Cry of the Banshee by Heather Graham – review tour

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Cry of the Banshee (Krewe of Hunters/ 1001 Dark Nights) by Heather Graham – Review Tour

 

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Description:
Strange things are happening at Castle Darien, the legendary home of Angela Hawkins Crow’s family just outside of Dublin, Ireland.

People are dying in the most unusual drowning where there’s no water, falling from heights that don’t exist…

But before every death, the banshee lets out a cry, warning that loved ones are in danger. The Irish death ghost’s haunting shrieks and sobs echo within the ancient stone walls and travel up and down the hillsides.

Terrified and broken after the death of a friend, Moira Hawkins, Angela’s second cousin, turns to her family for help, convinced that evil is at work and sure the Krewe of Hunters can determine what is happening and put an end to the strange and deadly haunting.

Angela is mystified and stricken, but she and Jackson travel to the Emerald Isle to investigate, certain that someone very much alive is behind whatever is going on.

But she and the Krewe just might need the dead to uncover the truth.

 

 

Review:

Cry of the Banshee by Heather Graham is a novella from her wonderful Krewe of Hunters series. I am a big fan of Heather Graham, and always enjoy her books.

The story begins in Ireland, where strange things are happening at Castle Darien, such as strange mysterious deaths. Moira Hawkins, who owns the Castle, wakes up during the night, hearing a warning cry that someone is in danger; Moira can hear a banshee giving warning shrieks that only she can hear. That evening, during the castle’s tour, a woman is found dead. Moira is in a panic, worried that she is losing her mind. She makes a call to her cousin in the States for help, since her cousin is a member of the Krewe of Hunters. 

Angela Hawkins Crow is Moira’s cousin, and she convinces her husband, Jackson to take time off and go to Ireland to help her terrified cousin.  Angela and Jackson are the leaders of the Krewe of Hunters, and together they decide to take time off to travel to Ireland to try and discover what evil is happening at Castle Darien. 

When they arrive at the Castle, they are greeted happily by Moira, who was thrilled to have them come help discover what strange and deadly hauntings are happening.  Angela and Jackson get to meet all the staff in the Castle, as well as the guards and the tour director. Irish Inspector McCrae joins them in the investigations, with the Inspector noting that the dead woman died of a heart attack. Both Angela and Jackson look around the bathroom where the woman died, and found nothing; but trying again the following morning they do find a small clue.  When visiting the morgue, both notice some tiny marks on the woman hairline, and the Inspector returns with the clue they had found to note that it was found to be a unique poison.

What follows is an exciting, tense story that opens up the investigation on everyone from the tour visitors and the staff.  Angela, who has some psychic ability hears the cry of the banshee, and follows the sound outside; a woman who is a banshee ghost, trying to stop the evil in the castle. Angela learns that there is someone who is evil causing the deaths, and the banshee will warn them the next time.  Moira is thrilled that Angela was able to see the women, and hopeful this would give them help to find the culprit.  The last third of the book was very exciting, with surprise twists.

Cry of the Banshee was another great story so very well written by Heather Graham.  I was happy to see Angela and Jackson get their own story again.  If you are a fan of Krewe of Hunters, you need to read this book. If you are new to Graham, you should start reading her books.  Always very good.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher

 

At first, Moira Hawkins thought she might be imagining the sound. It was so soft at first, like a sigh on the wind or a whisper through the trees.
Except she wasn’t in the woods. She was lying in bed in the private wing of Castle Darien, her family’s nearly ancient stronghold.
But the windows were open. That had to be it. The temperature was cool but pleasant, and she didn’t need to use the heat or air-conditioning systems. Which was good since they would never be great in such an old stone fortress.
Moira had promised her grandmother she wouldn’t let the castle, built at the end of the thirteenth century, go to ruin. She said she would do everything needed to bring it up to the standards so many others used to save the structure and turn it into a hotel.
She was partway there. While she worked on getting the necessary loans and finding contractors to undertake such an epic restructuring, she hired a tour company to bring visitors through. There were even a few Haunted Ireland tours put on by historians, who talked about some of the dire events of the Emerald Isle’s bloody past.
She figured anything around for over eight-hundred years must have some nightmarish events to relay.
And her ancestral home was in the Republic of Ireland, which had suffered a great deal of bloodshed to get where it was today.
Yet…
It occurred to her that she had heard—or at least imagined—the soft, mournful sobs before.
The night Granny had died.
Imagination. Had to be.
But she’d heard the sound the night before they found the old man drowned in the river that ran alongside the castle’s western wall, too.
And the time the would-be thief fell to his death from the wall.
They’d learned the elderly gentleman, visiting family in the area, had been suffering from cancer. Moira wondered if he had chosen his end.
And while the thief shouldn’t have been trying to climb the wall, he hadn’t deserved death.
As she thought back, she realized the sound had preceded all those events.
She shook her head. She had to be imagining it. She might have spent the last few years of Granny’s illness working in the States, but she’d grown up with all the tales of leprechauns, pixies, fairies, and banshees. Granny had been so good at telling them, holding her cousins and her spellbound as she wove her magical tales.
The crying grew louder. She wasn’t imagining it. She could definitely hear it.
It wasn’t a frightened cry. It was mournful, heartfelt. Yet Moira was afraid.
Where is it coming from?
She glanced at the clock on her bedside table—just past midnight.
The last ghost tour had ended by now, but she wasn’t alone in the castle. Stewart McKenna, her grandmother’s longtime castle steward, slept down the hall with his wife. Their son’s bedroom was next door to theirs. Nellie Antrim, the head housekeeper, was on this floor, as well. And while the tour of the two unoccupied towers had just ended, Mark Meadows, the tour agency’s director, often stayed behind to answer any questions the guests might have regarding the castle or Ireland’s history. Because, of course, Mark wasn’t just a businessman, though he was a good one. He truly loved history and didn’t mind working late. He was…wonderful.
The sobbing continued.
Moira’s mind went to something her granny had told her.
Banshee. Banshees are the remains of the Tuatha dé Danann, the gods of Ireland, driven underground when the Milesians arrived—Gaels who traveled the Earth, seeking a home. And there, in Éire, they claimed the land while the Tuatha dé Danann settled the underworld. Once, keeners had been on hand at funerals, sobbing mournfully for those who had left the earthly world. The banshees fulfilled that tradition now, warning of someone’s death…
Get a grip! she told herself. Seriously, she’d spent enough time in the United States to learn all about all kinds of myths and legends from around the world.
There are no such things as banshees.
Still…

For More Information about Heather Graham, visit her website:

https://www.theoriginalheathergraham.com/

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Heather Graham has written more than a hundred novels. She’s a winner of the RWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Thriller Writers’ Silver Bullet. She is an active member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America. For more information, check out her websites: TheOriginalHeatherGraham.com, eHeatherGraham.com
HeatherGraham.tv. You can also find Heather on Facebook.

 

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