Houses of Stone

by Barbara Michaels

Aspiring literary scholar Karen Holloway's discovery of a barely legible, nineteenth-century volume of verse by a poet called Ismene encourages her to unlock its mysteries, discovering her own past wrapped up in the manuscript. Reprint.

Genres: Mystery, Gothic, Fiction, Romance, Suspense, Paranormal, Gothic Romance

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1993

About the author

Barbara 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.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a 1993 publication. Barbara was on her soapbox a little bit in this one. But, I did like most of what she had to say here. Each chapter began with a quote, most having to do with attitudes toward female authors back in the 17-1800's. The quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne were particularly snarky.
So, the premise here is that a manuscript has been unearthed that could be worth a fortune. Karen is summoned by her old friend Simon to look at the manuscript. Karen was responsible in part for the manuscript's subject becoming famous. She covets the papers, but Simon insist on putting it up for auction.
This is when Karen's friend Peggy comes to the rescue. But, Karen becomes interested more and more about the house where the manuscript was found and the possibility of more discoveries. So, she heads to the house and begins to explore with the owner's permission.
There are mysteries old and new, a bit of history regarding the history of the Gothic novel, and the lament of the slow death of the genre.
Today, so many people equate Gothic with vampires and supernatural goings on. That is an aspect of Gothic horror , but Jane Eyre was a Gothic novel. No vampires or ghost, but a heavy atmosphere, a gloomy old house, but also a love story and perhaps a bit of allegory.

The old spooky, atmospheric Gothic novels have long been replaced by chain saws and decaying corpses. We have become jaded by the blood and gore. The true horror, is being locked in your own mental madness, being driven crazy or a victim of psychosis. In other words, the real scary stuff is more in the mind than in graphic violence. I doubt we will ever return to this genre in it's purest form. I think the author recognized the patterns and took this opportunity to take some people to task and in her way pay homage to a lost genre, that she herself expounded on and took to a whole other level. It was also a reminder that we owed a great deal to the ladies who had the guts to write novels in a time when women writers were very rare and certainly not taken seriously.
Karen's character had a tendency to become impassioned and start lecturing and preaching a little. The character of Peggy, reminded Karen to ease up a bit. Some people just like a good story, and allegory or symbolism be damned. So, even if you just like a good mystery or a good ghost story without the obvious feminist rant the author occasionally lapsed into, I think you will like this one.
Overall a B.

[Eilonwy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is your typical Barbara Michaels -- the heroine goes somewhere away from home, tries to solve a historical mystery of some sort, is affected by possibly supernatural phenomena, and meets men who are into her.

I really enjoyed the mystery in this one, which consisted of trying to identify the pseudonymous female author of a possibly partially autobiographical Gothic romance written in 18th century Virginia and discovered 200 years later in a box from an estate sale. The present-day story plays out as a takeoff on the Southern Gothic tradition and was lots of fun.

The only jarring note to me was how the present-day characters kept going on about how "men are like thus" and "women are like so." This book was published in 1993, and it hit me how much things have changed over the past 20 years -- this kind of conversation seems less acceptable and kind of sexist now, even though back then it was a send-up of sexism, highlighting all these gender assumptions. Not that we've gotten rid of all that in any way, but it seems to get talked about differently.

All the plot threads tied together at the end, and it was all very satisfying.

[Carly · Rating 4 out of 5]

**edited 12/04/13

Houses of Stone manages--don't ask me how-- to simultaneously be a critique, homage, and spoof of the gothic novel.

Karen is a professor of English literature specializing in romantic/feminist literature of the 19th century who stumbles upon an incredible manuscript: the first draft of a gothic novel by an unknown female author. Karen follows the trail of the mysterious author to a plantation home in Virginia, where as she investigates the sinister atmosphere and gloomy house, she begins to take on the role of a gothic heroine. The story alternates between atmospheric and hilarious as Michaels pulls out all the tropes--burning buildings, crazy relatives locked up in the attic, being buried alive, swooning heroines, heroes fighting for their lady's honor, etc. The fun comes from the characters' genre-savvy bewilderment as they wander around in a modern version of Mysteries of Udolpho.

Due to my disapproval of GR's new and rather subjective review deletion policy, the rest of my (rather verbose and quote-filled) review is posted over here at Booklikes.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Als ich zu diesem Buch griff, hatte ich absolut keine Ahnung worum es geht oder was für einem Genre es angehört. Das ganze hat sich als Spurensuche nach einer unbekannten Autorin herausgestellt, der mir überraschend gut gefallen hat. An sich ist das Buch sehr "erwachsen" und sprachlich nichts besonderes. Die Geschichte wird gerade zum Ende hin deutlich spannender und es gibt auch einige Geschehnisse die ich als "Action" beschreiben würde.
Ich lese selten Bücher mit so "alten" Hauptcharakteren aber ich fand das eine schöne Abwechslung. Die handelnden Personen warenn mir auch einigermaßen sympatisch und am Ende gab es sogar einige überrschenden Wendungen, die ich aber nicht alle gut fand. Ich hab einfach keine Entwicklung in einige Richtungen beobachtet und dadurch wirkte der Schluss dann gezwungen.
Was ich super intetessant fand, waren die Zitate zum Thema Schriftstellerinen die den Beginn jedes Kapitel einläueten. Normal nervt mich sowas eher, aber hier empfand ich es als sehr passend zum Buch und für mich auch interessant was für schwachsinnige Meinungen manche Männer geäußert haben.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barbara Michaels is my favorite lazy-day author. I love the subtle mysteries and the occasional paranormal elements and the inevitable autobiographical spunky old side-kick, but most of all, the ridiculous romantic elements.

There are painfully slow and small developments throughout all the stories -- two men, and you aren't sure which one is the hero or which one is the devious ne'er-do-well until the last few pages of the book. Then the heroine and the hero, after only a few sprinkled paragraphs through the entire book of hand-brushes or curious gazes after the hero has frantically saved the heroine from injury or insult, finally declare their love to each other. It's all hilariously ridiculous and furtive, but I LOVE it. I could eat that stuff raw like an apple.

I dole out Mrs. Michaels to myself, slowly. I know there are still 3 or 4 titles out there by her that I haven't read yet (and, yes, I know about the Elizabeth Peters pseudonym). Any other author, I immediately track down every single title they've written and consume them quickly. Not this one. I don't search hers out. I wait for them to find me, and then I add them to my bookshelf and happily reread them many times over after I've forgotten the particulars of the plot.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of Michaels' later efforts and unfortunately in many ways not one of her better ones. The plot always hooks me quickly, because it has to do with the discovery by an English professor of a long-lost Gothic novel by a 19th-century woman, which is an intrinsically interesting subject for me.

However, the plot Michaels constructs around the discovery of the novel simply doesn't live up to her usual standards of suspense, nor does the romantic intrigue. Still, the characters are engaging, and Michaels does a good job with the Gothic novel and its writer, so it's still an entertaining read, worth whiling away a couple of hours with.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars for the exploration of women and literature content, but the modern part of the story was average.

[Marian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for stories-within-stories, and for mysteries with their origins far enough back in the dusty past that you need a genealogical chart to help keep things straight. I think part of my fascination is with how the past affects/informs the now--but maybe it doesn't? The answer to that depends on who the author is, of course, but I like looking over the shoulder of someone working through that philosophical conundrum.

This book is also fun because it serves as a mini-history of the Gothic novel. I read another review that said some of the dialogue sounds like lectures, and I agree--but I enjoyed the lectures, so I'm okay with it :)

Barbara Michaels' main characters always annoy me to a certain extent--they are a bit more self-righteous and humorless than the main characters she produced under the name Elizabeth Peters. But at least she throws in Peggy Finnefrock, a more eccentric colleague of Karen's, and whom I suspect may be a stand-in for the author herself (Barbara Mertz).

Another book that I re-read on a regular basis. And then I think I'm going to read all the Gothic novels that are referenced and I start and quickly lose patience with them. Sigh!, she sobbed.

[Kathy Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm afraid it took me longer than I thought it would to get through this book. I love Barbara Michaels but this one just didn't grab me like most her books do. I wasn't overly crazy about Karen and found the fight between the sexes a bit overdone.

Karen's character didn't seem all that deep to me - I don't know - I just couldn't relate to her at all. The gothic horror and mystery surrounding the manuscript was what kept me reading till the end.

This isn't one of Michaels best but it isn't horrible either. Details on the setting and era were quite elaborate and well done - I'm not a huge era sort of person, I get tired of going between the past and the present and most eras don't interest me all that much (yes, I know, that shows my limited literary focus). Most people love that stuff but I am not one of them. I suppose it depends on the writer and how they present the story.

Anyway, I give this book a C+ - it is a good read for a dreary day when you don't want to run out to the library for something else. :-)

[Ahtims · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a veritable treat to read this book. I just devoured all the tidbits about the early female authors who had to suffer a lot at the hands of their male chauvinistic counterparts. I positively hate Nathaniel Hawthorne for his viewpoint and would NEVER EVER read a book by him again. The crux of the story is the race to own an 18th century hitherto unpublished manuscript written about a mysterious lady called "Esmene". The main protagonist, Karen Holloway is literally chased by her counterparts in the struggle to possess the manuscript. There are lots of details about 'gothic novels' and lives and works of Bronte sisters, Austen etc. The MCP authors are humorously portraited. I loved the annotations at the top of each chapter, written either by female novelists or their male counterparts. It was quite an interesting read. The mystery part was overshadowed by all the gothic tidbits.

[Amy Eller Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michaels delivers a poor-man's Posession with Houses of Stone, and I mean that in the best possible way. This has everything I like in a light read: crumbling mansions, literary references, buried documents, near-murders and very old bones. If you like This Kind of Thing (and I do) this is Very Good at This Kind of Thing. If you don't (like This Kind of Thing, that is) I suggest reading a different book.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book last month, on one of my bookshelves while doing a reorganization for some new bookcases. I used to go to this amazing library book sale where I would walk away with something like 40 books for $12. Because prices were SO good and I really didn't have much time to read then, I would load up with books that I thought would interest the future me who would have more time on her hands.

I am a sucker for gothic mysteries and moody covers. I hadn't noticed this book in years! So, although I had books to read for my book clubs, I've been sneaking in bits of time, here and there, to read this. I finally finished last night and I really enjoyed it! I loved that they find an old, original manuscript of a gothic novel and proceed to try to find out who the author could be. I enjoyed how they fed the reader snippets of the old story while the main characters dealt with all the drama and hubbub created by it's discovery. There were lots of humorous moments along with the tense and perilous ones, the likes of which you would hope to find only in a gothic mystery.

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a good read! I love books that have a book as one of the main components of the tale. The book in this story is an old gothic manuscript that is uncovered. The plot is about the academic’s efforts to figure out who wrote it. I loved every minute of this one! Definitely recommend!

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is not often that I come to a book with absolutely no prior knowledge of its content or have never heard of the author. I even had trouble getting hold of it, there being no copies in any Swansea library so I had to buy it from AbeBooks. So it was with some trepidation that I embarked on Houses of Stone. I did so because it was a friend's choice for February's book group.

I suppose you could call it an adventure story, though a rather tame one. Think Indiana Jones but with less peril and with slightly older, female academics searching for the identity of a previously unknown American woman author in a small town in the South. Karen Holloway, much to the chagrin of two rival academics, gets hold of an unpublished manuscript written under the pseudonym Ismene. It is an early example of a classic Gothic novel (revealed to us in fragments throughout the book), with an orphaned heroine, potential ghosts and two suitors. Karen, with the help of her unconventional friend Peggy, attempts to track down who Ismene was running into problems from the locals and what seem to be attempts on her life. She too has two potential suitors to choose between as there are echoes of the novel in 'real life'.

Its a straightforward easy read. I'm not an expert on Gothic literature so some of the inferences, although they are spelt out pretty obviously throughout, were maybe a bit lost on me. I found the characters a little flat and predictable, as were some of the plot 'twists'. I think if you want adventure with women leads Kate Mosse's books are much better. To me Houses of Stone reads like a slightly better written Dan Brown novel, and that's not necessarily a bad thing because I did quite enjoy The Da Vinci Code in an escapist, clearly-not-literature-at-all sort of way. And I suppose I felt similarly about this.

[Barbara Howe · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first time I've taken an active dislike to the main character in one of Barbara Micheal's stories. She (Karen, funny that, but this was published in 1993, long before the internet Karen meme) is rude, self-absorbed, does some things that are not very clever (like trespassing on a property where she needs to be on good terms with the owners), and has a bad attitude. On page 118, she's dealing with one of those owners (Lisa), who is trying to sell some papers to either Karen or her academic rival (Bill), and is attempting to find out what they think the papers are worth. That seems perfectly reasonable to me, and as they're both strangers, and about all Lisa knows is that Bill is polite and charming while Karen has been caught trespassing, she has no reason to favour Karen over Bill. Karen, however, gets pissed off and thinks, "Damn Lisa for being such a sly, stupid, greedy little schemer." That's where I gave up on her. I skimmed enough of the rest to decide it didn't get much better.

[F · Rating 2 out of 5]

For entertaining, enjoyable reads, there are MANY published gothics that are better than "Houses of Stone". At times, I thought of the book as a documentary analysis of early gothics. Once during the book, Peggy told Karen "okay, I've had enough of that spiel". (I was thinking like Peggy.) One of the points Barbara Michaels made in the book was that early female writers were not respected for their talents, and I didn't know that Hawthorne was so vicious with his pen in that area. I saw several parallels in reading the book. Karen thought she was still struggling for respect in the literary arena. The manuscript itself had many similarities to the current storyline of the book. I'm glad I read "Houses of Stone" as it was my first Barbara Michaels book. But truthfully, if a person is reading for entertainment and relaxation, "Houses of Stone" would not be on my list of recommendations.

[Melissa Lindberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main character is so prickly in this book it takes a while to warm up to her. But eventually one does, as her friends intervene often enough that she begins to mellow out ... an old manuscript has surfaced, and it looks like it is a novel by the same author as wrote a small book of anonymously published poems that Prof. Karen Holloway had found and made her own academic subject. First there is the race to buy the unpublished manuscript from the seller, then the race to find out who the author was - and what happened to her. Meanwhile, things keep happening - from the competition with other scholars, to the ugly spookiness of the house where the manuscript was found, to other vaguely threatening events ...

She uses quotes about women's literature as chapter headings: these are quite fun, and remind you of the dismissive quality of the male world about women's writing - and the things women write about.

[Shae Burton · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I would give this book high remarks for its literary content and authors knowledge of styles of literature and so forth, I was disappointed in her characters. The women all had foul mouths, minds and attitudes and were belligerent alcoholics, for the most part. Disappointing and tiresome in the reading. While some may not mind this type of character, it grew old, as they were both rude and bratty with each other as well as the other characters. The men were either made out to be devious, lurid, crude or pitiful, sometimes in combination so as to question the authors feelings about both men and women alike. While I enjoyed the concept of the story, it's not one I would ever read again and cannot say I was overly fond of it the first time around.

[Tory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. Probably not so much to consider it one of the best ever, but it entertained me and appealed to me in many ways.

There were all kinds of early American literature references and comparisons, lots of intelligent dialogue and an interesting plot - the finding of an unidentified manuscript from the early 1800’s and the search to find the author.

The main character was quite unlikeable. She wasn’t nice to anyone and was more feminist than I can appreciate. I’m alright with feminism, but I’m not alright with bad behavior in the name of feminism. Poor behavior is the same, coming from a man or a woman.

That’s off topic.

Basically, I enjoyed the book.

[curleduptoes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally finished. Not being a sexist but women, with or without any given chances, speak a lot.

In case of this book, the author wrote a lot, and the women characters in it talked a lot. I mean A LOT. Dialogues are important, I agree but they just keep on talking non stop? And most of them are just nonsensical chatter.

Anyways, plot was okay, I liked Simon, and even Bill Meyer, they played their parts quite well. Karen, Peggy and Cameron were okay. Peggy a bit overdone, but the rest two were just there, especially the guy. I did not like Ismene at all.

It was an unnecessarily lengthy book. But thats fine, I finished it.

[LJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

HOUSES OF STONE - Good
Michaels, Barbara - standalone

English professor Karen Holloway stumbles upon the find of a lifetime: a battered, faded manuscript, the "lost masterpiece" of a 19th-century poet called Ismene. While racing against other scholars to bring Ismene's true identity to light, she is haunted by a tormented voice screaming out to her from the Virginia woods.

It was well written, but I keep expecting more from her books. More suspense, romance...something.

[Marley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very dated (three piece suits?) and was shocked it was published in '93. I was thinking more like '73. A LOT of talk about women's lib. That really wasn't the issue. The main character was so unlikeable. She scowled, sulked, and never once did anything besides be miserable and hate on everyone for the 100+ pages I was able to get through. This read like a bad romance novel. Could not continue...just didn't seem worth it.

[Beth]

What I really love about the later Barbara Michaels' books is that you learn something while you read a great story. In this book I learned about early women writers... my mother in law reccomended this and I read it in only a few days. I could NOT put this book down. Already she is up on my list of favorite authors.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bit corny, but I thought this was a fun read. A bit spooky with fun characters. The main character is a literature professor who specializes in gothic novels. This story is a bit of a gothic novel itself, but the characters acknowledge it and kind of make fun their situation.

[Betsy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The climax of this book was a huge disappointment. Plus it was very slow moving. I only finished it because I've read quite a few BM books and they are typically way better than this. I kept hoping it would be worth the read. It wasn't.

[Delene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take an English Lit Professor, a new author, and a new undiscovered manuscript, and the fun begins. It is a Gothic mystery within a mystery. I greatley enjoyed the book. Barbara Michaels has been one of my favorite authors through the last 20 years.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was like a poor man's version of Possession. A real page-turner, well-researched, but it's never going to be studied in a literature class.

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. A good fun mystery and a lot of Gothic novel references. How can you not love a book that keeps talking about Jane Eyre?

[Kristina Coop-a-Loop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another oldie but goodie. Not as spooky when it's about the 25th time reading it, but it's still fun.

[Pat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing! It had all my favorite ingredients: English literature, a lost manuscript, and a lurking mystery but it never combined into anything and was slow reading.