The Bride of Ravencrest by Tamara Thorne and Alistair Cross
Glass Apple Press (October 2025)
Review by W.D. Gagliani
If you’re in the mood for a thick and chewy Gothic pastiche replete with larger than life characters and a mile-wide humor streak, this new offering by Thorne & Cross may do the trick.
The Bride of Ravencrest is the fifth volume in a continuing series by prolific collaborators Tamara Thorne (The Selkie Wives, Moonfall, Haunted, Eternity, Candle Bay, Thunder Road, etc.) and Alistair Cross (The Crimson Corset, The Silver Dagger, The Black Wasp, Dream Reaper, etc.) whose combined efforts have included the five Ravencrest Saga novels, as well as Mother, Spite House, and The Cliffhouse Haunting. The previous Ravencrest Saga novels are, in order, The Ghosts of Ravencrest, The Witches of Ravencrest, Exorcism, and Shadowland. It’s clear the authors love filling in worlds of their own making, and indeed, Tamara Thorne’s many solo novels have created a compelling, interrelated map of an evocatively eerie Haunted California peopled by vivid characters living in all sorts of forbidding little towns, each with its own horrific history. The suave voice of radio DJ Coastal Eddie is a common element, and the character is himself prevalent in this novel.
It’s likely there’s nothing more frightening than an insane ghost, except perhaps for a ghost insane with both grief and vengefulness. At Ravencrest, the massive manor house of the Manning family, that would be Amelia Manning, the centuries-ago bride of Sir Lionel Manning… a very unlucky knight who left for war after one night’s wedded bliss and soon thereafter died on a Scottish battlefield. Many years later, a future Manning shipped the manor house to America’s West Coast and resurrected it (and its many haunts) stone by stone near the coastal California town of Devilswood.
Have no fear, you don’t need to read the previous four Ravencrest novels first to appreciate this fifth installment, though of course it helps to set the large cast if you do. There are plenty of references and call-backs to the previous events, enough to make sense of the new novel’s plot — but chances are you’ll want to go back and fill them in for yourself.
Rejoining the saga, the lovely Belinda Moorland is still governess of Eric Manning’s children, but contemplates leaving Ravencrest despite a growing attraction to her handsome but reticent employer. Grant Phister — Manning’s butler and all-knowing “Knight of the Mandrake” — continues mentoring Belinda in the art of controlling her growing magickal powers, for he’s certain breaking a couple family curses may be her destiny. Plus, she can see ghosts, and there are plenty of them lurking in the dizzying array of manor house floors, corridors, and secret tunnels. No wonder then Belinda’s torn about staying — who wants that kind of pressure? As the autumn rolls on toward Halloween and the Harvest Ball, Eric’s slovenly and duplicitous brother Peter Manning suddenly drops in from England, dead-set on extorting Eric’s investment in his failing fragrance business or at the least ransacking the mansion’s art collection to help cover his deepening debts from a host of cheating, gambling, and other poor decisions. Various repertory characters reappear from previous outings: among them the mysterious Essie (head of household staff), the wickedly sinister secretary Cordelia Heller, and Clara Claxton the local mayor’s wife with her own perpetually wacked-out agenda.
But the season also brings out the greenjacks and harlequins, and a trickster “polterghost,” as well as the awakened mad bride herself, who stalks the corridors of her shuttered wing prison bearing with her the rattling, scuttling creature protectively hidden under her tattered wedding gown. When she plays the gargantuan pipe organ non-stop, no one can sleep. But why is her ghost suddenly so active? Why is the tragically haunted suit of armor that reeks of roasted human flesh also acting up? Why are some of the witchy denizens of the mansion and the town gearing up for a very special Harvest Ball?
No doubt Dark Shadows DNA runs deeply through these veins, for transplanted English manor house Ravencrest is notably a West Coast version of Collinwood, and the cast fondly recalls the classic horror-soap. A spicy slice of neo-Gothic peopled by the colorful Manning family and its randy members, staff, and resident ghosts, The Bride of Ravencrest hovers at the crossroads of several horror subgenres, but does so in a narrative stuffed with forward-motion action and with plenty of sly humor scattered throughout that reveals its lusty satirical underpinnings. In advanced critical jargon, it’s a total hoot.
