Blackness Tower

by Lillian Stewart Carl

Book Overview

For years, Lauren Reay has experienced vivid dreams of a castle keep and a chapel overlooking the sea. Then she finds the real place: a restored 16th-century Blackness Tower on the coast of northern Scotland. Inside the tower, owned by handsome but reclusive Douglas Sutherland, she finds a 19th-century portrait of a 16th-century woman... who has Lauren's face. Blackness Tower holds strange powers and elemental presences that will change Lauren's life...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809572028
• ISBN13: 9780809572021
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.3" x 6.7"
• Age Range: 16 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 11 and higher

Customer Reviews

Mystical Scotland

Back to her roots as a fantasy writer, this book is not a modern murder mystery, but the compelling story about a strange tower in the North of Scotland, which calls Lauren Reay from America to the home of her ancestors. As is the usual in Carl's books the mysteries are both ancient and modern and Lauren must work her way through a maze (both literally and figuratively) to understand not only the message of the tower but also the truth of her family's departure from Scotland and the disappearance of her father when she was only a young child. Although Lauren hauntingly resembles a woman whose portrait was painted in the tower in the 1800's, she learns that beauty is a two-edged sword. The men who inhabit the tower are drawn to that beauty but, like the woman from the past, Lauren cannot trust that they want her for herself but only for what she seems to be.

Fun to read

I enjoy reading time travel so I thought this book would be a fun read. While I have no idea how accurate her portrayal of Scotland (or its people) really is, it wasn't a bad story. Many of us have had dreams of other places, only to see them on tv or in a book, so it was interesting to have a main character explore her dreams and find the location. It's not too hard of a read, with a few quirky characters, and some cool mystical events.

thrilling supernatural modern day gothic tale

For years Laura Reay dreamed of a tower with people from the past living in it. Everyone except her grandfather dismissed it as her imagination until the day a calendar arrived from Cathiness, Scotland with the picture from August showing Blackness Tower, the place she has dreamed of for years. David was looking for realism when he bought and restored Blackwell Tower. When he takes her into his house, she sees portraits of Catherine and Suzanne who could have been her twins, but lived at the tower during different eras. Laura stays with her cousin twice removed Emma who knows that Blackness Tower brought Laura over here for a purpose. Laura and David must make a treacherous journey into another realm so the ghosts of Blackwell Tower can find peace; failure means Laura will join the dead haunting the place. Lillian Stewart Carl writes a thrilling supernatural modern day gothic thriller that starts off with a woman coming to terms with a different reality that she saw in her dreams. Now she must enter Fairy to break an evil spell that engulfs David's home. There is plenty of action with people who lived past lives influencing decisions made by the heroine. BLACKNESS TOWER focuses on a brave woman coming to grips with her gift of Sight and a man who needs healing finding love with one another. Harriet Klausner