What do you think?
Rate this book
Falcon Saga #9
Falcon Sunset
The sunset of the mighty English empire cast its blood-red glow over the great Falcon manor of Kingsmead. While the Falcon men were away fighting and dying on the battlefields of World War I, the most ruthless and voracious of the Falcon women were seizing control of the Falcon fate at home.
There was Leah, who had done so much evil in her life, and now was fearful of the satanic forces she had summoned forth but could no longer control. There was her niece, Levanah, mistress of all the black arts, supreme in her power to seduce and corrupt all around her. There were the men who were their helpless pawns, the children who were their pitiful puppets - and the young girl whose uncanny powers and indomitable courage made her the last hope to save the Falcon name and the Falcon honor from the infernal triumph of darkness.
There was Leah, who had done so much evil in her life, and now was fearful of the satanic forces she had summoned forth but could no longer control. There was her niece, Levanah, mistress of all the black arts, supreme in her power to seduce and corrupt all around her. There were the men who were their helpless pawns, the children who were their pitiful puppets - and the young girl whose uncanny powers and indomitable courage made her the last hope to save the Falcon name and the Falcon honor from the infernal triumph of darkness.
- GenresHistorical FictionGothic
253 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
14 people want to read
About the author
Catherine Darby
58 books12 followersPseudonym for Maureen Peters
Maureen Peters was born in Caernarvon, Wales, on March 3, 1935, and was married and divorced twice; she has two sons and two daughters. In addition to biographical fiction, historical romances, and mystery novels written under her own name, other noms de plume include Veronica Black, Catherine Darby, Levanah Lloyd, Belinda Grey, Elizabeth Law, Judith Rothman, and Sharon Whitby.
As Catherine Darby, Maureen Peters wrote books that were sold as Gothics, such as the 12 books in the Falcon Saga, but were really what Sarah calls "dark family sagas." Or more precisely, she describes their plot lines this way: "Themes of illicit passion, family rivalry, witchcraft, revenge, and even reincarnation permeated the novels…"
Maureen Peters was born in Caernarvon, Wales, on March 3, 1935, and was married and divorced twice; she has two sons and two daughters. In addition to biographical fiction, historical romances, and mystery novels written under her own name, other noms de plume include Veronica Black, Catherine Darby, Levanah Lloyd, Belinda Grey, Elizabeth Law, Judith Rothman, and Sharon Whitby.
As Catherine Darby, Maureen Peters wrote books that were sold as Gothics, such as the 12 books in the Falcon Saga, but were really what Sarah calls "dark family sagas." Or more precisely, she describes their plot lines this way: "Themes of illicit passion, family rivalry, witchcraft, revenge, and even reincarnation permeated the novels…"
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Read
May 10, 2020Since the first book I read in the Falcon Saga, I've been in love with them.
There is a constant in the storyline that all those women bear the mark of the devil, the crescent moon on their thighs, some of them have yellow eyes and most of them are originally from Wales since the first one to have been involved with a Falcon, Margred.
It stands to reason that the previous book before Falcon Sunset was about Levanah, Beth's daughter, who is evil, that Cat must be good. As there is always a good and a bad Falcon woman. Leah who killed Beth, her sister, to get her hand on Levanah, Beth's daughter with Michael Shaw was evil, with an obsession for being the one having the children.
In this book, Michael Shaw is at the deathbed of Cal Falcon, Wenna Davies' husband who gives him a message for his wife that Levanah is evil and that Teddy, Levanah's cousin whom she married, also died.
At the point where I left the story today, Michael Shaw was at Maria Regina and stopped to visit the grave of Beth whom he loved but who he left before finding out she was with child. Like so many others, he thinks she killed herself. He found out in the previous book that he had a daughter Levanah whom he noticed is a strange girl with nothing in common with the sweet gentle Beth.
At the graveyard he meets with Wenna Falcon who kind of hints that Levanah is not really grieving her husband. Can't wait to see what else will happen.
Lost my book on January 26th after falling down. Also lost the rare book marker somebody had given me from a trip they took in Turkey. I had to reorder the book as I couldn't find it, nobody brought it back. I was lucky to find a place where they had it on stock.
Nota bene: When I read the first book, I was so into the story that I wanted to read more and couldn't find more book at Classic Book Shop where I had bought the first one. Found inside the book jacket an address for the publisher and ordered the whole series.
One of my favorite is the one about Gilda Falcon, ward to the Duke of Gaunt.
When the story starts we are in Wales where old Catrin is looking after Cat, Levanah's child.
Catrin is over 90 years old so we know that at some point she will die.
We find out Levanah married her cousin Teddy and gave him twins, Johnny and Selena while Wenna, Catrin's daugther married Cal and had a son named Giles. Both women are widowed during the war where Levanah's father, Michael Shaw, an artist, happens to be on the battlefield and hears Cal's latest words urging Shaw to tell Wenna to be careful about Levanah.
The chapter I'm on presently, time has passed, Michael Shaw came to Kingsmead, met his daughter again whom he finds to be evil. He will at some point marry Wenna whom he met in the graveyard when he went to look at Beth's tomb. He meets Leah Simmons, the one who actually killed Beth to steal her child. It is clear that Levanah and Leah are both evil and if they could get away with killing one another, they would have done it by now.
We find out what happened to Mary, Leah's daughter who ran away with Charlotte Bishop. Charlotte Bishop will kill herself as she cannot accept that Mary should leave her for a man, Franz Von Braun with whom Mary will have a daughter Sigrid.
As we find out after Charlotte's suicide which happened the day Mary and Franz married, Franz thought it better for Mary to go back to Kingsmead where she would be close to her family and forgot about Charlotte's death.
Now I'm wondering if Leah is going to try and rid herself of her daughter so she can have Sigrid all to herself and if Franz will be able to prevent her from accomplishing her evil deed.
The last time we heard about Cat, Catrin was still alive and she had met a strange woman called Leone.
Mary is expecting a second child but the pregnancy does not seem to go too well. Meanwhile Levanah is plotting to get Sigrid, Mary's first child, to live at Kingsmead with her and Leah.
Somebody seems intent to get rid of Giles, Wenna's son who is now 17. My guess a mother who does not want her daughter Selena to fall for her cousin.
Meanwhile since Aunt Catrin's death, Cat who seems to be good unlike her mom is honing her gift of clairvoyance under the guidance of Leone with whom she now seems to be living.
I lost the book on January 26, 2016 and had to get another copy to finish it and I took it back to read from the start on February 27, 2020. I finished it yesterday, March 26, 2020.
Many things happened. Charlotte Bishop killed herself when she found out Mary was in love with Franz Von Braun and was going to marry her. Actually Charlotte killed herself on their wedding day.
Franz accepted a position as a teacher at the school in Marie Regina. Mary and him first had Sigrid and when Mary died in childbirth giving birth to Margot, it was easy for Leah and Levanah to convince Franz to leave the 2 girls with them.
Levanah started teaching the girls the black art especially when Franz turned down her advances and decided to move back to Germany. The 2 girls were instrumental in their dad's fatal accidental.
Meanwhile Levanah met again her real dad, Michael Shaw who fell in love with Wenna, married her and adopted her son Giles as his own.
Much to Levanah's displeasure her daughter Selena fell in love with her cousin Giles and married him.
When Price Falcon's grandson showed up at Maidenstone, Levanah manoeuvered to get rid of Giles not caring that her daughter was pregnant with her first child by having him lose control of a new harvester he was trying. Instead of killing Giles, it wound up killing Price who was trying to warn Selena to get out of the way.
Meanwhile in Wales, Cat had a vision of what was happening and told Leone she had to go to Marie Regina to try and stop the evil there.
She went to London and much to her misery met and fell in love with Eddie Weston who turned out to be her half-brother, John Falcon. When she found out, she left London without a word and went back to Saron.
She came back later on as Catherine Beck, the new teacher. She went to the cottage and found out the tools used for black magic by Leah, Levanah, Sigrid and Margot. She made figurines of them and bound them from using black magic.
When she was invited to the celebration for the Falcons, she finally confronted her real mother, Levanah, about whom was her father, showed them the moonstone ring that had been Beth's ring. As the truth was finally revealed by all, much to the horror of Selena and John who had eavesdropped in, he went back in his plane and decided to target his ancestral home killing and maiming all in there even his beloved half-sister Cat. Levanah's dress caught fire and you find out that Michael Shaw, in his 90ies, Wenna and Giles had just arrived to see the horror unfolding before their eyes.
This book concludes the last Falcon Saga book. A very dark one. I became fascinated by the Falcon Saga in the 70ies when I first read a Falcon for a Witch and when I went back to the Classic Bookstore (we no longer have them here anymore), I couldn't find the rest of the saga and so I ordered them by mail and a few weeks later got a whole box of book on the Falcon Saga. The first one remains my favorite along with the one about Gilda Falcon who becomes John of Gaunt's mistress and bore him a child.
There have always been a woman with the witch mark in the Falcon family and each generation there was either a good witch or an evil witch. That book wasn't particularly my favorite one but I took to Cat, she is the good witch here, even though she had the visions at a very young age she never went to the dark side.
There is a constant in the storyline that all those women bear the mark of the devil, the crescent moon on their thighs, some of them have yellow eyes and most of them are originally from Wales since the first one to have been involved with a Falcon, Margred.
It stands to reason that the previous book before Falcon Sunset was about Levanah, Beth's daughter, who is evil, that Cat must be good. As there is always a good and a bad Falcon woman. Leah who killed Beth, her sister, to get her hand on Levanah, Beth's daughter with Michael Shaw was evil, with an obsession for being the one having the children.
In this book, Michael Shaw is at the deathbed of Cal Falcon, Wenna Davies' husband who gives him a message for his wife that Levanah is evil and that Teddy, Levanah's cousin whom she married, also died.
At the point where I left the story today, Michael Shaw was at Maria Regina and stopped to visit the grave of Beth whom he loved but who he left before finding out she was with child. Like so many others, he thinks she killed herself. He found out in the previous book that he had a daughter Levanah whom he noticed is a strange girl with nothing in common with the sweet gentle Beth.
At the graveyard he meets with Wenna Falcon who kind of hints that Levanah is not really grieving her husband. Can't wait to see what else will happen.
Lost my book on January 26th after falling down. Also lost the rare book marker somebody had given me from a trip they took in Turkey. I had to reorder the book as I couldn't find it, nobody brought it back. I was lucky to find a place where they had it on stock.
Nota bene: When I read the first book, I was so into the story that I wanted to read more and couldn't find more book at Classic Book Shop where I had bought the first one. Found inside the book jacket an address for the publisher and ordered the whole series.
One of my favorite is the one about Gilda Falcon, ward to the Duke of Gaunt.
When the story starts we are in Wales where old Catrin is looking after Cat, Levanah's child.
Catrin is over 90 years old so we know that at some point she will die.
We find out Levanah married her cousin Teddy and gave him twins, Johnny and Selena while Wenna, Catrin's daugther married Cal and had a son named Giles. Both women are widowed during the war where Levanah's father, Michael Shaw, an artist, happens to be on the battlefield and hears Cal's latest words urging Shaw to tell Wenna to be careful about Levanah.
The chapter I'm on presently, time has passed, Michael Shaw came to Kingsmead, met his daughter again whom he finds to be evil. He will at some point marry Wenna whom he met in the graveyard when he went to look at Beth's tomb. He meets Leah Simmons, the one who actually killed Beth to steal her child. It is clear that Levanah and Leah are both evil and if they could get away with killing one another, they would have done it by now.
We find out what happened to Mary, Leah's daughter who ran away with Charlotte Bishop. Charlotte Bishop will kill herself as she cannot accept that Mary should leave her for a man, Franz Von Braun with whom Mary will have a daughter Sigrid.
As we find out after Charlotte's suicide which happened the day Mary and Franz married, Franz thought it better for Mary to go back to Kingsmead where she would be close to her family and forgot about Charlotte's death.
Now I'm wondering if Leah is going to try and rid herself of her daughter so she can have Sigrid all to herself and if Franz will be able to prevent her from accomplishing her evil deed.
The last time we heard about Cat, Catrin was still alive and she had met a strange woman called Leone.
Mary is expecting a second child but the pregnancy does not seem to go too well. Meanwhile Levanah is plotting to get Sigrid, Mary's first child, to live at Kingsmead with her and Leah.
Somebody seems intent to get rid of Giles, Wenna's son who is now 17. My guess a mother who does not want her daughter Selena to fall for her cousin.
Meanwhile since Aunt Catrin's death, Cat who seems to be good unlike her mom is honing her gift of clairvoyance under the guidance of Leone with whom she now seems to be living.
I lost the book on January 26, 2016 and had to get another copy to finish it and I took it back to read from the start on February 27, 2020. I finished it yesterday, March 26, 2020.
Many things happened. Charlotte Bishop killed herself when she found out Mary was in love with Franz Von Braun and was going to marry her. Actually Charlotte killed herself on their wedding day.
Franz accepted a position as a teacher at the school in Marie Regina. Mary and him first had Sigrid and when Mary died in childbirth giving birth to Margot, it was easy for Leah and Levanah to convince Franz to leave the 2 girls with them.
Levanah started teaching the girls the black art especially when Franz turned down her advances and decided to move back to Germany. The 2 girls were instrumental in their dad's fatal accidental.
Meanwhile Levanah met again her real dad, Michael Shaw who fell in love with Wenna, married her and adopted her son Giles as his own.
Much to Levanah's displeasure her daughter Selena fell in love with her cousin Giles and married him.
When Price Falcon's grandson showed up at Maidenstone, Levanah manoeuvered to get rid of Giles not caring that her daughter was pregnant with her first child by having him lose control of a new harvester he was trying. Instead of killing Giles, it wound up killing Price who was trying to warn Selena to get out of the way.
Meanwhile in Wales, Cat had a vision of what was happening and told Leone she had to go to Marie Regina to try and stop the evil there.
She went to London and much to her misery met and fell in love with Eddie Weston who turned out to be her half-brother, John Falcon. When she found out, she left London without a word and went back to Saron.
She came back later on as Catherine Beck, the new teacher. She went to the cottage and found out the tools used for black magic by Leah, Levanah, Sigrid and Margot. She made figurines of them and bound them from using black magic.
When she was invited to the celebration for the Falcons, she finally confronted her real mother, Levanah, about whom was her father, showed them the moonstone ring that had been Beth's ring. As the truth was finally revealed by all, much to the horror of Selena and John who had eavesdropped in, he went back in his plane and decided to target his ancestral home killing and maiming all in there even his beloved half-sister Cat. Levanah's dress caught fire and you find out that Michael Shaw, in his 90ies, Wenna and Giles had just arrived to see the horror unfolding before their eyes.
This book concludes the last Falcon Saga book. A very dark one. I became fascinated by the Falcon Saga in the 70ies when I first read a Falcon for a Witch and when I went back to the Classic Bookstore (we no longer have them here anymore), I couldn't find the rest of the saga and so I ordered them by mail and a few weeks later got a whole box of book on the Falcon Saga. The first one remains my favorite along with the one about Gilda Falcon who becomes John of Gaunt's mistress and bore him a child.
There have always been a woman with the witch mark in the Falcon family and each generation there was either a good witch or an evil witch. That book wasn't particularly my favorite one but I took to Cat, she is the good witch here, even though she had the visions at a very young age she never went to the dark side.
October 8, 2020
Falcon Sunset is the last book in the Falcon Saga, in which we find out that Levannah Falcon - protagonist of the last book - has gone full-tilt Dark Side. She is manipulating the fortunes of her family as a literal wicked witch, with seemingly nobody to stop her - except the daughter she abandoned in Wales years before, who’s studying white magic and coming into her own . . .
This book isn’t quite as entertaining as its predecessor, Falcon Rising - too much time spent with the “mundane” members of the family, who are far less interesting than Levannah, and not enough time spent with young Cat. The ending, though, is completely unexpected and an absolute corker that harkens back to an easy-to-overlook phrase in the previous book.
I do wonder, by the way, if anyone has done a scholarly study of the craze in “devil books” that hit publishing in the early ‘70s in the wake of not only Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, but also the women’s movement. Here were the stereotypes of medieval witches - worshipping Satan, conducting rituals, blighting crops, committing acts of sexual deviance, sacrificing animals - being put out as entertainment for women by male publishing executives just as women were claiming their own, non-magical power. Hmm . . .
This book isn’t quite as entertaining as its predecessor, Falcon Rising - too much time spent with the “mundane” members of the family, who are far less interesting than Levannah, and not enough time spent with young Cat. The ending, though, is completely unexpected and an absolute corker that harkens back to an easy-to-overlook phrase in the previous book.
I do wonder, by the way, if anyone has done a scholarly study of the craze in “devil books” that hit publishing in the early ‘70s in the wake of not only Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, but also the women’s movement. Here were the stereotypes of medieval witches - worshipping Satan, conducting rituals, blighting crops, committing acts of sexual deviance, sacrificing animals - being put out as entertainment for women by male publishing executives just as women were claiming their own, non-magical power. Hmm . . .
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews