An edition of Castle Barebane (1976)

Castle Barebane

1st ed.
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  • 4.0 (1 rating) ·
  • 13 Want to read
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Last edited by Margymoll
June 26, 2019 | History
An edition of Castle Barebane (1976)

Castle Barebane

1st ed.
  • 4.0 (1 rating) ·
  • 13 Want to read
  • 1 Currently reading
  • 4 Have read

Near the top of a three-hundred-foot crag perched a roofless ruin with crumbling battlements and shattered buttresses....Apart from the ruined castle there seemed to be no other sign of human life, unless you counted a couple of fishing boats well out to sea....

Val Montgomery, young, warm-hearted, and confident -- but no lady, according to the grande dames of New York in the 1880's -- had abandoned a promising job on a newspaper and a claustrophobic engagement to a society lawyer and sailed to England to help her spendthrift half-brother, Nils, whose Scottish heiress wife, Kirstie, had fallen ill.

Arrived in a London terrorized by a series of lurid murders, Val can find no trace of Nils or Kirstie. Horrified, she discovers that her small nephew and niece seem to have been callously abandoned in a London slum. Seeking a safe domicile for the children, Val travels to Edinburgh, intending to leave them with their mother's old nurse at Ardnacarrig, the family home on the Scottish coast -- but she soon begins to doubt that old Elspie is the loving guardian she had hoped for.

In the quest for her brother, Val encounters four men destined to change her life forever: Lord Clanreydon, slated as England's next prime minister -- a man of mysterious origins and enigmatic habits; Sir Marcus Cusack, an editor who befriends her; Davie, a brilliant young Scottish doctor; and Mungo, an old sailor. Soon the apparent peach of Ardnacarrig (known as Castle Barebane by the locals) is threatened by dark emanations from London's underworld, and Val begins to apprehend that it might be better for all if Nils were never seen again.

But her realization comes too late. Guilty and innocent alike are whirled in a wild eruption of violence as events more quickly to a terrifying climax in a savage confrontation between the forces of good and evil on the cliffs of Ardnacarrig.

In this, her most compelling and suspenseful novel to date, Joan Aiken has created a variety of memorable characters: from the deserted children and their hostile great-aunt, the Marchioness of Stroma, to cab drivers and sailors, London clubmen and music-hall singers.

Publish Date
Publisher
Viking Press
Language
English
Pages
312

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Castle Barebane
Castle Barebane
1978, New English Library
Paperback in English
Cover of: Castle Barebane
Castle Barebane
May 01, 1977, Pocket, Brand: Pocket
paperback
Cover of: Castle Barebane
Castle Barebane
1976, Viking Press
in English - 1st ed.
Cover of: Castle Barebane
Castle Barebane
1976, Gollancz, Orion Publishing Group, Limited
in English

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Published in
New York

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
823/.9/14
Library of Congress
PZ4.A289 Cas3, PR6051.I35 Cas3

The Physical Object

Pagination
312 p. ;
Number of pages
312

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL4876357M
Internet Archive
castlebarebane00aike
ISBN 10
0670206288
LCCN
76003467
Library Thing
2853841
Goodreads
1391284

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
June 26, 2019 Edited by Margymoll Added new cover
August 11, 2011 Edited by ImportBot add ia_box_id to scanned books
March 3, 2011 Edited by EdwardBot Added new cover
August 4, 2010 Edited by IdentifierBot added LibraryThing ID
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from Scriblio MARC record