The Inheritor

Leslie Barnes, a psychologist, and her younger sister move into a lovely house in San Francisco. Leslie's looking forward to starting a new practice, and her sister to studying music. Soon, they both meet Simon Anstey, who seems to have a romantic interest in Leslie - and, coincidentally, is an acclaimed music teacher. But strange occurences and auras seem to surround the house, and the two women seem to be the focus of benevolent but intense interest from the local Pagan community.

I very much enjoyed reading this book as a fun haunted house/occult tale, and appreciated that between the previous book in this series (Dark Satanic) and this one, Bradley seemed to have read up on her modern paganism, and incorporated it nicely into the show more story. However, the ending of this book was extremely problematic, on not just an ethical but a practical level. There are things that both cannot and should not be forgiven - especially not just at the drop of a hat. Among these things I would count murder, rape, and using magical (or any other sort of) influence to induce people to do fairly dreadful things against their will. Being selfishly traumatized is not an excuse for these sort of crimes, and an "oh, sorry" does not atone for them. It's a quite befuddling ending, and I would really like to know if Bradley ever explained why she wrote it this way. show less

Something of a modern gothic horror novel, set in San Francisco in the early 1980's, it's kind of... atmospheric and weird.

Leslie is an unwilling psychic; it's nothing she wants or can control, but occasionally she has had glimpses of missing/murdered people, and has worked with the police to help them find these people. Her day job is as a psychologist, and she is also the guardian for her 17-year old sister,a musical prodigy. Weird, unexplained things are happening, even before they move into a house previously owned by another psychologist psychic.

Some modern readers may be appalled at the immorality of Leslie dumping boyfriend A and quickly falling into bed with boyfriend B; that's just "not done" in contemporary romance these days, show more though as a lifestyle in the 1970's and 1980's, really no big deal, and a younger reader might be even more interested in that "taste" of the period.

My problem is that Leslie seems too willing to bend over backwards to overlook the creepiness of Simon, boyfriend B; even to him having definitely killed a cat and perhaps even murdered a junkie prostitute in a dark ritual for his own gain. Oh, and he might be willing to sacrifice the little sister, too. While I appreciate that in the end, every human being is shown as redeemable, capable of being brought into the light, and Leslie and Simon are presented as having a HEA, in some ways, that's even worse. It's a spine-tingling, suitably Halloween-y story, and well-written, but the ending doesn't feel satisfying to me. show less

Although it is labeled and reads as a horror story, this is actually more of a romance and voyage of self-discovery.
The main theme is what appears to be terror when we don't understand it, may well turn out to be the love of our life once we understand and embrace that which we fear.

Strange things are happening to clinical psychologist Leslie Barnes. Psychic visions appear from nowhere, and after helping police find the body of a missing girl, Leslie’s psychic visions continue to haunt her. In an effort to escape from the madness (and the press), Leslie buys an old house overlooking the San Francisco Bay. But instead of escaping her psychic visions, Leslie finds more in her house than she bargained for--objects crashing in the night, the ghost of a murdered cat, and a mysterious world of pagans and psychics. Set in modern times, this gothic tale will keep you turning the pages to see who or what will pop up next.

This is one of Marion Zimmer Bradley's "modern occult" books. In general I like all of the books and enjoy reading them because she is such a talented author, but there was nothing particularly compelling about this one. We have a mystery (well, it was kind of obvious what was going on, but the main character didn't know), and a seemingly nice guy who apparently isn't. In the end he learns that you can't just be a little evil to get what you want. You have to decide on your path and follow it- even if that means sacraficing your dreams.

A decent book, much better than the related "Dark Satanic." A young woman moves into a new home and finds herself at the center of an occult battle.

Review coming!