Jessamy Court

by Anne Maybury

The old English mansion had a special magic about it ... an enticing, bewitching ... but deadly ... spell.

The old mansion's dusky golden glow makes an eerie contrast with the wild green Dorset countryside. And the rooms in the magnificent stone house have a strange aura ... a heavy, perfumed atmosphere that seems to enchant and entrap their inhabitants. Rachel Fleming is only a visitor at Jessamy. Yet the house will not let her go, will not release her from its fragrant, deadly spell...

Genres: Fiction, Gothic, Gothic Romance, Geoffrey Chaucer, Romance

309 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Edith Arundel Buxton
aka Edith Arundel, Anne Maybury & Katherine Troy.

Her maiden surname was Arundel. Her ancestors were said to have come to England with the Norman Conquest and she was proud of the heritage which did seem to imbue her with a perceptive appreciation of history. The love of poetry which remained with her always was inherited from her father, a distinguished poet of his time. Her mother was a musician who died at an early age.

She was a writer of romantic suspense whose novels earned her world-wide acclaim and an enormous following. She was particularly popular in the United States. Her finest gift was for lyrical prose and she used her delight in colour and drama to such effect that the reader was immediately plunged into the story and held enthralled.

Her early novels were written also under the pennames of Edith Arundel and Katherine Troy, but it is as Anne Maybury that she will be remembered. She was a true professional who did not believe in wasting time. A promised deadline was adhered to and all social engagements regretfully cancelled. She developed early in life the profound interest in human behaviour and intrigue which was to prove a valuable asset to her writing. Also in good measure she retained the attribute so necessary to an author, a lively curiosity. She travelled widely and brought a sense of adventure into her books derived often from personal experiences of a bizarre kind. She seemed to attract excitement and used to say that she had met more than one murderer during her travels around the world. As a writer she was stylish, and this quality extended to her personality, which was full of vivid charm, lightened by a sparkling sense of fun.

Generous with her time to aspiring writers, she also loved literary chat with her peers. She was interested in new writing as well as the classics and read widely, keeping up with developments. She was a vice-president of both the Romantic Novelists Association and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists. Almost until his death she regularly attended meetings and gave time and care to helping the members and the causes in which they believe. She was a remarkable writer and a good friend and companion.

Reviews

[Laina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really excited to love this book. I love this style with the older writing, but I was slightly disappointed. The story seemed slow. Nothing happened for the larger part of the book. You didn't find out much to help with the mystery, and it seemed just a little bit slow. However, I was honestly surprised by the ending which always brings a book up higher on my list. It was really clever and unexpected... the one character I had liked turned out to be the "bad guy." It was good in that way, but overall I felt it was a bit lacking.

[Cindy Witte · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my all time favorites. A dead ballerina. A witch. Heroine's deception. A moody artist.
and a mystery set in the back-drop of a beautiful Dorset manor house.

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rare stumble by the usually terrific Anne Maybury, "Jessamy Court" takes a rather implausible plot and overlays it with the possibility of witchcraft, but without much success. Rachel Fleming has always been a loyal friend—perhaps the only true friend—of Stephanie Clair, the self-pitying, bitter daughter of a famous ballerina. When Stephanie has a nervous collapse after her mother's death, Rachel decides to impersonate her--on a doctor's recommendation, no less--to see if she can unlock the reason behind her friend's catatonic state. This brings her to Jessamy Court, the estate of Stephanie's dead mother, and into the orbit of two of the men the ballerina captivated during her lifetime. Normally outgoing, assertive and confident, Rachel must pretend to be the anxious, awkward and unhappy Stephanie. Meanwhile, does someone see through her masquerade? What about the hints of witchcraft in the woods around the small village of Pilgrim Abbas? Underneath these trappings, the mystery is easier to guess than it should be, and nothing really holds together well. It's not terrible, but fans of Maybury's other novels will likely be disappointed in this ho-hum effort.

[Sara]

I give Jessamy Court 3.5 stars. It was a pretty good read, but not a great read. I'm an impatient reader, and I felt that the plot took too long to thicken because of details about the place and the main character's reflections. The climactic confrontation toward the end of the novel was riveting. I also felt that the author embedded a sense of danger throughout most of the novel that I liked. I just felt the novel went too slowly.

[Kidlitter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dreary heroines, annoying ballerina, moody men called "Fabian" and "Dominick" - the most believable thing in the book is that a lovely country house exists in Dorset that everyone's obsessed with but no one deserves. That is all too believable!

[Sharon Buxton · Rating 3 out of 5]

C-. fiction, gothic suspense, England contemporary, silly, from stash, discard