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The Shifting Shadows of Moongate
Ariel Morrow welcomed the chance to spend the summer in elegant Newport when she was commissioned to paint watercolor "interiors" of the Rockwells' fashionable mansion. But soon after her arrival it became clear that something was terribly wrong. Locked in a loveless marriage from the start, Drew Rockwell and his beautiful wife were now completely estranged by some terrible secret of the past. A secret that had left their small daughter, Blythe, screaming in fear at the sight of seemingly harmless moving patterns: the shifting shadows of leaves stirred by the wind, the dancing lights of a chandelier...
Ariel knew she should leave this dark, foreboding house while she still had the chance but pity drew her to Blythe and passion bound her to the disturbingly handsome Drew. She was as helpless as they all were against the tides of hatred and tragedy that would sweep them into a vortex of sheer terror.
Ariel knew she should leave this dark, foreboding house while she still had the chance but pity drew her to Blythe and passion bound her to the disturbingly handsome Drew. She was as helpless as they all were against the tides of hatred and tragedy that would sweep them into a vortex of sheer terror.
407 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1991
48 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 19, 2025
This is my second MYT Zebra and I enjoyed it quite a bit until maybe 3/4 of the way through. There was a big crazy reveal around that point, but with a missed chance at some serious terror in a skin-crawling setting. Instead we wound up having to sit through MANY pages of lengthy courtroom sessions interspersed with tiresome hand-wringing, and then it (eventually) ended with an (all too brief) wtf-ish revelation. Despite that tedium, this is better written than many other Zebras.
August 8, 2016
A classic gothic in the best tradition of Victoria Holt. A lot of elements were used that are familiar to gothic novels: a big house, people behaving mysteriously, first person view, lots of eavesdropping, sudden deaths, poison pen letters, and of course the attraction of the heroine to the master of the house.
The book starts with a teaser where the reader learns in less than three pages that Ariel, the heroine, ends up married and has children with Drew who used to be married to Cordelia, who apparently dies after something horrible happens. The first line of the book says: "We do not spend our summers in Newport".
Next we go back to the childhood of Ariel. She was raised by her grandparents till the age of fifteen, when her father, a famous painter, took her under his wing. Ariel is a gifted artist as well and gets commissioned work to paint watercolors of interiors of grand houses, which well-to-do people used to do in order to impress their peers. This is how Ariel gets involved in the household of Drew, Cordelia, their little daughter Blythe who is strangely sickly, and a few other relatives.
The setting of Newport is interesting and fun to read how The Four Hundred considered themselves better than everybody else. The time is around 1895. Ariel is a very likeable heroine, though her continuous blushing makes her seem less sensible than Victoria Holt's protagonists. I understand the author's use of blushing to explain the heroine's feelings, but a bit more variety would have been welcome.
About half way through I figured out who did/does it, but for lack of a motive I was still curious to see how it all happened. Now, the motive wasn't spectacular and the 50 pages spent in a courtroom where the main characters' love life was discussed ad fundum didn't add much to the story, but I'm not complaining. It was a good read!
The book starts with a teaser where the reader learns in less than three pages that Ariel, the heroine, ends up married and has children with Drew who used to be married to Cordelia, who apparently dies after something horrible happens. The first line of the book says: "We do not spend our summers in Newport".
Next we go back to the childhood of Ariel. She was raised by her grandparents till the age of fifteen, when her father, a famous painter, took her under his wing. Ariel is a gifted artist as well and gets commissioned work to paint watercolors of interiors of grand houses, which well-to-do people used to do in order to impress their peers. This is how Ariel gets involved in the household of Drew, Cordelia, their little daughter Blythe who is strangely sickly, and a few other relatives.
The setting of Newport is interesting and fun to read how The Four Hundred considered themselves better than everybody else. The time is around 1895. Ariel is a very likeable heroine, though her continuous blushing makes her seem less sensible than Victoria Holt's protagonists. I understand the author's use of blushing to explain the heroine's feelings, but a bit more variety would have been welcome.
About half way through I figured out who did/does it, but for lack of a motive I was still curious to see how it all happened. Now, the motive wasn't spectacular and the 50 pages spent in a courtroom where the main characters' love life was discussed ad fundum didn't add much to the story, but I'm not complaining. It was a good read!
December 13, 2024
I overall liked this book, I recently read Crystal Shadows by this author and so I am comparing it to that, I think I may have preferred Crystal Shadows and the heroine in that but I loved Drew in this book, he was wonderful and he made the book, the sympathy one feels for his character, he sacrificed his own happiness and life for those around him and kept all his torment to himself and carried his burden for the sake of his daughter.
What took likeability from this book was the heroine at parts, if I have to be told one more time that she is a "woman painter" I will scream, every 5 pages there was something that came up that had to remind us but how could we possibly forget after having it bludgeoned into our heads constantly? so basically her career was annoying, one of the reasons I read 19th century setting books is so I don't have to listen to women go on about their careers, I knew from the description she was a painter which was fine but I was not expecting it to take up so much of the book and I was not amused to be reminded of her career every 5 minutes. Someone just really count how many times she says both to others and to herself that she is a woman painter lol.
Also I had a problem with the treatment of society, I assumed this was late Victorian era and so the constant crapping on society and everyone involved in society got old, according to this author all rich people are vapid, vain and evil, and everyone in society is miserable, lol ironically this sounds much more like the 21st century than it does the 19th. Although to give Thomas the benefit of the doubt, given the ending and who was responsible for the murders and why they were committed in the first place made it make more sense and made the quotes at the beginning of the book make sense, so given the context I'm assuming she was talking about a certain group of elites in society rather than just normal upper class.
I think that's all I want to say about it, it's good and I definitely liked it especially because of Drew.
What took likeability from this book was the heroine at parts, if I have to be told one more time that she is a "woman painter" I will scream, every 5 pages there was something that came up that had to remind us but how could we possibly forget after having it bludgeoned into our heads constantly? so basically her career was annoying, one of the reasons I read 19th century setting books is so I don't have to listen to women go on about their careers, I knew from the description she was a painter which was fine but I was not expecting it to take up so much of the book and I was not amused to be reminded of her career every 5 minutes. Someone just really count how many times she says both to others and to herself that she is a woman painter lol.
Also I had a problem with the treatment of society, I assumed this was late Victorian era and so the constant crapping on society and everyone involved in society got old, according to this author all rich people are vapid, vain and evil, and everyone in society is miserable, lol ironically this sounds much more like the 21st century than it does the 19th. Although to give Thomas the benefit of the doubt, given the ending and who was responsible for the murders and why they were committed in the first place made it make more sense and made the quotes at the beginning of the book make sense, so given the context I'm assuming she was talking about a certain group of elites in society rather than just normal upper class.
I think that's all I want to say about it, it's good and I definitely liked it especially because of Drew.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews