Valerie Harrington

Haunted by fragmented memories of a childhood abduction, artist Ezra Marlow finds solace only in the shadows of his London flat and the haunting canvases he creates. His carefully constructed world shatters with the arrival of a postcard bearing an image that sears his soul: a raven perched upon a crumbling stone gate, identical to one that haunts his dreams. The postcard, unsigned, summons him to Blackwood Manor, a decaying estate nestled in the remote Scottish Highlands – a place he’s never heard of, yet feels inexplicably drawn to.

Compelled by a force he doesn’t understand, Ezra journeys north, the desolate landscape mirroring the growing unease within him. Blackwood Manor rises against the unforgiving terrain, a gothic monstrosity whispering secrets of lives lived and lost. Within its walls, stained-glass windows cast kaleidoscopic patterns across dusty floors, the air thick with the scent of peat smoke and the tang of brine. He establishes a studio in a turret room overlooking a walled garden, where withered roses cling to rusted trellises, their thorns like skeletal fingers reaching out.

The discovery of a hidden diary fragments the fragile silence. The words of Isobel MacIntyre, a young woman who vanished from Blackwood decades earlier, chronicle a terrifying imprisonment and the creeping psychological unraveling brought on by a nameless entity dwelling within the house—an entity that whispers promises of power in exchange for silence. Isobel’s account chillingly mirrors Ezra's own trauma, blurring the lines between his past and her present.

Deborah Macdonald, the manor’s stoic caretaker, becomes an unlikely ally, her own family history entangled with Blackwood’s ominous legacy. Together, they uncover a disturbing pattern: disappearances coinciding with periods of intense solar activity. The raven motif, woven through the manor's architecture and Isobel's diary, takes on a sinister significance. As a solar storm gathers force above the brooding Highlands, Ezra realizes he isn’t just confronting the ghosts of Blackwood’s past; he’s become a participant in a ritual far older and more sinister than he could have imagined.

He is the intended sacrifice.

With his art as his only weapon, Ezra must confront not only the entity but the trauma that binds him to Blackwood. He descends into the darkness beneath the walled garden, where a hidden chamber awaits, the altar chillingly prepared.

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The House Where the Light Doesn’t Reach: A Blackwood Manor Novel

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