The Inheritor [Hardcover]

Marion Zimmer Bradley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1992

Leslie Barnes, a very unwilling psychic, loves her new house in San Francisco, until she learns that something wants the house . . . and her soul.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this fantasy, published in a mass market edition in 1984 before The Mists of Avalon made Bradley famous, Leslie Barnes doesn't want to be a psychic-but she finds herself the guardian of a strange magical power.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Marion Zimmer Bradley was born in Albany, NY and lived for many years in Berkeley, CA. Best known as a writer of fantasy, science fiction, and romantic occult fiction, Bradley was also the editor of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine and many anthologies. Her most famous works include the Darkover series of science fiction novels and the New York Times bestselling The Mists of Avalon. Bradley's romantic, magical, contemporary novels for Tor include The Inheritor, Heartlight, Ghostlight, and Witch Hill. Marion Zimmer Bradley died in 1999.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Severn House Pub Ltd (July 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0727842986
• ISBN-13: 978-0727842985
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,703,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marion Eleanor Zimmer was born in Albany, NY, on June 3, 1930, and married Robert Alden Bradley in 1949. Mrs. Bradley received her B.A. in 1964 from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, then did graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1965-67.
She was a science fiction/fantasy fan from her middle teens. She had written as long as she could remember, but wrote only for school magazines and fanzines until 1952, when she sold her first professional short story to VORTEX SCIENCE FICTION. She wrote everything from science fiction to Gothics, but is probably best known for her Darkover novels and for her Arthurian novel, THE MISTS OF AVALON.
In addition to her novels, Mrs. Bradley edited magazines, amateur and professional, including Marion Zimmer Bradley's FANTASY Magazine, which she started in 1988. She also edited an annual anthology called SWORD AND SORCERESS, which is still published annually under the title MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY'S SWORD AND SORCERESS.
She died in Berkeley, California on September 25, 1999, four days after suffering a major heart attack.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the devil is in the details, April 17, 2006

By 

pjf "pjf" (MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Inheritor (Paperback)

I love this book and can't believe the bad reviews it has received here. This is a modern gothic/dark romance, and perhaps not for everyone. If you like Barbara Michaels modern gothics, or Mary Stewart's Thornyhold, you'll like this. MZB builds on her knowledge of San Francisco, and puts a wealth of detail into the book, that makes you see and hear and feel the setting with the characters. I could totally relate to the main character, on her own, buying a house with a questionable history, and struggling to deal with a supernatural world thrust upon her unwanted. This is a book to curl up and relax with, and feel a little chilled at reading. MZB also considered this book at least equal to anything she'd written. It is also part of a series that begins, I believe, with Dark Satanic, and has several novels after it, but this stands well on its own.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I can't believe she wrote this..., January 31, 2005

By 

A. Whitmire (Largo, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Inheritor (Paperback)

I generally adore MZBs work, and really enjoyed the later books in the so-called "Light" series, but I find it completely impossible to get into a book where the none of the main characters are likable, and are only very remotely even believable.

Leslie, the protagonist, starts out as a closed-minded snob, who is fairly rude to everyone she meets, despite being a therapist. She breaks up with her fiance because he's a chauvinistic pig, only to start dating a man she knows has raped, killed and tortured for purely selfish gain. On the scale of good and evil, I'll take the pig, thanks. Of the main supporting characters, one is a mean-spirited spoiled rotten brat (the younger sister), and the other is the murderer/rapist.

Some of the book is nonsensical, some is self-contradictory. But mostly all in all it's a boring drawn-out plot with annoying people doing stupid, annoying, and evil things. And the end? It makes me want to puke. Definitely not her best work, and definitely a disappointment.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Spooky ... or not?, November 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Inheritor (Paperback)

As a story, I found it reasonably entertaining. However, I couldn't decide if it was meant to be a thriller or a fantasy. It didn't seem to fit in either category. The fantasy setting that worked beautifully in Mists of Avalon doesn't gel with the modern-day characters and storyline. I found it hard to believe that they were both written by the same writer.

I also found it mildly annoying that all the characters just seemed to relate to each other as a very neat jigsaw puzzle ... it was too pat. Then there were parts of the story that just sort of hung in mid-air, i.e. the patient's poltergeist activities were explained away, but what about the main character's? And the old boyfriend just faded away into the background without so much as a squeak.

The author's tone was also a bit too preachy for my taste. I must admit it was rather difficult for me to finish it, but I did it anyway. If you're really stuck for a book to read on a rainy day, then this is ok. Otherwise, I would suggest you to give it a miss.