The House on Blackstone Moor: Review, Guest Post & Giveaway

The House on Blackstone Moor

Author: Carole Gill

Genre: Gothic Romance/Paranormal

Release Date: May 2, 2012

Blurb:

“They say my father was mad, so corrupted by evil and tainted by sin that he did what he did. I came home to find them all dead; their throats savagely cut. My sisters only five and eight were gone as well as my brother who was twelve. My mother too lay butchered in her marriage bed. The bed her children were born in…”

Young Rose Baines discovers the savage murders of her family by her mad, incestuous father.

She is plunged into a nightmare of hell and is incarcerated in two madhouses after which she is helped to obtain a position as governess at Blackstone House.

The house is located on haunted moorland. Nothing is as it seems for Blackstone House and its inhabitants have hideous secrets. There is unimaginable horror there but there is love too--love that comes at a terrible price.

The story is as haunting as it is terrifying and will remain with the reader long after its disturbing tale has been told.

Purchase your copy:                 Amazon                    Amazon U.K.

Review:

The House on Blackstone Moor is a deliciously dark and gothic novel about a young woman who comes home one day to find her family murdered by her father, who also killed himself. She is admitted to an insane asylum and finally becomes employed at the Blackstone House, where things start to go horribly wrong.

The story was very well written and had a good flow. I found the first half of the book to be a bit slow paced, but after about the halfway mark, things definitely picked up and didn't stop until the very end. The setting and time period the book is set in was a perfect choice for the story - it added the right amount of creepy and gothic to make the story feel more ominous and dark. The characters were interesting and had many facets to them, which I found made me more involved in the novel and eager to see their outcomes.

The House on Blackstone Moor is a wonderfully written gothic romance that fans of Carole Gill's other works will surely appreciate as will fans of dark gothic romances and paranormal romance.

Guest Post:

10 Favorite Books and Why

by Carole Gill

Dracula

Dracula has not been out of print since it was first published in 1897. That says a lot. The structure of the novel is terribly interesting. The story is told from journal reports, letters and various papers.

I love that because the first person narrative (a favorite of mine for long fiction to read and to write) creates intimacy. It makes it all quite real as well.

I look to it for inspiration and always shall. This novel decided me on choosing my point of view for my novel, The House on Blackstone Moor and frankly it further decided me on how to write the sequel, Unholy Testament.

I think every author, of whatever genre, should study the technique used here because it is brilliant.



Interview with a Vampire

This to me, is as ground breaking a novel as Dracula was. It is a brilliantly told tale but it is written for the modern reader.

Here we find that vampires are not all the same. They feel and remember their living lives.

Rice shows us that vampires are more complex than any other monstrous fictional creations. That is why the genre will go on, adapting itself continually for each generation of reader.


Jane Eyre

This novel is the best representation of just how harsh English society was in the middle part of the 19th Century. It was class based. Whatever class you were born into, you remained in as did your children.

Jane Eyre, one of society’s unfortunates is determined to survive and be loved at all cost. This alone makes the character remarkable. She wants love in a loveless society.

I love the dark romance in the novel as well as the beautiful narrative.
I often joke that The House on Blackstone Moor is Jane Eyre with vampires, in a way it is! Read it and you’ll see what I mean!



Wuthering Heights

This is a far darker and more controversial story than Jane Eyre. When it was released it was perceived as such.
Just what is Heathcliff and Cathy’s relationship, are they related or not?
Their love is doomed as they are because of this irresolution.
This is a dark, beautifully told story. And really, for me, the test of what makes a novel great is whether we remember it. This is another one to remember.



Rebecca

This is the first gothic romance novel I read. There is a dark mystery at the heart of the story which I find very intriguing. Just why does the housekeeper hate the second Mrs. DeWinter as much as she does?

The questions abound as the mystery deepens. There are surprising twists that will shock and delight. I loved it.


My Cousin Rachel

This is told in the first person narrative. A young man tells this story of doomed love, of dark desires and deeply felt romance. There is a ponderous question at the center or it. Is Cousin Rachel good or bad? Was Philip’s beloved uncle poisoned or not by her?

The truth comes out and it will haunt Philip for the rest of his life as well as those who read the tale!


The Portrait of Dorian Grey

This is a gothic masterpiece. It is positively Faustian in that young, handsome Dorian Gray in a careless moment, stares at his reflection and offers his soul in order to remain as he is.

It is an allegory for all of us, in whatever century we live in. It is the reason we seek Botox treatments and face lifts. And the key question is, if we could offer our souls to remain young as Dorian did, would we?

A Tale of Two Cities

If I had to choose a novel that had everything in it a novel should have, it would be this one.

There is love, romance, bigotry, madness and hatred—told against the backdrop of the French Revolution.

This is Dickens’ masterpiece. For it depicts the greatest gift one human being can give another: their own life sacrificed in the name of love.


The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Two beings in one body—a just man and a monster: Jekyll and Hyde. This is one of the most remarkable pieces of fiction ever written.

Hyde looks like what he is, a monster. Jekyll ostensibly wished to see if he could make himself evil.

Of course we could ask ourselves was this a noble scientific experiment or did he wish to know ‘how the evil half lived?’

He could then give into whatever dark desires he might have! If that is in any way the case, it puts a whole different light on this amazing story.


The Woman in Black

The most superbly satisfying ghost story ever written in my opinion, this is the mother of all haunted tales.

I love it because it is well written and plausible. Hatred has survived death and that hatred, in the person of the Woman in Black, seeks revenge. Revenge that is as terrifying as it is brutally unfair.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your favorite books with us Carole!

Author Bio:

I wrote my first story at age 8. It was sci-fi but as both my parents were sci-fi fanatics it wasn’t a surprise.

I continued to write however life got in the way as it often does, and it wasn’t until 2000 that I turned back to writing. I joined a local writer’s workshop and was greatly encouraged to keep up with my writing and to send things out.

Shortly afterwards, I was selected by Northwest Playwrights of England for further development but found I preferred fiction writing.

Widely published in horror and sci-fi anthologies, The House on Blackstone Moor is my first novel. It is a tale of vampirism, madness, obsession and devil worship.

Set in 19th Century Yorkshire, its locales include Victorian madhouses as well as barren, wind-swept Yorkshire moors. The story is a marriage of horror and gothic romance. I think it can best be described as being gothic paranormal romantic horror.

I suppose you could say I want to put the Goth back into Gothic.

Living in the area the novel is set in, was very beneficial. Also, as a great admirer of the Brontes and frequent visitor to the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth, I found myself nearly obsessed with recreating the gothic romantic narrative.

Having been employed in a hospital which had been historically a workhouse and asylum in Victorian times, I was able to add great realism to the depiction of the asylums as described in my novel.

The sequel, Unholy Testament, is the confession of a demon to the woman he loves. It is nearing the end of its first draft and will be released shortly. 

Visit Carole's website here.

Giveaway

 

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*Disclosure of Material Connection: I am a member of Reading Addiction Blog Tours and a copy of this book was provided to me by the author. Although payment may have been received by Reading Addiction Blog Tours, no payment was received by me in exchange for this review. There was no obligation to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are entirely my own and may not necessarily agree with those of the author, publisher, publicist, or readers of this review. This disclosure is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commision’s 16 CFR, Part 255, Guides Concerning Use of Endorcements and Testimonials in Advertising*