The Tower and the Emerald

by Moyra Caldecott

Set in a legendary Britain of long ago, The Tower and the Emerald is an epic fantasy of good and evil, magic and mystery.Viviane, a beautiful Celtic princess, unwittingly unravels the spell that binds the spirit of the evil Idoc within a circle of tall stones. Once released, the sorcerer-priest uses his powers to deliver vengeance upon those responsible for his original enslavement, including the Princess Viviane.With Idoc in possession of the body of Prince Caradawc, her betrothed, Viviane can no longer judge safely between friend and foe, between this life and previous incarnations. Yet to rescue Caradawc from his nightmare, she must risk everything to reach the dreaded dark tower where Idoc waits, and to ensure victory over evil, seek out Lucifer's Emerald.

Genres: Fantasy

244 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 1985

About the author

Started academic career by obtaining degrees in English Literature and Philosophy.

* Briefly lectured in English Literature at university level.

* Raised three children and had a most interesting and stimulating life as the wife of Oliver Caldecott in London from 1951 to 1989. (Oliver was an editor at Penguin, Readers Union, and Hutchinson and founded his own publishing firm Wildwood House with his partner Dieter Pevsner. His last editorial post was at Rider, for Century Hutchinson. He was also a very good artist.)

* Took evening classes in palaeontology (geology always a favourite subject), religious studies and mythology.

* Was secretary of the Dulwich Group in the ’sixties, a most successful poetry reading group. Read a lot. Wrote books. Met many interesting people and had many interesting discussions. Travelled a lot.


* Her life has also been enriched by the interests of her children: Religion – Conservation – Art.

* She has had various experiences she considers to be ‘paranormal’, including a dramatic healing from angina. She gives talks to various personal growth and consciousness raising groups, and groups interested in the ancient sacred sites of Britain.

* Her most successful book so far, Guardians Of The Tall Stones, is set in ancient Bronze Age Britain, and is required reading for some groups visiting the sacred sites of Britain from America. It has been in print continuously since 1977.

* Myths and legends are a particular passion and she follows Jung and Joseph Campbell in believing that they are not ‘just’ stories but actually deep and meaningful expressions of the universal and eternal in the human psyche.

Reviews

[Bibliothecat · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Then she began to listen to the water... She began to forget herself and hear only water sounds... complex... beautiful... a hundred different harmonies within the same song.”

While out hunting with her fiancé, Prince Caradawc, Vivianne is led astray by a mysterious hart. She finds herself inside a stone circle where a spirit begs her to be released. Only too late does she realise that it is the spirit of the evil sorcerer Idoc who, upon release, promptly takes control of Caradawc's body. Guided by the good spirits of the earth, Vivianne sets out on a quest to learn how she may release her fiancé from Idoc's grasp.

The Tower and the Emerald automatically gets a bonus point for being a fantasy stand-alone! I picked this up in a secondhand bookstore, not really knowing much about it. It's a solid book and I was certainly taken along on the quest, but in the end, it wasn't anything outstanding either.

Although the story starts with Vivianne, there's a wide range of characters and we get to read from many different points of view. The good news is, I actually love multiple point of view stories. And although it is generally well handled here, I do believe that multiple points of view stories are better kept for series as opposed to stand-alones. As it is, there's never quite enough time to get to know the characters thoroughly. And that's simply a shame because the characters are all rather interesting - in fact, the majority of the cast is in the grey zone, being neither truly good nor truly evil. Idoc is no exception which makes him one of the more intriguing characters.

I love fantasy as a genre - yet I often stay clear of them as they tend to be ridiculously long series or have sexual contents that are, more often than not, very graphic or, dare I say, kinky. The Tower and the Emerald isn't overly graphic, but it does have the odd sex scene or two. As far as I'm concerned, they could have been skipped altogether, but I am sure there are worse things out there in some of the fantasy books. Unfortunately, as far as the romance goes, I feel as though there was more sexual attraction than actual love between most of the characters.

Pacing also turned out to be a bit of an issue. The first half of the book is rather slow while things speed up in the second half to a point that it feels rushed. I also questioned the characters' common sense when they kept running into the same kind of trap over and over again. Nonetheless, this was a nicely written book where some of the scenes had a dream-like feeling to them. I did rather enjoy reading it, but I don't think a reread will ever come around for this one!

[Stephanie (Bookfever) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book last summer at a thrift store for a very cheap price. It's a slightly older book but I really liked the cover and how the description of the story spoke to me. It sounded like a magical adventure, which is exactly what it was.

I thought Viviane was a great heroine. She wasn't just a typical princess that needed help everywhere she went. She knew how to ask for help when she needed it but mostly went off on her own a lot to fulfill her quest. I also liked that she had a really great group of friends who supported her.

I definitely liked Prince Caradawc, Viviane's fiance. I wasn't so sure about them at first, but I quickly warmed up to them. Especially when they kept being seperated, that's when I started really rooting for them. I just loved the whole doomed lovers aspect that they had going on.

The villain of the story, Idoc, was really intriguing to me (I know, shocker.) At first he seemed to be plain evil, but the more I read about him the more I realized he definitely was redeemable, which is something that Viviane saw as well. I also thought it was interesting how most of the characters were all connected in a way, since in another life, centuries ago, they also knew each other. In fact, Viviane used to be a celtic priestess in that former life, as well as the lover of Idoc before he got taken over by dark forces. In this story they had to stop those particular dark forces again as they did in their previous life.

I obviously enjoyed the whole story arc with Viviane, Caradawc and Idoc but the one character that stood out to me was Olwen. I loved her personality and her budding romance with another character called Gerin. She really ended up shining in the story, even though to me she started out as a pretty ordinary character. Gotta love that!

Overall, The Tower and the Emerald by Moyra Caldecott was an unexpected but great magical story. It had romance, dark knights, fierce battles and the writing was beautiful!

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was somewhat hesitant to only award this novel two stars - first, because I'm new to the 'Fantasy Genre' (love the movies, generally find the books hard going) and therefore have little with which to compare it, and secondly, because there were aspects of it that I truly loved. Ms Caldecott's writing is exquisite in parts, truly descriptive and magical. She conjures up her world in a way that is both enchanting and convincing. Lovely. The story was engaging, if somewhat slow, and encompassed everything from romantic love, to karma, to personal growth and the taking of responsibility for one's actions. Ultimately the reading of this did not feel like time wasted. If I HAD been tempted to reward it another star, it would have been on account of one character only, The Green Lady, the 'Lady of the Leaves', whom I found fascinating. The encounters with her made the less than wonderful bits of this book more than worth the trouble. So, give it a go. You could easily do worse!

[Arlene Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I see this is still in print. Cool. I bought my copy of this book on my first trip to England.

[Abi Mallett · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was such an odd book. An old school fanstasy story with some quest elements, although this seemed to mostly consist of the heroine running backwards and forwards to the same place. I also found her characterisation a little confusing, screaming hysterically one minute to no nosense the next.
There was a great deal of biblical and religious themes and references which just felt out of place. It didn't know what it wanted to be.b
Also Viviane should have ended up with the villain Idoc not that sop Caradwc. I guess that would be asking too much.

[Carole-Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

My paperback copy is from Oct 1985 published by Arrow Books Ltd

[Gemma Gilliland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read this book when I was about 15 and I loved it, the romance and the fantasy of the story.

I then found it again when I was going through some old boxes at my mum's house and decided to give it another read as I had enjoyed it so much when I was younger.

Well I am sorry to say I wish that I hadn't as the memory has been forever spoilt; my opinions and requirements in a book have clearly changed since I was a teenager and not only did I now find the writing style difficult I also found the female lead at best flaky and a little weak.

I have given 3 stars for my memories of this book as a teenager, for that at least it deserves some points.