A bride for Bedivere

by Hilary Ford

‘I cried the day my father died; but from joy.’Jane’s father had been nothing but a bully. His accidental death at the dockyard where he worked might have left the family in penury but it had also freed them from his drunken rages. He was scarcely cold in his grave, though, when another tyrant entered Jane’s life.Sir Donald Bedivere’s offer to ease her mother’s financial burden had but one that Jane should leave her beloved home in Portsmouth and move to Cornwall as his adopted daughter.To Sir Donald, Cornwall was King Arthur’s country, and his magnificent home, Carmaliot, the place where Camelot once had stood. To Jane, for all its luxury it was a purgatory where her only friend was the lumbering Beast, with whom she roamed the moors.Sir Donald had three sons, and Jane was quick to sum them John was pleasant enough, but indifferent to her. The burly, grinning Edgar she found loathsome. And Michael, on whom Sir Donald had pinned all his hopes, she disdained.Sir Donald had plans for the Bedivere line – Jane wanted no part in them.

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

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]

It had been the longing—deep and blinding and growing, growing until it threatened to sweep away all resistance—to surrender everything, volition, will, identity even, to the man who held me in his arms. I stared at the face in the glass—beautiful, men told me. Had that been me, and could it be again? I knew the first was true, and feared the second. If this was the love they wrote of, I rejected it. My will was my own: I valued it more than anything I had, or could hope to have. Far more than wealth or position, or even beauty.


This is a good book—solid vintage gothic romance. It’s well-written (despite the plethora of typos) & intriguingly unveiled by a subtle cast, none of whom are simply black-&-white (not even the creepy dead father, but you won’t see that until later flashbacks). I have no complaints in terms of prose or plot, but this must be said: Jenny is incredibly naïve + judgmental, a bad combo made worse by witnessing first-person how unforgiving/stubborn/proud/bitchy she is while also reading between the lines of other players. She isn’t an unreliable protagonist, but she *is* annoying as hell. 🙄 It speaks highly of the book that I enjoyed it despite wanting her to STFU & grow some sense, which does eventually (mercifully?) happen—a lightbulb moment symbolized by uber-gothic rebirth via the womb of earth (blatant, but effective). Even so, it was a rocky road, & I strongly advise potential readers to be in a mood for this type of holier-than-thou narrator before venturing into Jenny’s story. She has a pair of heroes to choose between & both are too good for her, imo—but hey. Some girls have all the luck. 🙃

This novel & SARNIA have been reissued with truly heinous covers that couldn’t be less appropriate to the content if they tried. Both are rather solemn stories with flawed heroes desperately trying to impress equally flawed heroines who can’t escape the shadow of lackluster parents & greedy relatives—though the greed in BEDIVERE isn’t for money so much as Jenny’s ability to bear a child. Either way, they are deceptively dark stories without being oppressive in their gloom…which is the best mode of Old Skool gothic roms. 👻

[Susan]

Gothic romance set in Cornwall