Sarnia

by Hilary Ford, John Christopher (Pseudonym)

Life holds no prospect of luxury or excitement after Sarnia’s beloved mother dies: potential suitors vanish once they realise that marriage to the orphan will never bring a dowry. Yet her post as a lady clerk in a London banking house keeps the wolf from the door, and the admiration of her colleague, the worthy Michael, assures her if not of passion, then at least of affection.

Then the Jelains erupt into her humdrum routine, relatives she did not know she had, and whisk her away to the isle of Guernsey. At first she is enchanted by the exotic beauty of the island, by a life of balls and lavish entertainments where the officers of visiting regiments vie for her attention.

But Sarnia cannot quite feel at ease within this moneyed social hierarchy – especially in the unsettling presence of her cousin Edmund. And before long it becomes apparent that, beneath the glittering surface, lurk dark and menacing forces …

Her mother had scorned those of her sex who tamely submitted to male domination but, as the mystery of her heritage unfolds, Sarnia becomes all too painfully aware that the freedom she took for granted is slipping from her grasp.

Genres: Gothic

ebook

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

‘Hilary’, as a name, is epicene: there are male Hilarys, there are female Hilarys. For a writer who set out to tell a story from the viewpoint of a woman – and a woman whose personality combined a natural femininity with a spirited independence – it seemed a particularly apposite choice of pen-name.

When the first Hilary Ford novel was published (back in 1958), the writer tells us, it ‘engendered some interesting feedback from male readers. One told me he was a First Mate in the mercantile marine and “worshipped my every fault and failing”. Another, from an impressive Westminster address, offered to wine and dine me in an unspecified but fairly obvious cause.’

During a writing career spanning more than six decades Sam Youd published fifty-seven novels, seven of these as Hilary Ford. He was perhaps best known as John Christopher, writer of The Death of Grass and the young adult series The Tripods.

Reviews

[Sarah Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

[2015 edit: revised & polished, now with significantly reduced spoilers. My reviewing technique has evolved over the years. :P]


Somewhere in the misty reaches of time -- eh, probably around 2004 -- I read the blurb for SARNIA & ordered it without seeing the cover. Back then I was just beginning my collection of gothics & Victoria Holt-style romance, & I was excited when it arrived. But then I saw the lackluster wrapping -- two-tone boringness that's neither gothic nor bodice-ripper -- and couldn't summon much interest compared to the poofy fonts & colorful covers of pulp fiction. With a mild twinge of disappointment, I set SARNIA aside. Over time it was buried beneath other books, moved onto the Storage Bookcase, & improperly organized behind a stack of pulps. And there it stayed...

Until a few weeks ago, when I was rearranging to purge unwanted crapola. When I found it again, my reaction was thus:

(1) Ha, I forgot I had this!
(2) Jeez, what a boring cover.

But then I checked the blurb & decided to give it another chance -- and I'm glad I did. While the cover continues to make my nose wrinkle (it's so unbalanced -- and WTF is that bland white background?), the book itself was worth keeping.

Set in the middle Victorian period, this is a rather Holt-ish story about accidental inheritances & greedy people who will do anything to keep up appearances of Living In The Money. But despite superficial similarities in plot style, the (mostly) veiled violence & sinister happenings in SARNIA are more graphic than Holt. The back cover compares it to Rona Randall's Dragonmede, & I'd agree with that comparison. Both Randall & Ford have a bleaker, heavier feel than Holt, & both include actual rape & abuse against the heroine.

As the story opens, Sarnia is a young woman living alone in 1850s London. She rents at a cheap boarding house with a bullying landlord & his spineless wife, but knows her life could be much worse. She has gainful employment & is content to be surviving on her own, though she's also practical enough to consider a recent proposal from co-worker Michael. But her routine is disrupted by the arrival of two distant -- and unknown -- relations, the seemingly harmless Mr & Mrs Jelain, who whisk Sarnia away to the isle of Guernsey, there to reclaim her lost inheritance. Unfortunately, the mysterious long-lost father passes away quite unexpectedly, leaving Sarnia as unprotected heiress to a vast fortune. She then becomes a target of villainous Edmund Jelain, who decides to lock her in a farmhouse & rape her into submission. (Charming fellow. :P) She manages to escape, but the seed of Edmund's brutality lingers, & she's too proud to accept another offer of marriage en route to a HEA...or is she?

For such a short book, there's a lot of raw emotion in this one. Ford takes the time to create fully-realized characters, ranging from the tentative acceptance between Sarnia & her father -- which is portrayed in a fittingly delicate manner, only to be torn away as they've reached a crossroads -- to Sarnia's relationship with the cowardly Michael, who frustrates the reader as much as our heroine. Edmund Jelain is a piece of work -- a psycho graduate of the Richard MacAndrew school, in that he's fixed on one thing & one thing only -- to have money, to own, to command obedience. (Seriously, you'll want to beat his face with a baseball bat.) But there's also Sarnia's transformation from an outgoing, rigidly polite young woman to a virtual recluse, shying from human contact because of her traumatic experiences & social shame -- just like her father. It was a more realistic portrayal of abuse than many romantic suspense novels are willing to attempt.

I did think the all-consuming love between Sarnia & her eventual husband was a bit rushed -- they jump from one stage to another without much warning -- but considering the length of the book & the time devoted to Sarnia's other relationships, I didn't mind their abrupt resolution.

Final verdict: a good read, & worth hanging onto (despite that dull-as-dirt cover). :)


This book review has been provided by the No Book Left Behind Campaign! A Bodice Ripper Readers Anonymous group initiative to review the un-reviewed!
(Eh, not quite a bodice-ripper...but she does have her dress shredded down the front in preparation for Edmund's lechery. :D)

[Shen Hart · Rating 4 out of 5]

We received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review to be posted on The Review Hart.

This is a very classic-style romance, which means that it burns more slowly than more contemporary equivalents. That, however, does not mean that it is a bad book. It’s superbly written and will no doubt delight many readers who enjoy that type of romance. The author maintains the character’s voice and the overall tone beautifully, and at no point does it waver or falter. The setting is both well-described and interesting in and of itself, which leads to a well-formed plot. All in all, this is very well-written and will no doubt be read time and time again by many people.

Full Review Available Here

[Awesome Indies Book Awards · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Sarnia, a recently orphaned young woman is working as a clerk in a banking house and being wooed by a co-worker. She likes him well enough, but isn’t sure she wants to be married and dependent on a man. Suddenly, her aunt and cousin from the island of Guernsey appear and tell her that she isn’t an orphan after all—her father is still alive and living on Guernsey. Sarnia, our heroine, goes with her aunt and cousin to the island where she is wined and dined, introduced into local society, and visits her cranky, dying recluse of a father, whom she slowly wins over by caring for him. He is wealthy. He changes his will to leave her everything. And then Sarnia’s troubles begin, and things get pretty dark.

This book was originally published in 1974 by Sam Youd, writing as Hilary Ford, which may account for some of the things I found troubling. The heroine is naive beyond belief, and, frankly, not very bright. The characters, both good and bad, are one-dimensional. The plot was completely predictable. Less than halfway through I started making guesses as to what would happen, and wasn’t wrong once. Sarnia faces more perils than Pauline, and yet manages to escape (almost) all unscathed.

On the plus side, the writing is pretty good and the book is well edited. The reader won’t find any deep insights into the human condition here, but for a formulistic, escapist, and frankly rather dark novel, this one could well do for a day or evening with nothing better in the offing. 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3.

I received this book free of charge from the author in return for an honest review.

[Nicua · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit I was skeptical to begin with when reading the blurb about this book. I thought to myself that it would be another painful romance with weak female leads and overbearing, too-good-to-be-true male characters. But I am so happy to admit that I was terribly wrong.
This book was a beautiful experience. It takes my mind along paths that it has only traveled with books such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I was impressed by the ability of the author to entirely capture your imagination and I could literally not put the book down without a struggle.
The narrative follows the life of a young woman, who recently lost her mother and in a world where women don't work, she has a respectable job which she enjoys. Surprise relatives from a little island come and welcome Sarnia to their home and tell her of a father who is dying, a father she thought was dead.
Sarnia, bound by duty and also curiosity leaves the life she knows along with a keen suitor to meet her new family.
Things are not as they seem and Sarnia finds herself with strange circumstances and stranger people on her hands.
A lovely book of true love? Certainly!
Would recommend it to those who love the romantic classics.

[Lexi Diaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read during a quiet day at work. A decent narrative from a working class woman fighting all sides of outside opinion on her life choices.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classic gothic romance with depth. Well written and suspenseful with more emphasis on the suspense than romance, thankfully. A great story.

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Sarnia, a rare female clerk in a bank, has made her way alone since her mother died, leaving her without means. But when unexpected relatives come to town, they persuade her to visit them in Guernsey, the island she's named for.

Review
I’ve had Sarnia on my TBR pile for a while, and been unable to remember why, or who Hilary Ford was. It was only on opening it up that I recalled it’s really a Sam Youd book, apparently in a deliberately gender neutral attempt at a new audience. It is a bit of a departure from his John Christopher books, in tone and content, though not so far from some under his own name.

This is a much more adult book than his YA books, with a different kind of violence, but it’s not as great a departure as might be expected. Sarnia, the title character, is, in the mid-1800s, a somewhat sheltered woman living in a world built for men, so she’s innocent in the way that some of Christopher’s YA characters are. She’s also much more romantic, and the book hews closely to romantic tradition, with good people discernible by their fine features, and people falling in love left and right for no discernible reason.

Sarnia is a reasonable replication of a certain kind of romantic novel, reminiscent of Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austen, but without some of their particular strengths. The writing is good, the characters engaging, the story interesting, yet also quite predictable. You know largely where this will go well before it’s spelled out. Ford has update the story to some extent by also spelling out some of what happens to Sarnia, yet she never really develops past a certain ‘damsel in distress’ category, needing a man to help her out, and with precious little sympathy for the 'weakness' of a man who doesn't want a) the shit kicked out of him, b) to go to prison on false charges, and c) to have his religion insulted.. That’s in some ways setting-appropriate, but also frustrating for more modern readers. I felt he could have given her more agency while staying true to the time period. That verisimilitude also undermines some of our sympathy for Sarnia. A woman who’s known difficulty, and has had to work and manage on her own, we learn, when she encounters a filthy house that desperately needs cleaning, that she immediately pitches in and is exhausted by having to employ and direct another woman to do the cleaning. (Mind, she has someone else find and hire the cleaning woman).

Other travails, their work as plot obstacles done, are quickly left behind. I give Ford credit for following up on his main update to the familiar outline (at the very end of the book), but he resolves it so quickly and easily that he undermines his own work. On the whole, Sarnia, while a pleasant read, feels more like a book destined to be a television special miniseries than a paper book. Not bad, but difficult to recommend strongly beyond the Youd-enthusiast community.

[Darryl Sloan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not the sort of book I would normally read. I read it purely because I am a big fan of John Christopher ("The Tripods", "The Death of Grass"). John Christopher and Hilary Ford are one and the same - pen-names of Sam Youd.

Youd's great strength is that he writes intelligently about human nature, particularly its darker aspects. That shines through here in the genre of gothic romance as much as in his disaster novels. If you like soppy love stories, look elsewhere.

As with many of Youd's novels, the first half tends to be a bit pedestrian and humdrum, requiring patience from the reader. Then things really take off in the second half and you find yourself grateful for the build-up that got you emotionally invested in the characters. I was rooting for Sarnia all the way.