The Presence

The Presence is a romantic suspense novel by the American writer Heather Graham, published in 2004. It is set in Scotland and it mixes a modern business venture with a murder investigation and a haunting.

Toni MacNally and her friends believe they have found the perfect way to make money: buy a dilapidated castle, open it to tourists and stage a re-enactment that combines local history with an invented tale and an imaginary laird called Bruce MacNiall.

Then the real owner of the castle arrives, and he is a tall, dark and formidable Scot who happens to share the name Toni made up. Soon the group is caught up in a genuine murder case: young women are being killed and their bodies left in the area, and Toni is having dreams in which she seems to see through the eyes of the killer. The castle, the re-enactment and the murders begin to run together, and Toni has to work out whether the man who owns the place is helping her or using her.