It was author Lisa Cron that once said, “Storytelling trumps beautiful writing, every time.” For this reason, I gave Sarah Rayne’s The Bell Tower five blazing stars. Which is not to say that Rayne’s writing wasn’t beautiful, intriguing, and utterly absorbing, because it was. However, there were a few inconsistencies throughout the novel, and let’s just say, the punishment never fit the crime. But hey, when was there ever a Gothic novel in the history of existence that didn’t involve bawdy, over-dramatized terror, and salacious horror? And as far as over-dramatized, the plot fell just below my, “I can’t take this, but I love it” line.

The Bell Tower is the sixth, and Dear Lord please not the last, book in Sarah Rayne’s Michael Flint/Nell West Haunted House Mystery series. The novel opens with a revival of the Revels, an ancient monastic tradition in a small village on the Dorset coast. After a hundred years has passed, all that remains of the original monastery is an ancient, Gothic, and all-out creepy bell tower, home to the equally ancient, massive, and of course “dead” bell. The tower is situated near the creatively-named “Cliff House,” a dilapidated mansion situated on, well, a cliff. We find our heroine and her dashing, Oxford don hero preparing to travel for a long weekend of festivities filled with music, dancing, and, of course, ancient murder mysteries and madness, that, of course, somehow has direct ties back to (where else?) Nell West’s very own home and antique shop.

The tone throughout the novel was suspenseful throughout, without being too-over-the-top, and when any terrifying situation came to its horrific conclusion it was more like, “gee, well… that escalated quickly.” But the story kept me engrossed, fascinated, and I read it in less than twenty-four hours, and for that reason, I fell in love with this novel despite its few and far-between flaws. Isn’t that what true love is all about?