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Reviews for Owl manor – the Dawning: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars – Good book! Highly recommended!

final cover copy

V. Timmons (Amazon reader)

“I thoroughly enjoyed Owl Manor. I read books across a variety of genres, but not typically Gothic romance. After reading this book, I will definitely add Gothic romance to my reading list, as well as other novels by this author. I was attracted to this book by the beautiful cover and the suggestions of dark suspense of the woman protagonist living in the 1800’s.

Linda Dunbar

Silvia Curry, Silvia’s Reading Corner

“Owl Manor the Dawning is an amazing Gothic horror novel that instantly takes you back to a time where life was harder and misery seemed to love company. The story follows Eva, Mr. Bradstone, Gilbert, and Joseph on a wild ride to madness, and every single unexpected twist and turn left me breathless. 

Zita Harrison’s writing is reminiscent of Poe, in which the entire story comes alive and leaves you anxiously turning the pages to see what is going to happen. The foreshadowing is amazing, and if you aren’t careful, you just may miss it (and it is so much more fun to find them the second time around!). 

Zita Harrison does an incredible job with this epic gothic horror novel. Her story will stay with me long, and I will never look at owls the same again!”

$2.99 for Kindle at Amazon https://amzn.to/2yhfmbq

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OWL MANOR – THE DAWNING NOW AVAILABLE on AMAZON!!

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Sometimes the tide sweeps us into a fog where dark forces are at work…

All of a sudden evil and good become blurred…

Powerless and defenseless, we swim toward it, and wonder if we’re going mad.

Stifled by the repression of women in the 1800s, trapped in a loveless marriage, Eva lives a life of dissatisfaction and frustration. The tide sweeps her to the Rocky Mountains during the gold rush in 1859, where she finds unexpected hope at Owl Manor, a strange, dark place with owls in the very fabric of its walls.

But the stakes are perilous. Shadows wander the dim corridors. The owner of the manor is moody, volatile. Does she dare trust him?

Owl Manor – the Dawning,the first standalone book in a trilogy of Gothic romantic suspense novels, is inspired by authors such as Daphne du Maurier (Jamaica Inn, Rebecca), Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Marina, Shadow of the Wind), Kate Morton (The Forgotten Garden).

Filled with Poe-esque atmosphere, dark desires and supernatural elements, this book is a must read for fans of Gothic Romance.

https://amzn.to/2yhfmbq (kindle) $2.99
https://amzn.to/2QP8Z63 (paperback) $9.99

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A Living, Breathing Red.

Crimson Peak

While my inspirations for Gothic romance are the classics: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte; Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and more, I Really enjoyed the Gothic romance movie, Crimson Peak by Guillermo del Toro. Of course the fact it had three of my favorite actors didn’t hurt!

CAst Crimson Peak

Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasokowska…and Gothic romance. What’s not to like????

The plot: Edith Cushing, played by Mia Wasikowska, is our heroine, the proverbial, Gothic damsel in distress. She is perfect: small, delicate, arouses protectiveness in anyone. She is repeatedly visited by her mother’s ghost who warns her against the mysterious “Crimson Peak,” which she later realizes is another name for Allerdale Hall in England, the Gothic mansion she moves to with her new husband, Thomas Sharpe, played by Tom Hiddleston, and his sister, Lucille, played by the unsurpassable Jessica Chastain. Nothing is right at this mansion. First, the red clay it sits on, all the more shocking because it oozes like bright red blood out of snow, is slowly devouring it; hence the name Crimson Peak. Second, the gorgeous man who swept Edith off her feet all of a sudden acts cold and distant towards her. Third, his beautiful sister seems to hate her. We find out later that Thomas and Lucille have been carrying on an incestuous relationship, and that he married three other rich women before Edith to gain access to their money, after which the brother and sister poisoned them. In the spirit (!) of crimson, Edith is visited by ghastly red ghosts, starts coughing up blood, and realizes that she also is being poisoned. What wasn’t part of the plan, however, was Thomas falling in love with Edith. Jessica Chastain, fabulous in every role she has ever done, transforms beautifully into a jealous lunatic sister who murders her brother rather than lose him, and is herself killed eventually by Edith. Of course there’s more, go see it!

What I was impressed by was the whole crimson theme. The snow was red, the ghosts were red, and not just a regular red, but a powerful, bloody red that attacks the senses and makes your skin crawl. It reminds us of what we are inside, a throbbing, pulsing, living red, a thought that completely goes against our humanity because, except in the form of a rare steak on our plate, which has nothing to do with what’s inside us (!), we cannot relate to it and would rather not think about it. Unless, of course, we are in the medical profession, or sadistic, people skinning murderers, or perhaps butchers. And It was different in that ghosts are not usually presented as red; bleeding maybe, translucent maybe, hazy blues or grays, purples, blacks maybe  but not all over red like that. So in that respect I thought it was more like a monster movie. But whatever it was, it was very entertaining, and, as always, a joy to watch these three great actors.

Here is an interview of the cast.

“Ghosts I love because they represent so many things and I like to use them in a different way than they are used in horror movies where they are just scary and creepy. I want to also use them as characters that could be good…ghosts represent the past.”
– Guillermo del Toro

Love his 2006 Spanish dark fantasy film, Pan’s Labyrinth as well.