed, “My aunt dislikes me intensely, and has ever since I informed her, at the age of five, that she looked like her own pug dog…”
Mr. Downey gave an exasperated sniff, then asked about her aunt’s son, her cousin…
“Cousin Randall?” Dumaris exclaims, “Yes…I know everyone expects that Randall and I will marry. That, Mr. Downey, is why I was hoping for independence.”
The lawyer attempts to extol the virtues of young Mr. Randall Gordon, as a gentleman of modern, liberal opinions…and even that he’d expressed interest in her to him on more than one occasion.
That’s when she cut in, “Dear Mr. Downey,” she said, leaning forward, touching his hand, “I can’t marry Randall. Not even to oblige you.”
“Then what is your alternative?” The lawyer sighed but sounded less annoyed than she though he might’ve.
She looked him in the eye, then said, rather airily, “I shall seek employment.”
The lawyer quickly asked if she were to apply as a companion or governess to which she expressed her dismay at how unfair it was that these were considered the only respectable positions open to a woman of her age. Then she added,
“For years I’ve been Father’s secretary and assistant. He trained me; he told me no man could have served him better, why can’t I use those skills?”
She watched the lawyer’s jaw drop, “My child, we can’t change the world even if we want to…”
She guessed, based on his expression that it was only his belief that she was mentally unsettled by grief that spared her from a severe lecture.
The lawyer went on to explain that the reason that positions such as governess worked was because they are employed by the lady of the house; a secretary, on the other hand, is employed by a man, and therefore spends hours alone with his employee, behind closed doors…
“Miss Gordon, do I need to say more?”
He went on to say that besides the perceived impropriety, she would not be hired because the custom was for gentlemen to hire male secretaries, and that this tradition was too well established to challenge.
The conversation then goes back and forth between Dumaris insisting that she’ll try advertising her secretarial services, and Mr. Downey advocating, once again for her to consider the interest of her cousin Randall Gordon.
A short time later the lawyer leaves, and the discussion ends at an impasse.
Shortly after, Dumaris posts applications to businesses in the area, the owners of which reply that they are not in need of a secretary. And as time went on, she became discouraged, wondering if perhaps Mr. Downey was right after all.
And to make matters worse, her cousin Randall wrote that he would be coming to visit in one week. She knew he’d arrive with an expectation of a discussion of marriage…she couldn’t stand the thought. Her mind then drifted to the two equally unpleasant possibilities for her future. One, she would become a withered, dry “stick of a woman” as a spinster. Or the other, she’d married Randall…
“He would have the right to touch her whenever he wanted…with his plump, puffy hands that she was sure would be clammy and unpleasantly cold to the touch.
She was deep in gloomy thoughts when Ellen, the maid came in with a note the messenger had just delivered. Dumaris set it on the table, in no hurry to read what she assumed was a letter from Mr. Downey, or yet another rejection from her secretarial applications. Wort of all would be a letter from Randall.
Finally, after two cups of tea, she opened the letter, not recognizing the heavy, black, sprawling handwriting which read,
“If D.G. who advertised herself as a trained secretary, will call tomorrow at the Traveler’s Hotel at 10 a.m. She may present her credentials for a position. Ask for Mr. Gavin Hamilton.”
For a few moments Dumaris hesitated, she didn’t know this Mr. Hamilton, and meeting at a hotel?
But then she recalled her earlier imaginings of being a spinster, or being married to the cold, puffy handed cousin Randall.
She quickly decided that she’d be at the Traveler’s Hotel at 10 o’clock.
It was at that time that she met Mr. Gavin Hamilton, Master of Blacktower…
His face, from brow to chin was marked by a livid scar that puckered his flesh and distorted the shape of his mouth. The rest of his face was regular, although the features were too strongly marked to be called handsome. He was also tall and foreboding.
“Sit down,” he demanded in a harsh voice, “You, I take it, are D.G. what do the initials stand for?”
“Dumaris Gordon” she replied, deciding it was a good time to sit down, before her knees gave out.
Mr. Hamilton then says, “I had thought of offering you a position. But I had not expected to find you so young, and so…”
He seemed to stop himself from continuing, then after a few heartbeats he continued, “Your duties would consist of cataloguing and arranging my library. You would also take dictation. I am prepared to pay a salary of fifty pounds per annum. Does that agreement suit you?”
“Yes,” she answers without even thinking.
Mr. Hamilton then explains that his present home is in northern Scotland, far from the comforts of civilization. He also explains that the only ladies of her class were Mrs. Cannon, one of his employees, and his daughter, an invalid, unable to walk. She is sixteen years old he tells her.
He then shocks her when he describes his daughter as having, “the brains of a gnat,” and a character, he assures her, no more pleasing. He calls her an idiot and suggests that Dumaris avoid her, because that’s exactly what he does.
“Do you still want the position?” He asks.
“I accept the position,” she declares, knowing that despite the peculiarities of the situation, it was preferrable over her other dismal options.
“We leave two days hence, at ten in the morning, for Blacktower House,” he commanded.
And it was just four days later that Dumaris Gordon got her first look at The Black Tower of Dunnoch…
“I saw it first at twilight. The Highland mountains were purple in the fading light, the western sky a brilliant tapestry of gold and crimson. Against the fiery northern sunset, the ruined tower rose in jagged silhouette, still standing guard over Blacktower House, which sprawled along the slope of the hill below…”
A cloud gathered over her spirits. Blacktower House…it was ominous…
And that brought me to the end of chapter one, already I was asking one question after another. And I know if I’m doing that, it’s a sign that I’ll enjoy the story. And in the end, that is exactly what happened in this amazing tale that included “Old Turtle” Angus the valet, Toby the sociable feline, Davey the elusive old minstrel, and Mrs. Cannon the elderly resident of Blacktower who seemed to exist somewhere between the realm of staff and long-term guest of the estate, a character who spent half the story nodding off…often in the strangest places.
And then there was the heroine, Dumaris Gordon, a decidedly courageous and wise teenager who rose, rather amazingly to the challenges put out before her.
The story was atmospheric and while I literally felt the cold starkness of the remote, foreboding location, I also came to understand how enchanting the rugged beauty of this isolated place as well.
Captivating story!
Read
August 28, 2019Yeah, I can't really rate this one. I picked the book up because I found it on a list of books with Beauty and the Beast themes. I think? Anyways, it has sat on my TBR for months, if not years. I finally decided to tackle it because it fit the parameters I needed for a challenge.
This book was originally published in the 1960s and it shows. There is definitely some content that I was not expecting, and that I think that would be out of place in more modern romances. I wasn't really a fan. I definitely prefer the newer novels in terms of style.
I did appreciate parts of the book. I liked the spooky gothic setting. If this was trying to be a mystery, rather than a romance, it didn't really do much of a job. It was pretty obvious what was happening most of the time. Damaris was also really over the top and her personality seemed to waver a lot. It was a bit messy for me, but I respect that this is likely a classic in the genre. It's just not for me.
This book was originally published in the 1960s and it shows. There is definitely some content that I was not expecting, and that I think that would be out of place in more modern romances. I wasn't really a fan. I definitely prefer the newer novels in terms of style.
I did appreciate parts of the book. I liked the spooky gothic setting. If this was trying to be a mystery, rather than a romance, it didn't really do much of a job. It was pretty obvious what was happening most of the time. Damaris was also really over the top and her personality seemed to waver a lot. It was a bit messy for me, but I respect that this is likely a classic in the genre. It's just not for me.
August 9, 2016
I have been familiar with Elizabeth Peters and her Egyptian mysteries, but I would have never guess that the woman can write some great stories under a pen name and live a double life of success! Master of Blacktower is cited to be a Gothic thriller but there is so much more to it than heavy, opulent furniture, gowns and language. Set in 1850's this tale is full of old fashioned virtues and the main heroine's way of breaking them.
This is a tale reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast as another reviewer has said, where Damaris who has lost her father at a young age has decided to work as a librarian for Sir Gavin Hamilton. He a brute and barbarian with scars and wild hair who occupied a half demolished castle in Scotland and she a young and quite feisty female who wouldn't dream of living the low standard of having to marry and have as much voice as a piece of furniture in those times. She gave me quite a few chuckles but the real beauty was in the smooth flow of the story and the mysterious past that had Mr. Hamilton tangled up in and the reason for his acting in such a dark, haunted way.
The mysterious disappearance and gossip about his missing wife, his crippled arrogant daughter, a castle with a black tower and full of distrustful servants were just a few of the main elements. The reader is taken on a journey of discovery and truth that has finally shone at the cold Scottish stones with the arrival of young Damaris. There were quite a few twists and turns and a lot of actions, I found myself totally enjoying this tale, reading for the entire lazy Sunday and wishing I had more of Mrs. Michael's books around. I adored the old fashioned way in which people dressesd and the hilarious way men told women what to do, what was even better was their discord when females had enough and got their way in most cases. I am sure glad I live in different times because with my snarly distaste for dictatorship I would have angered many men.
This is a fun, fast read that leaves the reader feeling happy, full to the brim with love, angst and battles against surprising foes and ready for another tale such as this one. I mainly prefer horror, books about werewolves and psychos and this is probably considered to be fictional fluff but boy o boy I adored it, more please! As far as I'm concerned Barbara Michaels can spoon feed me her stories I think I will enjoy them all.
This is a tale reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast as another reviewer has said, where Damaris who has lost her father at a young age has decided to work as a librarian for Sir Gavin Hamilton. He a brute and barbarian with scars and wild hair who occupied a half demolished castle in Scotland and she a young and quite feisty female who wouldn't dream of living the low standard of having to marry and have as much voice as a piece of furniture in those times. She gave me quite a few chuckles but the real beauty was in the smooth flow of the story and the mysterious past that had Mr. Hamilton tangled up in and the reason for his acting in such a dark, haunted way.
The mysterious disappearance and gossip about his missing wife, his crippled arrogant daughter, a castle with a black tower and full of distrustful servants were just a few of the main elements. The reader is taken on a journey of discovery and truth that has finally shone at the cold Scottish stones with the arrival of young Damaris. There were quite a few twists and turns and a lot of actions, I found myself totally enjoying this tale, reading for the entire lazy Sunday and wishing I had more of Mrs. Michael's books around. I adored the old fashioned way in which people dressesd and the hilarious way men told women what to do, what was even better was their discord when females had enough and got their way in most cases. I am sure glad I live in different times because with my snarly distaste for dictatorship I would have angered many men.
This is a fun, fast read that leaves the reader feeling happy, full to the brim with love, angst and battles against surprising foes and ready for another tale such as this one. I mainly prefer horror, books about werewolves and psychos and this is probably considered to be fictional fluff but boy o boy I adored it, more please! As far as I'm concerned Barbara Michaels can spoon feed me her stories I think I will enjoy them all.
August 16, 2013
Before reading The Master of Blacktower, I hadn't read anything by Barbara Michaels since The Sea King's Daughter, which I read a very, very long time ago. But this novel had sat on my shelf for about six years unread, so I thought it was high time I get around to it.
It was, on the whole, a good read. Michaels does a good job of emulating the traditional high Gothic romance of the 18th/19th centuries. The reader follows the uniquely named Damaris to northern Scotland, where she lives in a large manor house nestled in the highlands and works as the secretary for the master, Gavin Hamilton. Gavin is mysterious, arrogant, and brooding, and of course Damaris falls in love with him. And, as this is Gothic, there are of course secrets hiding in the woodwork that Damaris must uncover, for she ignores them at her peril.
I liked Damaris. I liked the cast of side characters - all well-drawn and adding to the plot in solid ways. I didn't really care for Gavin, but I generally get frustrated with cocky male characters, so this wasn't a big deal. I loved Michaels description; this was one of those rare books in which I felt like I was actually present in the spaces being described. In short, with the exception of Gavin, I loved the book.
Until I got to the ending.
I can't say anything about it without giving anything away, so I won't. But the rest of the book was strong enough to carry four stars, so I only demoted the book by one because of the way things tied up. I still think it is well worth the read, particularly for fans of the Gothic genre.
It was, on the whole, a good read. Michaels does a good job of emulating the traditional high Gothic romance of the 18th/19th centuries. The reader follows the uniquely named Damaris to northern Scotland, where she lives in a large manor house nestled in the highlands and works as the secretary for the master, Gavin Hamilton. Gavin is mysterious, arrogant, and brooding, and of course Damaris falls in love with him. And, as this is Gothic, there are of course secrets hiding in the woodwork that Damaris must uncover, for she ignores them at her peril.
I liked Damaris. I liked the cast of side characters - all well-drawn and adding to the plot in solid ways. I didn't really care for Gavin, but I generally get frustrated with cocky male characters, so this wasn't a big deal. I loved Michaels description; this was one of those rare books in which I felt like I was actually present in the spaces being described. In short, with the exception of Gavin, I loved the book.
Until I got to the ending.
I can't say anything about it without giving anything away, so I won't. But the rest of the book was strong enough to carry four stars, so I only demoted the book by one because of the way things tied up. I still think it is well worth the read, particularly for fans of the Gothic genre.
July 16, 2016
I picked up a handful of Barbara Michaels's books at a used bookstore on vacation in NC for $2 each. This was my first to read.
Pros: atmosphere, great house, gothic gothic and then more gothic, a dashing hero(?), a heroine who is not too totally helpless and can stand up for herself. I also appreciate a book set in Scotland where the author doesn't hit us over the head with Scottish (Och wee laddie, etc).
Cons: definitely written in the 1960s and there were a couple of times where she just was overwhelmed with stress, had a lady meltdown, fell into his arms, and somehow passionately kissed...just the way it was written was a bit of an eye roller. Ending was a bit abrupt, and it was hard for me to understand why Gavin wouldn't say anything to her about the scoop.
It was a nice, quick read, but my favorite Michaels so far is still "The Wizard's Daughter."
Pros: atmosphere, great house, gothic gothic and then more gothic, a dashing hero(?), a heroine who is not too totally helpless and can stand up for herself. I also appreciate a book set in Scotland where the author doesn't hit us over the head with Scottish (Och wee laddie, etc).
Cons: definitely written in the 1960s and there were a couple of times where she just was overwhelmed with stress, had a lady meltdown, fell into his arms, and somehow passionately kissed...just the way it was written was a bit of an eye roller. Ending was a bit abrupt, and it was hard for me to understand why Gavin wouldn't say anything to her about the scoop.
It was a nice, quick read, but my favorite Michaels so far is still "The Wizard's Daughter."
July 18, 2016
A good old fashioned gothic romance. I'm sure I must have read this when it first came out in the late 60s when I was devouring gothics but nothing was familiar. A brooding, secretive hero, penniless but plucky heroine, a menacing old house complete with crumbling medieval tower rumored to house a ghost, convoluted connections, perilous chases and confrontations. It kept me reading and even though not all threads of the story were adequately tied up there was the requisite happy ending for the H&h. Brought back memories of my reading youth.
Read
May 31, 2024I was going to say that I think this is the earliest MPM book I've read, but then I looked, and I'm pretty sure this gothic thriller, from 1966, was actually her very first published novel. Very neat, seeing her senses of adventure and fun and humor firing on all cylinders right out of the starting gate. I don't think I'm the most natural fit for gothics, and this was certainly a gothic, but I did like reading this.
I think my favorite bit was when a maidservant was insistent that the protagonist encountered a ghost, and the protagonist was like "probably not" and then the maidservant was like "the ghost of a nun!!" and the protagonist was all "now that's just crazy talk. I can excuse believing in ghosts, but believing in the existence of catholics? in this protestant stronghold??"
I think my favorite bit was when a maidservant was insistent that the protagonist encountered a ghost, and the protagonist was like "probably not" and then the maidservant was like "the ghost of a nun!!" and the protagonist was all "now that's just crazy talk. I can excuse believing in ghosts, but believing in the existence of catholics? in this protestant stronghold??"
October 3, 2018
*Happy sigh*
This is a really good Gothic mystery, with hints of Jane Eyre and The Secret Garden.
It wasn't available through my local library, so I borrowed it from OpenLibrary.org.
This is a really good Gothic mystery, with hints of Jane Eyre and The Secret Garden.
It wasn't available through my local library, so I borrowed it from OpenLibrary.org.
August 20, 2024
Heckin good!!
May 22, 2018
This was a pretty good Gothic suspense novel, very Jane Eyre-ish. But the ending was too abrupt for me.
October 16, 2024
*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion.
He walked like Satan through the wrath of heaven, with a long, free stride and arrogantly poised head; and I wondered how many years it would take to wipe that picture of him out of my mind.
Y'all. I don't know. The theme for this month's TBRChallenge was Spooky/Gothic and while you could say this had some vibes of those characteristics, I'm going with UNHINGED for our word of the day. The pace and vibes were all over the place and just the general way the author wrote the characters and their actions? My modern self can only think of UNHINGED.
In first person pov (my preferred pov in Gothics), readers are introduced to our heroine Damaris as she's at her father's funeral. It's 1853 and since her and her scholar father lived a bit hermit, there's really no one to turn to for eighteen year old Damaris. Her father didn't leave her quite enough to be independent and everyone is just expecting her to marry her father's heir and her cousin, Randall. Damaris does not like Randall, though. I have to say, my mind went places over how she thought about Randall but it's more that she just doesn't like him. Our “boldness of character” (Horrors!) Damaris was her father's secretary for years and so she sends out letters trying to find a job with some of her father's associates. I'm sure you can imagine how that goes and Darmaris has to slap some faces before she decides to go to one more interview, Mr. Gavin Hamilton, Master of Blacktower.
Like any good master of a tower in a Gothic, Gavin is scarred, Across one side of his face, from brow to chin, ran a livid scar that puckered his flesh and distorted the shape of his mouth. Damaris is disturbed at first, but remember, boldness of character! And not wanting to marry cousin Randall, has her accepting the job to catalog and arrange his library in Scotland. Gavin mentions that a chaperon, an older, probably should go to a doctor for narcolepsy, lady will be there, along with his daughter, Annabelle. Gavin has this to say about his daughter:
“The young lady is my daughter. She is an invalid, unable to walk. Because of her handicap she has been badly spoiled. She seems even younger than her sixteen years.”
AND
The girl hasn’t the brains of a gnat, and her character is no more pleasing. I was only trying to warn you what you can expect from the little idiot. Personally, I advise you to avoid her. I do.”
Seems a bit harsh???
Damaris arrives at Gavin's home by the Cairngorm Mountains and we get some rainy, desolate Gothic vibes. Damaris notices that Gavin always wears these black silk gloves (spooooky), the help seems scraggly, there's an Angus who is around to be creepy, Annabelle and her maid are a-holes, and they "only use the west wing” of the house. If you're like me, you just yelled out that the wife who birthed the daughter Gavin is such a fan of and has not been mentioned, is in that east wing being crazy.
You have to wait and see!
Damaris, sort of, gets around to righting his library but mostly it seems that they go horse riding most days. There's some back and forth between the two that we get to “see” and for the most part Gavin is that his bark is worse than his bite hero character and he's more teasing under currents toward her. It was disappointing that we didn't get to see these two together as much as I wanted but that publishing date of 1966 is a killer. When they do have a moment of kissing, it's like the author wrote the words, finished the book, and then right before publishing, the kissing scenes got deleted. The scenes read as if the words were snatched right out, all left up to readers getting the context and having to imagining it happening. Anyway, there's a lightening storm that causes feelings to get heightened between Damaris and Gavin while they're fighting, a kiss (I'm 99.99% sure it happened!), and then Damaris is saying she loves Gavin. Readers have maybe seen them together four times (under ten at least!) at this point.
Some of the unhinged comes from when Damaris meets the daughter and Annabelle acts like she can't leave the bed, every character Damaris talks to has a different opinion to how the daughter lost her ability to walk. The different stories also come flooding in when Damaris asks about Gavin's wife, pleurisy! childbirth! drowned! murdered! Every time reader's think they know, it's some other wild story that doesn't even seem necessary to add getting thrown out there.
I forgot to say Davey the minstrel is also in the house. No, he's not really intricate to the story, but he's there!
Gavin ends up leaving to go to Edinburgh for a while (to do Master things???) and Damaris is a girl after my own heart and gets to snooping. Disappointingly she doesn't really find anything other than Gavin needs an interior designer for a woman's touch.
Davey the minstrel dies.
A brother and sister, Sir Andrew and Lady Mary, decide to let a house in the neighborhood and start slinking around. Andrew makes a move on Damaris thinking she's Gavin's mistress, there's some slapping and then it becomes glaring apparent that he's after Annabelle but 18 yr old Damaris is 18 yr old-ing and above her head it goes. She's still wrapped up in loving Gavin but thinking he wants nothing to do with her, especially when Lady Mary comes into the picture because he seems captivated by her. Along with readers probably working out that Andrew wants the daughter, it's pretty obvious that Gavin likes Damaris but feels too old and scarred for her, he shows some jealously when Andrew is in the picture.
Damaris walks in on the daughter trying to walk(?????). I guess Annabelle was never examined by a doctor and just has been laying in her bed for 14ish years(??????). Damaris feels like she should tell Gavin but shrugs it off because meh, no one likes the girl anyway. Unhinged
Andrew wants to marry Annabelle! Damaris is Shocked! Gavin says NO. Damaris receives a note slid under her door: “I must talk to you tonight,” it began, without greeting. “But not in the house. Come to the Black Tower at once.”
She automatically assumes it's from Gavin and gallivants off to the isolated, crumbling, old tower. Unhinged. Gothic par for the course. I'm sure this will shock all of you, but Damaris gets scared by someone there and as she's hanging, dangling over a ledge, she's grasping someone's wrist but they don't help and she falls. She ends up knocked out but waking up and managing to crawl in the dark and rain most the way back until she's discovered. She spends ten-ish days in bed with a fever. One of the biggest complaints I have about this book is how days are just skipped, the passage of time felt out of wack and ruined some of the story flow for me.
We get the term “idiot content”.
Half a star added to rating
Damaris learns a reason to not fear Gavin when he reveals why he wears the black silk gloves, even though she was totally at least 65% sure he wasn't out to murder her. She adds stalking to snooping and catches Gavin and Lady Mary having a heated moment but before she can get more answers, cousin Randall arrives!
They were almost of a height, although Randall was broader and thicker than the Master. The latter was dressed in his usual costume, kilt and hose, and jacket over a not too clean white shirt. He wore no cravat; his collar was open; and his hair was wet. If a stranger had been asked to decide which of the two was the heir to a great peerage, he would never have chosen Mr. Hamilton.
The hero doesn't physically measure up to the challenger?!? Unhinged!
Damaris seems to get some concrete information on the wife, she was lower class, Gavin married her against the wishes of his family, and it seems she started to make his life miserable when they didn't live as lavish as she thought they would. Does Damaris get this info from Gavin? Ahahahhhahhha, no. Creepy Angus.
With Randall in the picture, Gavin gets more activated and we finally get some scenes of them together, with moments: I was crying by then, but they were tears of rage, and when he pulled me into his arms I tried to bite him.
And
His arms tightened. “Randall can’t have you. You belong to me. How do you like that, you fiery feminist?”
Fiery Feminist.
Half a star added to rating
Andrew and Lady Mary are holding a ball!
Gavin tries to get Damaris to agree to leave right after the ball. She thinks he doesn't love her and wants to foist her off on Randall. They're finally about to actually talk it out on a balcony at the ball when the stable hand Ian comes crawling out of the woods and tells them that Andrew has taken Annabelle and they're off to elope. It's all over within a few pages, because there's nothing this story likes to do more than skip right over events, and Annabelle shows why her dad speaks of her the way she does. Seriously, having a kid so unlikable and a parent who so blatantly doesn't like her, Damaris says some pretty dismissive stuff about her too, feels wild because modern publishing seems like it would never. Unhinged
The elopement attempt might be over but the action isn't! The story really rushes from this point. We get a sword fight! Lamenting and moaning from Gavin when he didn't kill, only wounded, someone, and Damaris forced to leave. But Gavin seems to have some sort of plan, he alluded to it at the ball, and he sends Annabelle, Randall, Ian, a maid, and the narcolepsy lady with Damaris to Edinburgh. He also gives Damaris a package that he makes her promise to give to his lawyer in Edinburgh.
They travel six hours before Damaris, is like, naw. And decides to leave, without telling anyone, IN A SNOW STORM (unhinged), that she is going back to Gavin. Ian catches up to her and they have a harrowing trip back, a horse dies, Ian severely hurts knee, they find shelter close to Gavin's home. Damaris sleeps a bit but then wakes up in the middle of the night and decides, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. She leaves in the dark snowy storm and climbs up an icy rocky cliff(?????) and then passes out as a shadowy form is coming toward her.
She wakes to Gavin and they're hold up in the dungeon/basement of the crumbling tower. We get a declaration of love and finally get some, unhinged, answers
Now that Damaris (and readers) know the score, Gavin and Damaris are on the run from assassins. Unhinged because to get to this point from where we started??
Creepy Angus pops up and we get an, unhinged feeling explanation that he was creepy because he thought he was the bastard son of Gavin's grandfather(????).
Gavin has a life and death fight with a dog, a horse saves them, and people fall off a cliff. The end.
I'm not exaggerating, I only thought I'd read abrupt endings before. Unhinged.
He walked like Satan through the wrath of heaven, with a long, free stride and arrogantly poised head; and I wondered how many years it would take to wipe that picture of him out of my mind.
Y'all. I don't know. The theme for this month's TBRChallenge was Spooky/Gothic and while you could say this had some vibes of those characteristics, I'm going with UNHINGED for our word of the day. The pace and vibes were all over the place and just the general way the author wrote the characters and their actions? My modern self can only think of UNHINGED.
In first person pov (my preferred pov in Gothics), readers are introduced to our heroine Damaris as she's at her father's funeral. It's 1853 and since her and her scholar father lived a bit hermit, there's really no one to turn to for eighteen year old Damaris. Her father didn't leave her quite enough to be independent and everyone is just expecting her to marry her father's heir and her cousin, Randall. Damaris does not like Randall, though. I have to say, my mind went places over how she thought about Randall but it's more that she just doesn't like him. Our “boldness of character” (Horrors!) Damaris was her father's secretary for years and so she sends out letters trying to find a job with some of her father's associates. I'm sure you can imagine how that goes and Darmaris has to slap some faces before she decides to go to one more interview, Mr. Gavin Hamilton, Master of Blacktower.
Like any good master of a tower in a Gothic, Gavin is scarred, Across one side of his face, from brow to chin, ran a livid scar that puckered his flesh and distorted the shape of his mouth. Damaris is disturbed at first, but remember, boldness of character! And not wanting to marry cousin Randall, has her accepting the job to catalog and arrange his library in Scotland. Gavin mentions that a chaperon, an older, probably should go to a doctor for narcolepsy, lady will be there, along with his daughter, Annabelle. Gavin has this to say about his daughter:
“The young lady is my daughter. She is an invalid, unable to walk. Because of her handicap she has been badly spoiled. She seems even younger than her sixteen years.”
AND
The girl hasn’t the brains of a gnat, and her character is no more pleasing. I was only trying to warn you what you can expect from the little idiot. Personally, I advise you to avoid her. I do.”
Seems a bit harsh???
Damaris arrives at Gavin's home by the Cairngorm Mountains and we get some rainy, desolate Gothic vibes. Damaris notices that Gavin always wears these black silk gloves (spooooky), the help seems scraggly, there's an Angus who is around to be creepy, Annabelle and her maid are a-holes, and they "only use the west wing” of the house. If you're like me, you just yelled out that the wife who birthed the daughter Gavin is such a fan of and has not been mentioned, is in that east wing being crazy.
You have to wait and see!
Damaris, sort of, gets around to righting his library but mostly it seems that they go horse riding most days. There's some back and forth between the two that we get to “see” and for the most part Gavin is that his bark is worse than his bite hero character and he's more teasing under currents toward her. It was disappointing that we didn't get to see these two together as much as I wanted but that publishing date of 1966 is a killer. When they do have a moment of kissing, it's like the author wrote the words, finished the book, and then right before publishing, the kissing scenes got deleted. The scenes read as if the words were snatched right out, all left up to readers getting the context and having to imagining it happening. Anyway, there's a lightening storm that causes feelings to get heightened between Damaris and Gavin while they're fighting, a kiss (I'm 99.99% sure it happened!), and then Damaris is saying she loves Gavin. Readers have maybe seen them together four times (under ten at least!) at this point.
Some of the unhinged comes from when Damaris meets the daughter and Annabelle acts like she can't leave the bed, every character Damaris talks to has a different opinion to how the daughter lost her ability to walk. The different stories also come flooding in when Damaris asks about Gavin's wife, pleurisy! childbirth! drowned! murdered! Every time reader's think they know, it's some other wild story that doesn't even seem necessary to add getting thrown out there.
I forgot to say Davey the minstrel is also in the house. No, he's not really intricate to the story, but he's there!
Gavin ends up leaving to go to Edinburgh for a while (to do Master things???) and Damaris is a girl after my own heart and gets to snooping. Disappointingly she doesn't really find anything other than Gavin needs an interior designer for a woman's touch.
Davey the minstrel dies.
A brother and sister, Sir Andrew and Lady Mary, decide to let a house in the neighborhood and start slinking around. Andrew makes a move on Damaris thinking she's Gavin's mistress, there's some slapping and then it becomes glaring apparent that he's after Annabelle but 18 yr old Damaris is 18 yr old-ing and above her head it goes. She's still wrapped up in loving Gavin but thinking he wants nothing to do with her, especially when Lady Mary comes into the picture because he seems captivated by her. Along with readers probably working out that Andrew wants the daughter, it's pretty obvious that Gavin likes Damaris but feels too old and scarred for her, he shows some jealously when Andrew is in the picture.
Damaris walks in on the daughter trying to walk(?????). I guess Annabelle was never examined by a doctor and just has been laying in her bed for 14ish years(??????). Damaris feels like she should tell Gavin but shrugs it off because meh, no one likes the girl anyway. Unhinged
Andrew wants to marry Annabelle! Damaris is Shocked! Gavin says NO. Damaris receives a note slid under her door: “I must talk to you tonight,” it began, without greeting. “But not in the house. Come to the Black Tower at once.”
She automatically assumes it's from Gavin and gallivants off to the isolated, crumbling, old tower. Unhinged. Gothic par for the course. I'm sure this will shock all of you, but Damaris gets scared by someone there and as she's hanging, dangling over a ledge, she's grasping someone's wrist but they don't help and she falls. She ends up knocked out but waking up and managing to crawl in the dark and rain most the way back until she's discovered. She spends ten-ish days in bed with a fever. One of the biggest complaints I have about this book is how days are just skipped, the passage of time felt out of wack and ruined some of the story flow for me.
We get the term “idiot content”.
Half a star added to rating
Damaris learns a reason to not fear Gavin when he reveals why he wears the black silk gloves, even though she was totally at least 65% sure he wasn't out to murder her. She adds stalking to snooping and catches Gavin and Lady Mary having a heated moment but before she can get more answers, cousin Randall arrives!
They were almost of a height, although Randall was broader and thicker than the Master. The latter was dressed in his usual costume, kilt and hose, and jacket over a not too clean white shirt. He wore no cravat; his collar was open; and his hair was wet. If a stranger had been asked to decide which of the two was the heir to a great peerage, he would never have chosen Mr. Hamilton.
The hero doesn't physically measure up to the challenger?!? Unhinged!
Damaris seems to get some concrete information on the wife, she was lower class, Gavin married her against the wishes of his family, and it seems she started to make his life miserable when they didn't live as lavish as she thought they would. Does Damaris get this info from Gavin? Ahahahhhahhha, no. Creepy Angus.
With Randall in the picture, Gavin gets more activated and we finally get some scenes of them together, with moments: I was crying by then, but they were tears of rage, and when he pulled me into his arms I tried to bite him.
And
His arms tightened. “Randall can’t have you. You belong to me. How do you like that, you fiery feminist?”
Fiery Feminist.
Half a star added to rating
Andrew and Lady Mary are holding a ball!
Gavin tries to get Damaris to agree to leave right after the ball. She thinks he doesn't love her and wants to foist her off on Randall. They're finally about to actually talk it out on a balcony at the ball when the stable hand Ian comes crawling out of the woods and tells them that Andrew has taken Annabelle and they're off to elope. It's all over within a few pages, because there's nothing this story likes to do more than skip right over events, and Annabelle shows why her dad speaks of her the way she does. Seriously, having a kid so unlikable and a parent who so blatantly doesn't like her, Damaris says some pretty dismissive stuff about her too, feels wild because modern publishing seems like it would never. Unhinged
The elopement attempt might be over but the action isn't! The story really rushes from this point. We get a sword fight! Lamenting and moaning from Gavin when he didn't kill, only wounded, someone, and Damaris forced to leave. But Gavin seems to have some sort of plan, he alluded to it at the ball, and he sends Annabelle, Randall, Ian, a maid, and the narcolepsy lady with Damaris to Edinburgh. He also gives Damaris a package that he makes her promise to give to his lawyer in Edinburgh.
They travel six hours before Damaris, is like, naw. And decides to leave, without telling anyone, IN A SNOW STORM (unhinged), that she is going back to Gavin. Ian catches up to her and they have a harrowing trip back, a horse dies, Ian severely hurts knee, they find shelter close to Gavin's home. Damaris sleeps a bit but then wakes up in the middle of the night and decides, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. She leaves in the dark snowy storm and climbs up an icy rocky cliff(?????) and then passes out as a shadowy form is coming toward her.
She wakes to Gavin and they're hold up in the dungeon/basement of the crumbling tower. We get a declaration of love and finally get some, unhinged, answers
Now that Damaris (and readers) know the score, Gavin and Damaris are on the run from assassins. Unhinged because to get to this point from where we started??
Creepy Angus pops up and we get an, unhinged feeling explanation that he was creepy because he thought he was the bastard son of Gavin's grandfather(????).
Gavin has a life and death fight with a dog, a horse saves them, and people fall off a cliff. The end.
I'm not exaggerating, I only thought I'd read abrupt endings before. Unhinged.
December 10, 2015
#2015-Reading-Challenge-Group--week-48: a book written by an author with your same initials. It was amazingly hard to find an author with my same initials (and none at all with all three initials--BAM) who writes in a genre I am interested in reading. I've chosen this early gothic-romance mystery by Barbara Michaels because I've enjoyed other mysteries by Barbara Mertz under her pen name, Elizabeth Peters.
2.5 stars. Not too bad a read for Michael's debut attempt at writing a gothic romance, which already exhibits her amusing writing style. Set in 1853, the heroine, Damaris Gordon, an independent and feisty red-haired beauty, must find a way to support herself after her father's death. She takes out an advertisement (shocking!) for secretarial work and is hired by a distant cousin to organize his library. Gavin Hamilton is the scarred, dark, enigmatic master of the ancient Scottish castle, Blacktower, and of course Damaris soon falls in love. But is he a widower or a murderer? Similar in flavor to classics like Jane Eyre but nowhere near that quality.
2.5 stars. Not too bad a read for Michael's debut attempt at writing a gothic romance, which already exhibits her amusing writing style. Set in 1853, the heroine, Damaris Gordon, an independent and feisty red-haired beauty, must find a way to support herself after her father's death. She takes out an advertisement (shocking!) for secretarial work and is hired by a distant cousin to organize his library. Gavin Hamilton is the scarred, dark, enigmatic master of the ancient Scottish castle, Blacktower, and of course Damaris soon falls in love. But is he a widower or a murderer? Similar in flavor to classics like Jane Eyre but nowhere near that quality.
April 29, 2009
Once upon a time, an archaeology student decided to try to write a gothic novel, and thus began the long and illustrious career of Barbara Michaels aka Elizabeth Peters. I have read many of this author's books over the last 30 years, and enjoyed every one. She writes good characters, lovely twisty plots, and for pure entertainment without lurid sex or violence, she can't be beat. She does include a little of the supernatural in many of her books -- which I enjoy. This is, I believe, her very first novel, and it follows the classic 19th century gothic novel formula. It all got better from here, but this one was a good first attempt in itself. She gets better at realistically drawing her characters and their surroundings in her later works.
January 20, 2012
i have always been a fan of Barbara Michaels. Her books have filled a lazy afternoon many a time. But this...
I can't believe that she wrote this book. It was obsolutely lifeless. I'm not sure how I got through it. I guess I was hoping it would get better. The only excitement came at the very last chapter, but even then I was almost angry. I read the last paragraph of the book, and continued turning pages thinking that certainly that wasn't it. It was even a cliff hanger, it was...nothing.
I honestly wish I had something good to say about this book, but I feel like I wasted several hours of my life that I'll never get back again. Overly dramatic? Yep, but what is a book review unless it is filled with honesty.
I can't believe that she wrote this book. It was obsolutely lifeless. I'm not sure how I got through it. I guess I was hoping it would get better. The only excitement came at the very last chapter, but even then I was almost angry. I read the last paragraph of the book, and continued turning pages thinking that certainly that wasn't it. It was even a cliff hanger, it was...nothing.
I honestly wish I had something good to say about this book, but I feel like I wasted several hours of my life that I'll never get back again. Overly dramatic? Yep, but what is a book review unless it is filled with honesty.
February 12, 2012
Upon the death of her scholar father, Damaris Gordon is left with two choices, marriage to her dull but respectable cousin Randall, and seeking paid employment. Hired as his secretary by Gavin Hamilton, the mysterious, hideously scarred Master of Blacktower, she travels to Scotland to reorganize his library. Of course, danger and romance await. Pretty standard Gothic fare, but enjoyable as Barbara Michaels' books always are. I believe this was one of her first novels, and she does a creditable job, despite obvious echoes of classics such as Jane Eyre and The Secret Garden.
October 21, 2012
My Gram used to read Gothic novels all the time. I always avoided them because let's face it, there wasn't enough smut. Gosh, though, they ARE fun. Foreboding castles, vile children, uncommunicative anti-heroes, sexually loaded yet some how chaste kisses, and mysteriously departed spouses/parents. Who doesn't love a Gothic? No one I want to know!
May 1, 2013
This book seemed to be trying very hard to follow in the footsteps of Jane Eyre but had none of the depth or passion of Bronte's novel. Nor were the characters that likeable. It was moderately OK in its own way for most of the book, but the conclusion was very choppy, very abrupt and very unsatisfying.
February 26, 2013
One of the first books she wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Michaels; a Gothic style thriller. Very good, very suspenseful, but needed a denouement; ended too abruptly.
May 13, 2016
One of the great classic gothics. Crackling with fabulous chilling atmospherics.
March 31, 2025
March 2025
2.5 stars - pretty good back in the day
During my younger years, I enjoyed reading a number of books by Barbara Michaels. While I'm unable to reread most of them, due to my reading tastes having changed, I decided to try the ones that were put in KU. This one is counted as a DNF, since I skipped over much of it and read the ending.
MCs:
Gavin, the scarred tragic hero
Damaris, the strong woman who falls in love with him despite his many faults.
This particular novel was remembered because of Annabelle, Gavin's daughter. I wasn't sure why she stuck out in my mind, but after trying to reread this novel, I remembered how terribly she was treated by her father. All because she resembled her evil mother,
"I had such a horror of her, I never wanted to hear her name or see her face. And I came to have the same horror of the child. Annabelle grew more like her in appearance every day.”
“So that’s why you’re so unkind to her.”
“Yes. I marvel that you didn’t see the resemblance earlier."
I didn't care much for cruel Gavin or desperate Damaris, who was willing to do anything to be with her man. So much for her being strong and independent. 🙄
I rose to my knees, letting the plaid fall away from my body, and held out my hands to him. “You want me to humble myself again,” I said. “You know I’m shameless—I don’t care if you have ten wives and forty scars. Is that what you want me to say? It’s true. Only don’t send me away again."
"Gavin, please—if you can’t get free of her, I’ll—I’ll stay with you anyhow"
The plot boils down to
🄴🅁🅁🄾🅁 ❌ 🄱🄴🄻🄾🅆
Damaris can't inherit her father's estate:
Miss Gordon, your cousin is an eminently respectable young man! And don’t forget he inherits your father’s property! Mr. Randall Gordon is a young gentleman of modern, liberal opinions. He feels…not an injustice…let us say, a misfortune, in the law which prevents a daughter from enjoying her father’s estates.”
Yet, Annabelle inherits everything:
"You see, my brother, poor devil, is still alive. His will leaves all he has to me, and, should I predecease him, to Annabelle. If I inherit from him I can make a will leaving the money away from my daughter. I have done this; that was the packet I sent to Edinburgh with you. But my will accomplishes nothing if I die before my brother. In that case his whole, enormous estate goes directly to Annabelle—
2.5 stars - pretty good back in the day
During my younger years, I enjoyed reading a number of books by Barbara Michaels. While I'm unable to reread most of them, due to my reading tastes having changed, I decided to try the ones that were put in KU. This one is counted as a DNF, since I skipped over much of it and read the ending.
MCs:
Gavin, the scarred tragic hero
Damaris, the strong woman who falls in love with him despite his many faults.
This particular novel was remembered because of Annabelle, Gavin's daughter. I wasn't sure why she stuck out in my mind, but after trying to reread this novel, I remembered how terribly she was treated by her father. All because she resembled her evil mother,
"I had such a horror of her, I never wanted to hear her name or see her face. And I came to have the same horror of the child. Annabelle grew more like her in appearance every day.”
“So that’s why you’re so unkind to her.”
“Yes. I marvel that you didn’t see the resemblance earlier."
I didn't care much for cruel Gavin or desperate Damaris, who was willing to do anything to be with her man. So much for her being strong and independent. 🙄
I rose to my knees, letting the plaid fall away from my body, and held out my hands to him. “You want me to humble myself again,” I said. “You know I’m shameless—I don’t care if you have ten wives and forty scars. Is that what you want me to say? It’s true. Only don’t send me away again."
"Gavin, please—if you can’t get free of her, I’ll—I’ll stay with you anyhow"
The plot boils down to
🄴🅁🅁🄾🅁 ❌ 🄱🄴🄻🄾🅆
Damaris can't inherit her father's estate:
Miss Gordon, your cousin is an eminently respectable young man! And don’t forget he inherits your father’s property! Mr. Randall Gordon is a young gentleman of modern, liberal opinions. He feels…not an injustice…let us say, a misfortune, in the law which prevents a daughter from enjoying her father’s estates.”
Yet, Annabelle inherits everything:
"You see, my brother, poor devil, is still alive. His will leaves all he has to me, and, should I predecease him, to Annabelle. If I inherit from him I can make a will leaving the money away from my daughter. I have done this; that was the packet I sent to Edinburgh with you. But my will accomplishes nothing if I die before my brother. In that case his whole, enormous estate goes directly to Annabelle—
January 6, 2024
Purchased Kindle edition when on sale by Open Road Media.
This just wasn't very good. Allowance being made for the facts that it appears to be Michaels's first published book and that the year was 1966, it's still not very good.
For one thing, Gavin Hamilton -- our hero? -- is an absolute jerk. It's not his daughter's fault that her mother was unfaithful (or that her father was a stupid, hormone-driven idiot for marrying her). Gavin's treatment of poor Annabelle is unconscionable. The fact that Damaris -- our heroine? -- doesn't call him out on this is unforgivable.
For another thing, how is it that Damaris is somehow or other legally prohibited from inheriting her father's estate, but Annabelle isn't? Double standard for the sake of plot seems pretty lazy.
But the final blow for me came at the end, when
A hero who treats his child like crap and a heroine who loves him in spite of it? Um, no. I'm sorry, but just because he's handsome and wealthy isn't enough to make him worthy.
And I'm skipping over the shoddy research that Michaels could easily have done in the 1960s before the Internet; there was a lot of basic information available in (gasp!) books.
The only thing that saved this from being a one-star read was that at least the writing was decent, and I save one-star ratings for the really poorly written books. On another site, this would have been a half star.
This just wasn't very good. Allowance being made for the facts that it appears to be Michaels's first published book and that the year was 1966, it's still not very good.
For one thing, Gavin Hamilton -- our hero? -- is an absolute jerk. It's not his daughter's fault that her mother was unfaithful (or that her father was a stupid, hormone-driven idiot for marrying her). Gavin's treatment of poor Annabelle is unconscionable. The fact that Damaris -- our heroine? -- doesn't call him out on this is unforgivable.
For another thing, how is it that Damaris is somehow or other legally prohibited from inheriting her father's estate, but Annabelle isn't? Double standard for the sake of plot seems pretty lazy.
But the final blow for me came at the end, when
A hero who treats his child like crap and a heroine who loves him in spite of it? Um, no. I'm sorry, but just because he's handsome and wealthy isn't enough to make him worthy.
And I'm skipping over the shoddy research that Michaels could easily have done in the 1960s before the Internet; there was a lot of basic information available in (gasp!) books.
The only thing that saved this from being a one-star read was that at least the writing was decent, and I save one-star ratings for the really poorly written books. On another site, this would have been a half star.
July 21, 2021
When I first saw this book on goodreads I knew I had to read it. I LOVE gothic lit. Jane Eyre is my favorite, I have read Withering Heights (even if Heathcliff is a trashbag, I still got the appeal), and I have read various books in horror and fantasy that have had the same gothic feel. I have tranversed wide and far in my search for gothic lit to find the elusive heart pounding gothic read. When I finally got my hands on a copy, I was so excited to read the book and drown myself in angsty romance and a dark, romantic atmosphere. For a time that is excatly what I got, and then BOOM insta love. There is literally no buildup to this romance. They have a few superficial interactions and then she realizes she is in love with him. There is no ground work for it, no reason for it, and no explantion for it. The only interactions we see between them is negative or combative before that moment, and then afterwords it only gets worse. He by no means shows any type of affection other then lust for her. I did not feel anything between them. I am very much into Beauty and the Beast type relationships and when done correctly is amazing, but this was not. I question why she loves him, because I really don't know why. Which is sad because Barbara Micheals developed everyone well, even Randall had development, but not the main romance? I am so disppointed and only give this a three for the writing and the atmosphere which was well done.
March 10, 2023
If read quickly, it might come across as a bit messy but I happened to read it in bits and pieces and had time to think about the scenes rather than fly through one occurrence to the next. This is a period-piece gothic romance (unusual for the author) and practically a study in the genre, nailing point for point cliche after cliche of the classic plots (despite being cliches they weren't done badly, btw).
I plan to check on the timeline but another of her books has a modern MC who is a professor in the literature of the genre (gothic romance) and goes on a quest to unearth the history of a yet-unknown author in order to publish said author's work for the first time. In that novel she spells out point for point what is required to be classified as a gothic romance and I would bet money this 'Master of Blacktower' probably came directly before or after that novel as BMs own swing at the real thing (aka set in the right time period) as opposed to her standard modern gothic romance novels, which she's famous for (under this pen name, anyway). **update** Boy, was I wrong! 'Houses of Stone' was written nearly 30 years after 'Master of Blacktower' In any case, if you enjoyed this book, you might get a kick out of seeing the gothic romance from another angle in 'Houses of Stone'
I plan to check on the timeline but another of her books has a modern MC who is a professor in the literature of the genre (gothic romance) and goes on a quest to unearth the history of a yet-unknown author in order to publish said author's work for the first time. In that novel she spells out point for point what is required to be classified as a gothic romance and I would bet money this 'Master of Blacktower' probably came directly before or after that novel as BMs own swing at the real thing (aka set in the right time period) as opposed to her standard modern gothic romance novels, which she's famous for (under this pen name, anyway). **update** Boy, was I wrong! 'Houses of Stone' was written nearly 30 years after 'Master of Blacktower' In any case, if you enjoyed this book, you might get a kick out of seeing the gothic romance from another angle in 'Houses of Stone'
January 20, 2022
This gave me adult dark fairytale vibes. Barbara Michaels can really paint a scene. The descriptions were well detailed without feeling like they dragged on. I was definitely engrossed in that Scottish countryside and old mannor. And while some would say it was a bit too dramatic and over the top gothic, I loved it. Yes, the plot may have been a bit predictable, but that's not why it lost a star in my opinion (It's all about the journey, not the ending for me. There can be something soothing in knowing where the story is ultimately going.)
I wanted to give it 5 stars.... but the less than modern aspects of the character's personalities-- the helpless heroine and a little too brutish leading male--just grated a little too much. I mean, it's often to be expected when a book is over 50 years old... and I may have overlooked this of the ending wasn't so abrupt. I felt like I needed a romantic epilogue where everyone talked about their feelings more. I love a good brood, but you gotta give me more of that emotional release. The whole tower scene was not enough for me. Oh and more kissing. Should have definitely ended with more kissing after sad death scene.
I wanted to give it 5 stars.... but the less than modern aspects of the character's personalities-- the helpless heroine and a little too brutish leading male--just grated a little too much. I mean, it's often to be expected when a book is over 50 years old... and I may have overlooked this of the ending wasn't so abrupt. I felt like I needed a romantic epilogue where everyone talked about their feelings more. I love a good brood, but you gotta give me more of that emotional release. The whole tower scene was not enough for me. Oh and more kissing. Should have definitely ended with more kissing after sad death scene.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews