The Ninefold Key

by Rebecca Brandewyne

A FATEFUL DREAM ...

Since childhood, Ariana Levesque has been haunted by a strange, frightening dream about a handsome young man and a dark, foreboding castle. But after a Gypsy fortune-teller divines a perilous destiny, Ariana finds herself caught up in a dangerous intrigue that began over two hundred years before she was born.

A HAZARDOUS QUEST ...

After witnessing his father's nefarious murder, Malcolm Blackfriars makes a shocking discovery: his family lies under a baleful curse, and their shadowed past conceals a multitude of dark secrets. With his own life in jeopardy, Malcolm ventures upon a hazardous quest to learn the truth about his cryptic heritage.

A NINEFOLD KEY ...

Ariana and Malcolm are fated to meet and to fall passionately in love. But will their desperate search for a ninefold key unlock the deadly secrets of their past --- or utterly destroy them both?

Genres: Romance, Historical, Historical Romance, Fiction

456 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Rebecca lived in Knoxville and then, later, Chattanooga for the first few years of her life. After that, she and her family moved to Kansas, where she grew up, spending her summers in Alabama, visiting both sets of her grandparents. She says she's just a country girl with a dash of big city sprinkled in for spice. But having traveled extensively in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and the Caribbean, she moves easily between the publishing world of New York and her hometown.

Rebecca graduated cum laude with departmental honors from Wichita State University, earning a B.A. in journalism, minors in history and music (theory and composition), and an M.A. in communications [mass (broadcasting) and interpersonal (dyadic relationships):]. During the course of her education, she was fortunate enough to study at various times under, among several other distinguished instructors, three Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists and one of the foremost authorities in the field of interpersonal communication. Twice a recipient of the Victor Murdock Scholarship, Rebecca taught interpersonal communication at the university level before becoming a published writer.

She was twenty-one when she started work on her first novel, No Gentle Love. She finished the book a year later and sold it to Warner Books some months after her twenty-third birthday, making her, at that time, the youngest romance author in America, a record that stood for ten years before finally being broken. To date, Rebecca has written over thirty consecutive bestselling titles, including novels and novellas on the following lists: New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Magazine & Bookseller, Ingram, B. Dalton, and Waldenbooks, among many others.

Her books have been translated into a number of foreign languages, including Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish; and they have been published in over sixty countries worldwide. Many have been selections of the Doubleday Book Club and Literary Guild. Hardback editions of several titles have been published by Severn House, and large-print editions of some books are also available from Macmillan Library Reference and Thorndike Press. Rebecca currently has millions of books in print in the United States alone.

From Affaire de Coeur magazine, she has won: the Classic Award for Classic Romances, for Love, Cherish Me, 1990; the Golden Quill Award for Best of the '80s Historical Romances, for Love, Cherish Me, 1990; the Bronze Pen (Wholesalers' Choice) Award, 1989; the Silver Pen (Readers' Choice) Award, 1988, 1987, and 1986; and a Gold Certificate for The Outlaw Hearts, 1987.

From Romantic Times magazine, she has won: the Reviewer's Choice Nominee for Best Historical Romantic Mystery, for The Ninefold Key, 2004; the Reviewer's Choice Certificate of Excellence for Victorian Historical Romance, for The Jacaranda Tree, 1995; the KISS (Knight in Shining Silver) of the Month for Best Hero, for The Jacaranda Tree, 1995, and for Swan Road, 1994; the Career Achievement Award for Futuristic Romance, 1991, for Passion Moon Rising and Beyond the Starlit Frost; the Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Historical Gothic, for Across a Starlit Sea, 1989, and for Upon a Moon-Dark Moor, 1988; the Historical Romance Novelist of the Year Award, 1987; and the Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Western Romance, for The Outlaw Hearts, 1986. Rebecca has also been named one of Love's Leading Ladies and inducted into Romantic Times magazine's Hall of Fame.

http://www.brandewyne.com/castle/gall...

Reviews

[Sarah Mac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cheesy paranormal mystery + rambling infodumps + boring fated romance with an occasional Scottish accent. Yawn.

I'm almost certain I could push myself to finish, but why bother? I just DO NOT CARE, & apathetic, mediocre, words-on-a-page reads like this are precisely what I'm trying to DNF more ruthlessly. Life's too short, y'know?

[April Joy Lee]

This book could have been really great. The plot is good and the characters are interesting. But a lot of the narrative parts are so boring, especially when the author discusses the history of the places mentioned in the book. I get the whole "historical" part of the genre but in this book, there was just too much that sometimes, the whole flow of the story got interrupted. At one time, I had actually forgotten which part of the story I was reading because I got so distracted by the historical insert that I had to reread a few pages back again. The second time, I skipped the boring part.

[Shevie · Rating 1 out of 5]

i couldnt read past 2 chapters, the narrative was way to descriptive and i found it really hard to connect to the storyline and what was going on. I tried twice to read it but it bored me and thats odd since i usually like reading on the historical part of a book but to me this was to long and i got lost a few times wondering if i was reading the same thing or something else.

not for the faint hearted but probably a good read for people who like long descriptions and narritives

not something id pick up again

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

The set up for the MAIN story was the longest I've ever read. Too much detail and the language made the book seem incredibly detached. The two main characters didn't even "meet" until nearly 200 pages into the book! On top of it, all the characters were connected in someway or another, all because of a stolen antiquity. I couldn't get into it all too much, in part because of it being too neaty, another part due to the detached, lofty language.

[Janessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fairly disappointing read. There are moments of beautiful writing, but I felt like the story was overshadowed by needless descriptions/history (and I am someone who usually loves flowery, descriptive writing). This book is an example of it distracting from the world rather than adding.

An ancient Egyptian curse haunting a family, an abandoned castle in Scotland, the Loch Ness monster, a cartographer unraveling a mystery,, and of course, romance...this one should have been a hit for me.

[Carmen Long · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book, but I could have done without most of the historical information about who the land belonged to, and how long the building had been there, and where the hospital was before it moved to its present location. Those sorts of things really didn't interest me, but I was afraid to skim or skip over it, in case it was important later. FYI: it wasn't.

[Jovana Nenadic · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of the book was great but the execution could have been better. Too much repetition and too much time wasted on what amounted to useless information. I ended up skimming the book just to get to the actual story.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rarely stop a book midway through. But this one was not my style. More details than I wanted. I barely got through a quarter of it before I finally said I wasn't interested in finishing.

[Mary Wesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this book 5 stars. It was an extremely slow starter for me, taking 100 + pages to get through the happenings of the past. But once it got going I was pulled in.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story line is good. However I found it easy to skip through paragraphs and not lose the context. Being set in another country and spanning several generations also distracted me.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Agree with all the comments written up to this date (and immediately below mine). TOOOOOOOO wordy/descriptive! Just like that too has tooooo many o's! And a detached/formal writing style. If the author hadn't been so obviously over-eager but truly sincere (a combination that made me both like her in a magnanimous sort of way and somewhat pity her at the same time), I would say the book was supercilious.

I just kept getting this feeling of the author as a super dedicated person who was beside herself in being given the honor of writing this book (even if that makes no sense, but there was such a sense of low self esteem in each, bar none, of the characters that I can't help but think it was a reflection of the author herself)--eager, eager, eager to do it right b/c she was afraid she'd do it wrong.

And the characters were so sterotypical as to almost be cliche, but then there is that sincerity factor again.

This is a hard book to classify. I appreciate the intent, the work and dedication, just not the result.

I actually feel bad about saying this! Kind of like that youtube video of the adorable rapper who Howard Stern "gonged," so to speak. Google "Howard Stern Makes 7-year-old Rapper Cry on YouTube". You just feel bad for the kid! He was trying so hard and was just so darned cute.

[Annette Summerfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts off with each chapter moving from one character to another. I hate that...lol...I get involved with this one person and what they are doing, chapter ends and it starts with someone new, new setting...NOOOO..what happened to the people in the first chapter. Push past this and get to page...about 125 or 130 and it starts to come together and gets good. Towards the end of the book, about the second to last chapter everything is repeated. I'm not sure why. I just read the book, I know all this. I guess to make sure the reader has a good understanding of exactly what happened. I just skim read that bit towards the end to get to the end. Maybe the author was trying to build suspense and hold back on finishing.. Good book. Love the mystery of the emerald, the castle, the families coming together after loosing each other, the bad guys...I enjoyed it...just work past the first bit of going from one character in one chapter to the next..about the first 4 chapters, then your good to go.

[Persis Kkh · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first started reading this book, I wanted to put it aside because I found it boring but as I continued reading, the plots began to add up and I became interested in it. There's a little bit of romance in the book making it enjoying. I love reading about Malcolm and Ariana and I love the romance between Nicholas and Christine and wish there was a book about them too . In all, I really enjoyed reading this book and I highly recommend this book to all readers who enjoy historical books. An interesting book and I'll definitely be reading more books by this author.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was in the mood for a historical romance and this fit the bill. It had a centuries old mystery to be solved along the way, which made things interesting. The cast of characters was long, but the author kindly provided a list of them at the beginning of the book, which I was thankful for a couple of times.

[Gretchen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It would have been a lot better if the author had cut out a lot of the non-essential narrative. The basic story was very interesting once you actually got to it.

[Irène Wadowski uliasz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Histoire intéressante mais trop compliquée !