Helpful Score: 2
Haunted abbey with a long, bloody past turned into a recording studio for a band of psychic folk-rockers. Sounds bizarre, but carried off well. At nearly 700 pages about 100 too long, imo, but the book is generally solid. Nice mixture of specificity, allusiveness & atmosphere; decent characterization; and I was still curious up to the end in spite of the surfeit text.
The first Rickman novel i ever picked up...and still my overwhelming favorite. Absolutely love everything about it, and it loses none of it's punch over time. highly recommended.
From the back of the book:
In the twelfth-century ruins of the Abbey, it is said every stone was cemented in blood. On december 8, 1980, that blood will run again...
The Abbey's tower house is now a recording studio, and a hot young band called The Philosopher's Stone has gathered to tap into the site's dark history. But no one could predict the powerful forces that rise the night of December 8. The explosive tragedy. They horrifying death. And in the aftermath of that fateful session, the members of the band agree to destroy their tapes...and never meet again.
But thirteen years later, the Abbey tapes - known as The Black Album- resurface. And the scattered members of The Philosopher's Stone know that it's time for a reunion. Time to return to that dark December night - for one last performance...
In the twelfth-century ruins of the Abbey, it is said every stone was cemented in blood. On december 8, 1980, that blood will run again...
The Abbey's tower house is now a recording studio, and a hot young band called The Philosopher's Stone has gathered to tap into the site's dark history. But no one could predict the powerful forces that rise the night of December 8. The explosive tragedy. They horrifying death. And in the aftermath of that fateful session, the members of the band agree to destroy their tapes...and never meet again.
But thirteen years later, the Abbey tapes - known as The Black Album- resurface. And the scattered members of The Philosopher's Stone know that it's time for a reunion. Time to return to that dark December night - for one last performance...
