11-27-2014, 10:09 PM
Synopsis: A young woman discovers, when her husband suddenly dies, that he has left his home divided between herself, his mistress and his sister-in-law (whose interest will eventually go to her daughter) on the condition that they must live in the house for a year with interrupted leave of no more than 10 days. Any and all survivors will end up with a share. If no one does, then it goes to his bastard half-brother. Or, failing all this, the executor will keep it in trust for the niece. Supposedly, the year was to be fraught with trials for all three women.
Needless to say, this is not a new concept for a gothic. The author does a fairly good job of keeping the plot interesting. I have read similar plots that were very poorly done. Having said that, I do have to remark that there were "issues". Some errors I can attribute to poor editing. Others are questionable. Dialogue a bit "eh" at times. This book was copyrighted 1976. I don't know what the social mores of the time were, but I wondered if I was the only one who felt that a child (teenager) who had a crush on a half-uncle bordered on incest? Apparently the characters and the author seemed to think this was acceptable so in order to break up the relationship, they had to produce another excuse.
Needless to say, this is not a new concept for a gothic. The author does a fairly good job of keeping the plot interesting. I have read similar plots that were very poorly done. Having said that, I do have to remark that there were "issues". Some errors I can attribute to poor editing. Others are questionable. Dialogue a bit "eh" at times. This book was copyrighted 1976. I don't know what the social mores of the time were, but I wondered if I was the only one who felt that a child (teenager) who had a crush on a half-uncle bordered on incest? Apparently the characters and the author seemed to think this was acceptable so in order to break up the relationship, they had to produce another excuse.