Even more miraculous, it doesn’t feel rushed. Truly it is awe-inspiring how much adventure is packed into a slim 150 pages. Oh yeah! There’s a bit where the smoldering man sings “Take me out to the hex caves” to the tune of “take me out to the ball game.” How can it get any better than that? As for Craghold, however, I’m hooked! It has every gothic thing imaginable, sometimes all on one page – haunted hotel, supernatural moon glow, ghosts, sexy occultists, wealthy heirs, devil worshippers, spooky room service, and a hotel manager who’s also a scholar on werewolves and vampires. Like any fad genre, I’m sure many books fitting this mold are terrible. Rumor has it, publishers demanded the eerie structures be painted thick and tall to imply phallic imagery. Otherwise known as “women running from houses” books because every cover, regardless of author or publisher, featured an upscale woman fleeing a spooky building. My first venture into the gothic romance novels of the 1960’s and ’70s. Here are my reviews of each individual novel: The series should begin with the first, however, only to best lose one’s virginity to all the uncanny characters and otherworldly happenings. They can be read in any order without missing critical information. Lacking initiative to expand its potential is disappointing, and yet there is also a familiar pleasure with having the same events reoccur over changed seasons, and with fresh victims at the mercy of the same haunted hotel.Ĭonnections between the four books are minimal at best. The follow-up entries are less mesmerizing because the world is already so richly established. Undeterred by the novella format, Edwina Noone (aka Michael Avallone) manages to incorporate every Gothic item imaginable in a single narrative.

The Craghold quartet is highlighted primarily by its first volume, The Craghold Legacy, which delivers an unwavering deluge of bizarre.

The Craghold Legacy by Edwina Noone