The Romantic Armchair Traveller

USA: Bride Of A Stranger by Patricia Maxwell

The recent reviews of some of Jennifer Blake’s historical romances by Misfit of At Home With A Good Book And The Cat drew my interest to the author’s gothic fiction, originally penned under the name Patricia Maxwell. Bride of A Stranger was released at a time when the boom in gothic romances had begun its downward slide but – with the exception of marketing’s choice of cover – shows none of the effects of weariness, artificiality, and cynicism that marked much of the output by the mid-1970s. Gothic romances generally focus on the heroine's journey, and the best of the later ones are often clearly influenced by or deliberately incorporate feminist themes. In Bride Of A Stranger marriages of convenience are a tragedy, not a source of romance.

 

1816*. With one pitying glance across a hot Creole ballroom at a stranger's scarred face, Claire de Hauterive’s life changes. Society outcast Justin Leroux tears her from her comfortable fiancé and beloved New Orleans by marrying her against her will and installing her on his isolated sugar cane plantation on the banks of a Louisiana bayou.

Sans Songe is indeed a place without dreams, without illusions. In the main house, unspoken trespasses and mutual dependencies have woven an uneasy truce between bitter family members. In the slave quarters, fear and voodoo reign. Accidents and threats harass Claire from the first, but her new husband is more intent on breaking her will than listening to her concerns. Gradually Claire realises she can trust no one but herself if she is to survive – and that nothing is more dangerous than blind love.

 

The most interesting thing about Bride Of A Stranger is its heroine, Claire. Even now, almost forty years after the novel’s publication, she remains in some ways a unique romance heroine. Nothing proves this better than the last scene in the book, which shows a bedroom dynamic and personal priorities I don’t think I have seen in any other romance I have read over the years. An unequivocal nod to feminism, it certainly wrings something fresh out of formula.

Claire has her less intelligent moments in the latter parts of the story, but in the final judgement I thought her a breath of fresh air. She has been brought up to behave in accordance with society’s conventions and to respect accepted authority, and when these trap her into unjust situations she protests but, if unsuccessful, adjusts without indulging in self-pity. If it is true now that heroines often melt or grow passionate when locked in an embrace with a hero they supposedly despise, this was doubly true in romances in the seventies and eighties. Yet when Justin forces his bruising attentions on Claire, she is neither seduced nor weakened by his warm, low-voiced coaxing. She recognises that he tries to use passion as a tool of subjugation, and refuses to take responsibility for his sense of humiliation at her self-possession:

“’What kind of man are you to expect me to fall in with your – your – [...] – plans, and meekly agree to make you a comfortable and accommodating wife?’ Her voice shook with the strain of putting her resentment into words and also her fear of what he would do to her, but she was determined. [...] ‘And now – now that you have proven that you can force me to your will, that you care nothing for my feelings. [sic] I wish you pleasure then of your reluctant bride.’ Her voice was hard with the promise that, so far as it was within her power, he would gain nothing. [...] Claire wished, as the quiet seconds passed, that she could agree, could say that she too had enjoyed their days together, but the lie stuck in her throat. She had not enjoyed them. She had known constantly that she was only there because Justin willed it.” (Pages 45,46,62-3.)

Justin’s response? “But he grasped her arm, his fingers bruising her flesh so that she bit back a cry of pain.’Don’t try my patience, Claire. When it snaps I might enjoy the consequences. You, I’m persuaded, would not!’” At Sans Songe, cruelty, violence, and death are the legacy of love gone wrong. Justin’s understanding of love has been warped since childhood, and in adulthood he behaves like a spoilt boy who in a perverse fit destroys his toy, then whines over its loss. As a “hero”, he is an arrogant and domineering yet marginal figure; a deliberate stereotype, it seems, used to expose dangers inherent in romanticising a certain type of hero or love.

It is probably relevant to note here that there is no instance of rape or forced seduction (pick your euphemisms) in Bride Of A Stranger, nor any sex scenes either on the page or behind closed doors. Physical consummation of the marriage is tied up with the outcome of Claire’s fight to establish her equal standing in a juster relationship.

Not everything about the story questions stereotype, however. It felt peculiar, not to say bizarre, to read scene after scene of master-slave interactions that, in the complete absence of narrative commentary to the contrary, imply that the greatest enemy here is not the inequality of the institution but an outside threat that disrupts this relationship. On the face of it, the situation parallels the inequality between husband and wife in marriages of the time, as experienced by Claire. But (within the story) Claire is allowed to explore her role and challenge injustice, whereas the slaves, once the outside threat has been contained, are expected to remain as they were: subservient, and now smiling about it. There is one potential exception: a person of colour who is shown to have an intriguing life of her/his own making beyond the relationship to the Lerouxs. Nevertheless, this is a remote character who all but disappears into the cloak of mysticism that surrounds her/him, rather than a path-builder.

At no point does Claire observe or study the slaves to try to come to any conclusions about her own situation. Instead her reactions to the house slaves, for example, alternate between uncertainty, suspicion, and fear for her life. (Exactly who truly controls the servants is a source of tension and mystery in the plot.) In Bride Of A Stranger, slaves seem synonymous with unreliance, savage passions, and loss of control. While the atmosphere of paranoia that pervades the novel (not merely in regard to the slaves) may reflect how slave owners historically felt about their own situation as a minority among a much larger group of people who might quickly overpower them if they chose to rebel, any commentary about these or similar considerations is absent from the novel. Similarly, I was jolted when Justin remarks on Claire’s colouring, (blonde hair and) “'your skin so white [...] so different from the sallow crones’” who were her fellow Creole women at the ball where the pair first met (p. 45-6). It is a remark that is probably true to the historical period but that, unexplained, becomes very disturbing in a modern novel where the hero is a slave owner.

The success of gothics rely heavily on a doom-laden, unsettling atmosphere. Evoking a tense, ominous mood seems an effortless talent on Maxwell’s part. With plenty of nice details about the material culture and customs of early nineteenth-century Louisiana Creole society, there is a solid, rich feel about this aspect of the setting. The writing style is sharp and readable, and the plot entertaining despite a conventional mystery, many unsympathetic characterisations, and an extremely contrived denouement.

While Bride Of A Stranger most definitely is an interesting gothic, calling it a romance almost seems a misnomer. While the novel contains many recognizable elements of romance it also defies some of its most cherished tropes. It is the heroine’s realisation of the importance of self-respect and self-reliance that is the main story here. The growth of a loving, romantic relationship gets short shrift since the increasingly random interludes between the hero and heroine are more concerned with redressing the unequal balance between their states than with deepening the bonds of couplehood.

Patricia Maxwell displays considerable storytelling gifts in this novel, not least in her breaks with romantic convention. But the enjoyment this gave me was marred by a portrayal of slavery that I cannot call anything but insensitive. To me, Bride Of A Stranger ultimately reads as a commendable gothic experiment with a strangely flawed narrative.

 

*The year is not explicitly noted but in the first chapter it is stated that “Napoleon had been mewed up on St. Helena for several months” (page7). Chapter three, a few weeks later, mentions spring rains. Since Napoleon was taken to St. Helena in the summer of 1815, I have assumed Bride Of A Stranger opens in the spring of 1816.

 

Excerpt

(Fawcett Gold Medal paperback, 1974, p.47-8):

“The rumble of thunder woke her. Lightning forked the sky and a wet wind filled with rain struck the coach. Claire shivered and felt a stir of pity for the driver and groom riding up on top. She hoped that they had brought oilskins with them. And where was Justin? His great-coat would hold the rain off for a time, but he would eventually be soaked. Hard on that thought came the fear that he might ride back to join her inside the coach, and hurriedly she pushed her feet into her shoes. Then, gathering her hairpins from the floor and the seat, she smoothed her hair and coiled it in a flat knot on top of her head.

Straightening in her seat, she looked out the window. On one side was the forest, thick, dark, and impenetrable, but on the other was a fairly large bayou, its current swollen with spring rains. It must be near daylight, she realized, for although it was raining she could still see the water running swiftly along and also the thick, green grass studded with flowers at the edge of the roadside.

Abruptly the coach tilted forward, and by leaning against the glass she could see that they were heading down to what appeared to be a crossing; a crude, railingless bridge over the bayou. The body of the coach jounced on its springs as the wheels struck the thick hewn planks, then there was a rumbling as they started across. Claire could feel the bridge sag with the weight of the diligence, and her breath caught in her throat, but then they were past the dangerous half-way point and she began to relax.

At that moment she heard a hoarse yell above her. The coach stopped, and began to rock violently as the sounds of scrabbling hooves and frantic neighing came to her. The coached backed, then slewed sideways.”

 

Scotland: Wildfire At Midnight by Mary Stewart

Mention the Hebrides and I remember a rainy afternoon on the Isle of Skye with a pot of black tea and the best scones I have ever tasted, the extraordinary kindness of the Scots towards a young, backpacking stranger, and Wildfire At Midnight. A gothicky romantic suspense that became my first introduction to Mary Stewart, Wildfire At Midnight remains a comfort read I re-savour regularly.

 

1953. London is in the grips of coronation fever and weary Gianetta “Janet” Brooke flees the city for a quiet holiday on the Scottish island of Skye. But a strange atmosphere hangs over the isolated little hotel, a tension that is heightened by any mention of Blaven, the nearest peak of the Black Cuillin mountains. Then, among the fishing enthusiasts, climbers, and an old acquaintance who populate the hotel, Giannetta is shocked to run into her ex-husband.

Divorced four years ago after a disastrous marriage, neither is keen to advertise they know each other. While Nicholas Drury researches the folklore of the area to collect material for his latest novel, Gianetta befriends the other guests, in particular Roderick Grant, who explains the reason everybody is upset: a local crofter’s daughter was found ritualistically murdered on Blaven a scant three weeks earlier. Soon after Giannetta’s arrival, tragedy strikes again. And this time, police interest turns from the first victim’s boyfriend to the hotel guests.

 

In the article “Teller of Tales" (The Writer, Volume 83, No. 5, May 1970), Mary Stewart says, "Wildfire at Midnight was an attempt at something different [from her previous writings], the classic closed-room detective story with restricted action, a biggish cast, and a closely circular plot. It taught me technically a great deal, but mainly that the detective story, with its emphasis on plot rather than people, is not for me. What mattered to me was not the mystery, but the choice the heroine faces between personal and larger loyalties."

The classic mystery in the vein of Agatha Christie may not have satisfied Mary Stewart’s professional inclinations, but Wildfire At Midnight is as successful an experiment as any mystery lover could wish. Readers looking for the romantic aspect of Stewart’s storytelling, however, may come away a little less impressed, unless old-school alpha behaviour appeals.

At a brief 175 pages Wildfire At Midnight is a quick read but the intrigue makes every page absorbing and the whole is as thrilling as any mystery double the length. If you enjoy the classic mystery authors such as Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr (like I do), for example, Wildfire At Midnight should warm the cockles of your heart. Suspects abound; the Inspector is the sternly competent, pipe-smoking, bushy-eyebrowed character of numerous black-and-white British films of the Thirties and Forties; and the heroine is kindly, caring, and prone to end up in the thick of devious goings-on.

On the other hand, this is not a light-hearted romp of the breezily cheerful country-house type. In Wildfire At Midnight, death by murder is a tragedy instead of a mere plot point, and its pall affects the mood and temper of everyone in the hotel. Once it becomes evident that the murderer is not done with his or her crimes, tension and fear escalates as hotel guests realise they, too, may be in danger. Having developed old and new friendships and aware that the guilty person, if found, will be hanged and “buried in quicklime in a prison yard” (p. 108), Giannetta has to fight not to buckle during her struggle to weigh the morality of loyalties against justice and civic duty. Around her, too, brittle nerves stir up heated arguments as the hotel guests begin to suspect one another. The question of when co-operation with the authorities becomes a matter of spying on each other culminates in "strong opinions" (p. 115-6) about whether physical violence has any acceptable place in civilized society.

As for the love interests, I cannot say much about them without spoiling that particular subplot. Two men express interest in Giannetta: her ex-husband Nicholas Drury and climber Roderick Grant. I was a young and definitely unsophisticated teenager the first time I read Wildfire At Midnight and the outcome of the romantic triangle took me by utter, and not very pleasant, surprise. None of my re-readings have altered that first impression, yet I have learned to set the resolution to the romance aside. The result is immense enjoyment of the ambiance, the mystery, the skilfully sketched assortment of quirky and colourful characters, and the setting.

One can always rely on Mary Stewart’s descriptive genius to create a setting so breathtakingly real that it seems to be a memory of one’s own rather than an imagined place. This is perhaps particularly the case with northern England and Scotland; born in Durham and educated there and in Yorkshire, Stewart later settled in Scotland. Wildfire At Midnight also borrows specialist knowledge from her husband, noted Scottish geologist Sir Frederick Stewart, and draws upon the couple’s travels: “[...] the one background I owe entirely to him is the Scottish one for Wildfire At Midnight. We travelled every inch of Scotland together.” (Interview in Counterpoint, edited by Roy Newquist, published by Rand McNally & Company, 1964, page 564.) The rain-lashed island setting with its suddenly descending fogs, perilous mountains, treacherous bogs, and toasty peat fires by which to warm oneself with a glass of sherry, is a character in its own right. It is neither filler nor a device to create suspenseful moodiness (although suspenseful and moody are the resulting atmosphere), but is actually even more integral to the plot than usual with Stewart, who always takes care to match her stories believably to the chosen location.

Wildfire At Midnight has aged rather well not because it still seems modern - for good or ill, it does not, and some of its more dated attitudes require indulgence of the conventions and sensibilities of another era - or because it touches on a discussion of ethics that will probably always remain a human dilemma; it has aged well because it fits so comfortably into a beloved genre that thrives as much on nostalgia as it does on a well-conceived mystery. It shows Mary Stewart the plotter at her best; and for those seeking an armchair trip to Scotland, well, Mary Stewart’s Isle Of Skye is almost every bit as striking as the real one.

 

Excerpt

(Fawcett Crest paperback, 1956, p. 73-4):

"The night had been black and wild, and after several fruitless and exhausting hours of climbing and shouting in the blustering darkness, the searchers had straggled home in the early hours of daylight, to snatch food and a little sleep before setting out, haggard-eyed and weary, for a further search. Bill Persimmon had telephoned for the local rescue team, and about nine next morning, a force some twenty strong set out once again for what must now certainly be reckoned the scene of an accident.

This time, I went with them. Even if I couldn't rock-climb, I would at least provide another pair of eyes, and I could help to cover some of the vast areas of scree and rough heather bordering the Black Spout.

The morning - I remembered with vague surprise that it was the eve of Coronation Day - had broken grey and forbidding. The wind still lurched among the cairns and heather braes with inconsequent violence, and the frequent showers of rain were arrow-sharp and heavy. We were all muffled to the eyes, and trudged our way up the sodden glen with heads bent to meet the vicious stabbing of the rain.

It was a little better as we came under the shelter of the hill where Roderick and I had talked two nights ago, but, as we struggled on to the crest of it, the wind met us again in force. The raindrops drove like nails before it, and I turned my back to it for a moment's respite. The storm gusts leaped past me, wrenching at my coat, and fled down the valley towards the sea.

The hotel looked far away and small and lonely, with, behind it, the sea loch whitening under the racing feet of the wind. I saw a car move slowly away from the porch, and creep along the storm-lashed track to Strathaird. It was a big car, cream, with a black convertible top.

'Marcia Maling's car,' said a voice at my elbow."

South Africa: Blue Fire by Phyllis A. Whitney

The plot of Blue Fire by Phyllis A. Whitney (originally published in book form in 1961*) deals with the South African diamond trade and apartheid. While the story follows a similar pattern to many of Whitney’s bestselling romantic suspense novels – a parentless or alienated heroine with a buried, violent secret in her past, a controlling, disapproving boyfriend or husband, and the oppressing sense of isolation and danger that surrounds the heroine - it has a more pronounced social conscience than is common in romances. In fact, although Whitney’s romantic suspense novels are often grouped together under the gothic umbrella, I hesitate to call Blue Fire a romance. Whereas the heroine’s love life is central to the story and there is an HEA, the treatment of marriage and romance ushers Blue Fire closer to mainstream fiction.

 

Newspaper photographer Susan van Pelt‘s mother took her away from South Africa when her father, Niklaas van Pelt, was disgraced and imprisoned. Although he was released three years later, Susan has not heard from him once. At the age of twenty-three she returns to Cape Town, newly married to a childhood friend, Dirk Hohenfield, who is now an associate of the father she does not want to see. Susan’s bitterness against her father is compounded when it appears he is even now only interested in what she may know about the whereabouts of a famous diamond that was stolen around the time of her parents’ breakup.

But Susan has suppressed all memories of that traumatic time. She wants to concentrate on her fragile new marriage and her photography, not delve in the painful past. None of those around her accept that wish, however. Dirk’s unpredictable mood swings seem somehow related to what she can or cannot remember. John Cornish, the journalist and author whose investigation into diamond smuggling contributed to her father’s downfall, insists on re-examining the case, and in doing so causes Susan to re-examine her hasty marriage. And South-Africa in all its beauty and conflictedness is seeping back into her blood and consciousness, questioning loyalties and testing truths.

 

The title of “Blue Fire” refers to the blue-white light dispersed by the Kimberley Royal, the infamous diamond that figures prominently in the novel’s plot. The draconian laws regulating diamond mining and De Beers' monopoly of diamond industry in South Africa have given rise to smuggling, a crime for which Niklaas van Pelt served a prison term. While the Kimberley Royal was also in his care when it disappeared, that particular case was never reported to the authorities due to the owner’s friendship with him. When Susan learns that her father impoverished himself to pay back the diamond’s worth to the owner in full, the seeming inconsistency between Niklaas’s supposed offenses and his behaviour begins to sow the first doubts in her mind about his guilt.

The Kimberley Royal and the mystery surrounding its disappearance drive a good deal of the motivations of the characters in Blue Fire. As in the new book that John Cornish tells Susan he is writing, it is the “fever” that diamonds breed in people who come into contact with them that interests Whitney, not the business side. Parallell with with this obsession runs another source of tension, the “cancer of apartheid” (p.100).

In a condescendingly indulgent commentary on Phyllis A. Whitney’s work (Twentieth Century Romance and Gothic Writers, edited by James Vinson, published by Gale, 1982) Nancy Regan writes (p.700): “[...] Whitney has created a species of romance fiction which might be called Tourist Gothic. She writes well and lovingly of the various places in which her books are set, but always with the enthusiasm of a visitor, not with an inhabitant’s long knowledge of place. Thus Whitney provides her readers with a kind of exciting vacation, replete with interesting locations, confusing romances, and outright danger.” Apart from questioning Regan’s assumption that seeing a place through fresh eyes means being insensitive to the nuances beneath its surface glamour, I have to wonder whether Nancy Regan ever opened Blue Fire.

Scenes that confront the heroine, and the reader, with the realities of South African society at the time include the incident with the sjambok or rhinoceros hide whip, which Dirk affixes as decoration on the living room wall; the Hohenfield servants’ sleeping arrangements, which are regulated by law to bar direct entry into the house; and the destruction of Susan’s film roll when she is coerced to surrender it to a policeman in District Six. Susan may admire the scenery of Cape Town but she never forgets or allows the reader to forget the ugliness of the system beneath its splendour. Through her family roots, her marriage, her household, and her work, she observes the daily inequalities and prejudices, and slowly becomes engaged in obstacles and controversies that directly affect the course of her life and shape her character. Yet apartheid is never turned into a vehicle for giving Susan a starring role as the selfless saviour of helpless or incapable locals – a convention which other writers who place Western characters in foreign places practise with astounding frequency.

In Blue Fire as in most of the roughly seventeen Whitney novels I have read, the psychological insights into the characters compensates for the less than heart-warming romantic relationships. While there is almost invariably an HEA (although that of The Moonflower, for example, is hardly the expected, conventional one), the attitude to love between a man and a woman is typically heavily weighted with issues of domination, coldness, belittling, and mistrust on the man’s side. The Quicksilver Pool (a historical) is a prime example. Sometimes a second potential love interest appears, which is the case in Blue Fire, and it is not always immediately clear whether he poses a threat to the marriage or the possibility of something better. Blue Fire scrutinizes the effect of a controlling partner on a heroine whose reactions range from a debilitating sense of powerlessness to silent resentment. Susan's past experiences have taught her not to make trouble even as she feels crushed by the burden of dissimulating her true feelings. There is an unspoken parallell between what goes on emotionally in her marriage and the oppression under which her native country struggles.

In re-reading Blue Fire I have come to regard it as one of its author’s most interesting novels. It has the hallmarks of a vintage Whitney in terms of a thoughtfully plotted mystery, absorbing psychological portraits, an unsettling atmosphere, and a setting that comes fascinatingly alive under Whitney’s descriptive powers. After a literally stumbling start in a somewhat distancing style the narrative quickly gets its bearings to become an intriguing and fresh-voiced study of a young woman’s struggle to establish her identity in a society where questions are dangerous.

The last words of the novel are for those who work for democracy and human rights in South Africa. When one recalls that Whitney’s book was published in 1961, before her own country’s (USA) Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act (1965), and three decades before the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, it seems simplistic and naive to dismiss Blue Fire as a mere “tourist gothic”.

 

Excerpt

(Appleton Century Crofts, Inc., 1961, page 213):

“Ahead, where the uphill climb toward home began, the tall rocks glistened like black marble, a little eerie in the gray light. The ravine was deserted, and it was foolish to be afraid of passing a mere huddle of rocks. Perhaps it was their shape that always vaguely disturbed her, as if they had been raised into position by some antique force that had left a malignant spell upon the place.

She thrust her hands deep into the pockets of the mackintosh, feeling the crumbled cigar beneath the fingers of her right hand. She had been foolish once today and once was enough. As she started up the hill toward the rocks she did not permit herself to hurry in the panic of her own imaginings.

There was no sound at all save the dripping of moisture from bushes and trees, and the movement of her own feet on the steepening path. The odor of wet pine was heavy on the moisture-laden air. She was safely past the rocks now and her fears had proved childish, as always. Soon she would be at the house and out of this cold wind. The crack of a twig on the path behind her sounded at the same instant that something struck her full in the back. She was flung forward to her knees, the breath knocked out of her, and something rough was thrust over her head and pulled down, smothering her cry, blinding her.”

 

*A shorter version had previously appeared in Redbook Magazine.

 

A film of related interest: The subject-matter of (the decidedly non-romantic) Blood Diamond (2006) is the mining and trade of African conflict diamonds, commonly referred to as blood diamonds. During Sierra Leone’s civil war in the 1990s, a priceless diamond seized by a slave worker (played by Djimon Honsou) in the diamond fields of Sierra Leone leads to a bloody fight over its possession by various individuals and syndicates. Among them is a smuggler (Leonardo DiCaprio) who trades arms for diamonds. The negative publicity the film generated for the diamond trade prompted De Beers to launch a website called Diamond Facts.

Russia: The House Of Kuragin by Constance Heaven

The period atmosphere feels off, and some irritating older romance conventions intrude, but the sum of The House Of Kuragin is greater than its parts. There is a buoyancy to Constance Heaven’s storytelling and considerable freshness in the lovingly detailed setting which help explain why this gothic romance won RNA’s Romantic Novel Of The Year Award in 1973.

 

1819. The Weston family has lost its wealth and position, and the welfare of Rilla’s widowed mother and young siblings depends on whatever income Rilla can bring home. A well-paid position in Russia as companion and governess seems an adventure as well as a welcome escape from poverty.

Half a day’s journey by sleigh outside Saint Petersburg, the country estate of the Counts of Kuragin is marked by external splendour and internal unhappiness. Rilla’s five-year old charge, Paul, is neglected by his parents, Dmitri and Natalya, whereas his uncle Andrei stands accused of attempting to murder the boy. The simmering tensions include the taciturn estate manager, Jean Reynard, and the local school teacher, Marya. The arrival of Rilla, the outsider, upsets the invisible balance and secrets start to crack open. But is it for good or for ill?

 

Gothic romances share a narrow set of common tropes, which, if used thoughtlessly, render many of them very similar. Time and again a scene or character or plot element in The House Of Kuragin reminded me of Mary Stewart’s Nine Coaches Waiting, but eventually the author breaks away from what seems to have been a strong inspiration point to shape a different version of a familiar tale.

The House Of Kuragin is a novel of family secrets and the tension and malice that arises from them, sundering even those who genuinely care for each other. The measure of realism in these dynamics lends touches of true tragedy to what could easily have remained pure melodrama. None of the main players escape unscathed, each reaping the consequences of his or her follies, resentments, and ill-advised passions.

Another quality I appreciated was Constance Heaven’s immersion in the natural geography and the social history of Russia. Although the period evoked in the novel felt more Victorian than Regency to me, she creates a convincing picture of settings from the Grand Prinicipality of Finland to Saint Petersburg and beyond through references to agricultural life, superstitions, descriptions of the changing seasons, and plant details. Her touch is light and the result is both beautifully atmospheric and intriguing. Serfdom is treated as more than background to illustrate the vast divide between misery and luxury in pre-revolutionary Russia: the plight of serfs plays a substantial part in the plot and, in one horrific scene, even children are shown not to be able to escape barbarous cruelty.

At the same time, it is in describing an unequal society that the author most fails to deliver. As much as Rilla berates Russian noble landowners for their treatment of serfs (fortified in her sense of righteousness, no doubt, by British abolition of slave trade a decade earlier), and as much as Andrei Kuragin tells her not to judge before she has a fuller understanding of the situation, the debate cannot help but fizzle when, following a riot, Rilla concludes: “[The peasants] were like children – dangerous, vicious children – who could work themselves up to violence and would afterward weep at the damage they had done.”

Now, a look at some of the characters. The House Of Kuragin is one of those earlier romances where the heroine is repeatedly kissed but is never shown to reciprocate, other than shaking with the overpowering emotion the hero’s passion awakens in her. In the same fashion, typical of romances written twenty or thirty years ago, the hero’s ‘masculinity’ is asserted through domineering behaviour: again and again, Andrei ignores Rilla’s wishes, and instead of Rilla protesting or walking away, he is rewarded for pressing his will on her or “knowing better”.

I have mixed feelings about Rilla. Let me put it this way: besides her passiveness in regards to Andrei, never revealing her infatuation to him but always looking for proof of his attraction toward her, her intelligence is, to put it kindly, not the brightest. She is also headstrong - not a fortunate combination. On the other hand, she harbours few illusions about herself and she is well-intentioned. Despite nursing a secret wistfulness for the loss of her old, privileged life, she maintains a constructive attitude. Moreover, she stands up to opposition from one of her employers and demands the right to spend her leisure time any way she chooses. This includes making friends with both women and men, in particular Marya, the local schoolteacher, whose exact role in Andrei Kuragin’s life is for a while a painful mystery to Rilla.

In spite of the stereotypical traits to assert Andrei Kuragin’s “manly arrogance” (mentioned above) there are facets to his personality that make him both an interesting and an unusual hero. I doubt some of it would pass muster in the romances published today, and that is perhaps a pity. He is flawed, he has loved deeply before Rilla comes into his life, and the echoes of this past reverberate to the very end of the novel and cause suffering to more than one person. The author’s handling of it all makes for a rather abrupt resolution, however. I believe the love story between Andrei and Rilla would have benefited from a few more pages.

Natalya Kuragin is saddled with the unflattering task of providing the contrast to Rilla’s wholesomeness. The bored, pretty, young wife of an adoring but dull older husband, she seeks escape from the desperate tedium of her life in ways that grow increasingly destructive. Her bitter consolation is to wield her beauty and attractiveness to men like a whip. Her portrayal starts out rather two-dimensional, but she gains in complexity toward the end, becoming one of the most interesting characters.

The House Of Kuragin surprised me in many good ways. While some poorly aged aspects of the male-female interactions irritate and the social commentary falters, the energy of the storytelling, the dynamic plot, and the unusual and compelling setting make this gothic romance one of the most memorable I have read. If you love Victoria Holt or Phyllis A. Whitney's gothic historicals, or simply enjoy older style historical romances, definitely give The House Of Kuragin a try.

 

Excerpt

(Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., 1972, page 126-7):

“It was deliciously cool under the thick shade of the oaks. We did not talk very much. I had it on the tip of my tongue to tell her about my dress and then changed my mind. I did not want to spoil the peace of the day by recalling that unpleasant incident. I lay back on the rug, seeing the warm golden dazzle of the sunlight through half-closed eyes, listening to the cool swish of the scythes, the steady hum of insects with the sweet, heady fragrance of the cut grass all around me.

I must have fallen into a light doze because everything faded into a distant haze, and I was aware only of sleepy contentment and relaxation of tension. A persistent fly buzzed around me. I put up my hand to brush it away, but now it was tickling my nose. I opened my eyes to find it was not a fly at all but Andrei bending over me and lightly drawing a long wisp of grass down my face.

‘You must have been enjoying a delicious dream,’ he murmured, ‘to be smiling so charmingly. Won’t you share it with me?’

I sat up abruptly. ‘I was not asleep. Where is Marya?’

‘She has gone to the children.’ He lay back beside me, stretching his arms lazily above his head. ‘How good it feels when every muscle aches with the sweet satisfaction of a job well done.’

‘Is it finished?’

‘All but the end of the field, and the men will do that. I have been out working since dawn. My back feels as if it will snap in two, and my hands are horribly blistered, but I haven’t enjoyed a day so much for years.’

I was terribly conscious of his nearness. He had pulled on a coarse white linen blouse such as the peasants wear, but it did not hide the brown naked chest with its light film of sweat. His head with the untidy dark hair was close beside me.

I said hurriedly, ‘Would you like a cool drink?’”

Transylvania: The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn

An adventurous Victorian author-heroine, an atmospheric castle in a region made legendary by Bram Stoker, a secretive host family, and a murder mystery that coyly hints at the vampiric, all offered up in capable prose: The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn carries the promise of delightful shivers and darkly intriguing romance. How on earth did it turn out dull?

 

1858. Author Theodora Lestrange leaves stifling family expectations and a disappointed suitor behind in Scotland to travel to her school friend Cosmina’s wedding in the Grand Principality of Transylvania (under the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs). She expects to find inspiration for her new novel there, and indeed discovers more than she bargained for.

Firstly, the wedding is off. Secondly, the supposed bridegroom, Count Andrei Dragulescu, casts smouldering looks over Theodora. Thirdly, a servant is found dead with puncture-marks on her neck. Add howling wolves and superstitious townspeople, and this becomes a soujourn that will change Theodora’s life – if it doesn’t kill her first.

 

I must point out that despite my flippant summary, this is not a comedy. The logo on the book spine classifies The Dead Travel Fast as historical fiction but I deem the tone and style vintage gothic romance. The cover, too, seems to imply a dark, sensuous, shivery read (the evocative title is drawn from the first chapter of Bram Stoker’s Dracula), depicting a candle-lit head-and-shoulders portrait of a woman in blood-red brocade. Although why she must thrust her breasts at the reader quite so generously escapes me; the level of sensuality in the book is certainly not spicy.

The Dead Travel Fast treads predictable paths. That in itself is posed no hindrance to my enjoyment: I have a fondness for gothic traditions and welcome the first person point of view. The first chapter caught my imagination with smooth writing, interesting characters, and a nice period voice. As for the paranormal component hinted at by the setting and the developing mystery, I like seeing tropes turned on their head and rather hoped that the vampire element would be revealed to be a smoke screen. Above all, I appreciated the well-wrought details that went into creating an eerie atmosphere full of murky undercurrents.

Where the novel fell flat for me was in the portrayals and interactions of the heroine and hero. After a solid start that sets Theodora up as a competent, intrepid individual whose unconventional leanings make her a heroine who is true to the period yet possesses attributes that make her naturally gravitate toward non-conformism, her character undergoes a marked change after she arrives at the castle. It is not merely a case of the atmosphere affecting her nerves or the experience of falling in love. No, I felt I lost hold of Theodora because her character suddenly becomes vague, morphous, inefficient; it was almost as if the author forgot herself and began using Theodora mainly a conduit for experiencing the other characters.

As for Andrei, he is too busy being a gothic stereotype to become a fully-fledged character in his own right. By turns aloof, by turns melodramatic, he seems intended to be a darkly seductive Byronic or Brontëesque hero yet fails miserably in the charisma department. Worse, he did not convince me that he deserved Theodora’s love. The lack of chemistry I perceived between Andrei and Theodora became especially problematic in their first love scene (the only one I read). Clinical and unemotional in tone, it also felt awkwardly written. Due to the manner in which the author chose to handle the scene it seemed as if the characters were having sex mainly to get it out of the way, and were both embarrassed about involving emotions. The latter could in theory have worked nicely both as an illuminating flash of period behaviour and a vehicle for character exploration. Instead, the technical execution left me with a slight feeling of distaste.

By contrast, Theodora’s rejected suitor, her publisher, Charles Beecroft, was well-developed, real and solid, winning my sympathies by proving an eminently likeable gentleman and true friend. Reading the first chapter I was even wondering whether the author was intending to pull a refreshing trick and have him instead of the back blurb’s nobleman be the actual hero. Theodora is straightforward and self-confident with Charles, whereas in the company of Andrei she becomes shy and almost childlike in her tremulous fascination.

Consequently, once the suspense began to falter, too, the story began to drag for me. I started putting the book down frequently, and when I picked it up again I would resort to skimming.

 

Warning: end spoiler:

Ultimately I skipped ahead to the end in a last effort to muster enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the pragmatic tenor of the relationship dismayed me. The buildup of the relationship had revolved around romantic attraction of the romance genre type rather than being an exploration of the meaning of love as seen in literary fiction. The last chapters jolted me from a romance into mainstream fiction. There is an HEA, but the impression it left on me was melancholy rather than uplifting. (In fact, it reminded me of the depressing quality of some of Victoria Holt’s books; an unspoken message that one must not demand too much of love, which does not have so much to do with an attempt at realism as with a certain gloomy outlook on life.) The very last paragraph reconciled me somewhat because in it Theodora’s story is shown to have come full circle. It is a fitting end that reflects an endearingly smug contentment.

End of spoiler.

 

The Dead Travel Fast is a novel to which I eagerly looked forward based on the setting, the subject matter, and praise for Deanna Raybourn’s romantic mystery series featuring Lady Julia (which I have not read). Although at times the story came close to earning a favourable opinion the characters ultimately failed to click with me. Still, the elements I did like were sufficiently engaging to entice me to give the book another chance at some future date. A snowstorm roaring around the eaves and a mug of hot chocolate at my lips might help tip the scales.

 

Excerpt (MIRA Books, 2010, page 178):

"He braced himself to pull away his coat and waistcoat, and it was then that I saw the first scarlet drops seeping through the white linen wound about his neck.

A chill ran through me, and I felt my heartbeat hard and fast in my throat as I stared in horror.

'What is it?' he demanded. Seeing the direction of my gaze, he put his hand to his neckcloth. His finger came away red, and he stared at it.

'An accident, when I shaved,' he said, but his complexion had gone white as marble, and he thrust himself away from me. The word strigoi hovered unspoken between us, souring the air.

'Go now,' he said harshly. He turned from me, and I rose, hesitating. Even then, I did not wish to leave him, even then, when the first seeded doubts about what he was began to flower.

He glanced once over his shoulder. 'I will save you even if you will not save yourself,' he said, his voice low and menacing. 'Go to your room and bolt the door. Hang the basil and say your prayers. Go now!' he roared, and I gathered up my skirts and fled from him."