Lost Island

by Phyllis A. Whitney

Lacey, Elise, and Giles. They grew up together on a mist-shrouded island off the Georgia coast. Long ago, and without Giles's ever knowing it, Lacey gave birth to his son. But Elise, the beautiful, domineering one, got Giles. She got Lacey's child, too, to bring up as her own.
Lacey has tried hard to forget. But in ten years she hasn't been able to. So she's going back. To see her son. To confront Elise. To exorcise the spell of the island - and of Giles. Or perhaps to be trapped by them forever....

Genres: Mystery, Gothic, Fiction, Romance, Gothic Romance, Romantic Suspense, Suspense

250 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903 – 2008) was an American mystery writer. Rare for her genre, she wrote mysteries for both the juvenile and the adult markets, many of which feature exotic locations. A review in The New York Times once dubbed her "The Queen of the American Gothics".

She was born in Japan to American parents and spent her early years in Asia. Whitney wrote more than seventy novels. In 1961, her book The Mystery of the Haunted Pool won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Juvenile novel, and she duplicated the honor in 1964, for The Mystery of the Hidden Hand. In 1988, the MWA gave her a Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement. Whitney died of pneumonia on February 8, 2008, aged 104.

Reviews

[Luffy Sempai · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I am in a reading slump that is permanent. In such conditions, a readable book like Lost Island worked wonders for me. The book healed me. I did not know for most of my time spent with the book that it was written in 1970. What is weird is that Phyllis Ayame Whitney was 67 years of age when Lost Island was published.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

My grandmother gave me this book for Christmas one year when I was around 12. I loved it and read it over and over. It was my first "adult" romance novel, and a bit scandalous. My grandmother rocked!

[Abigail Yow · Rating 2 out of 5]

When Lacey decides to go back to Hampton island in hopes put an end to her wistful longings, she finds her plans disrupted by shadows of her past...

I appreciate the author's good use of description but it was just too much for my taste. It ended up being tedious and completing the book eventually became a chore.

I'm sorry to say but I found the whole melodrama over the top and uninteresting. The characters were vapid and I could not find it in me to cheer for them. Throughout the book, all I could think was, "is the book over yet?"

All in all, a reasonably decent book but I would not recommend it unless you're into these kind of novels.

[debbicat *made of stardust* · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really think 3.5 stars is fitting. I enjoyed it.

Review to follow.

[Robert Fontenot · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a genre, Gothic Romance has a fairly strict formula that usually involves a young woman, a large, isolated building, oblique murder attempts, a long buried secret, and a love interest that is aloof at best and down right abusive at worst. A lot of those elements are here but Whitney is experimenting in this one and it doesn't quite work. The long buried secret, as we are told from the very beginning, is that the MC got pregnant at seventeen but gave the baby to her cousin to raise as her own, a cousin that had just so happened to have married the baby's real father and the love of the MC's life. This throws the book rather firmly into melodrama and the MC spends the vast majority of the novel agonizing on whether to tell the boy or his father the truth. It's tedious to read and it makes the MC seem unusually passive as there's not really a mystery to uncover until the last section of the book. Without a real mystery, all the odd the characters and occurrences don't register as ominous but instead are just off-putting.

On the plus side, the coastal Georgia setting is lovingly rendered.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really a 2.5 - Did I ever really like books like this? I guess its possible, seeing as I was a young teen perusing a relation's shelf on a boring afternoon the last time I read her stuff. Maybe it didn't seem so over-the-top back then? It'd been so long since I read a Phyllis Whitney that I just couldn't remember what they were like. Rather wishing I hadn't promised to read one and refresh my memory. *shudder*

short version: Its a soap opera in print.

Somewhat longer version:
Utterly clueless, repetitive 'heroine' has been called back by relatives to the almost-incestuous family situation on the island that she had fled years before, after being persuaded to leave her newborn son for her cousin and former lover to raise as their own kid. The daddy, Giles, doesn't even know that this switcheroo happened. At least Richard is his son! Seems the little darling boy is not as happy as he should be, and doesn't know that the barren, narcissistic beauty (Elise) pretending to be his Mom is steadily turning him on Lacey, his real Mom. Lacey (real Mom) finds that Elise, the beautiful bad girl, is no longer happy to 'just' have Giles (and his Dad's plantation, and his fortune, and Lacey's son) - Elise now also demands the right to cuckold Giles nearly to his face. This is also flaunting the fact that Elise doesn't especially want what she and her Mom Amalie connived to take from her cousin Lacey. Weirdly, Lacey has never figured out that her Aunt Amalie used and discarded her. She was partly raised by Aunt Amalie, after her own mother, Kitty, died when Lacey was still young. She still thinks Aunt Amalie's some kind of mother figure, even though the woman won't help her at all and keeps telling her to get lost. But, for some malicious reason, Cousin Elise wants Lacey to be there for all this melodrama, and spoiled rotten Elise ALWAYS gets her way. Lacey uselessly tries to get the other jealous mouthy sister, Floria, or Elise's Mom Amalie to side with her and end the secrets for Richard and Giles' sake, somehow never getting a clue what they are about. Eventually, Giles learns of the deception, and it was a shame no one told him years before because it meant he would probably get to keep his son in the event of divorce.

But who was it who was trying to kill Lacey every time she visited? She thought it was Elise, but when Elise dies from a trap set for Lacey, it becomes obvious that someone else is trying to get rid of the complication she represents (especially when it becomes equally obvious that Giles is wishing he had married Lacey instead.) I bet you have already figured out who the accidental murderer is likely to be. Lacey couldn't sleuth her way out of a wet paper bag. She survives anyway, thanks to the last minute heroics of the household. Happy endings ensue. The End

[Lora Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this Phyllis Whitney! Besides this story taking place in my favorite setting, an island shrouded in mystery, it kept me guessing til the end.

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorites!

[Suzana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read a lot of her books years ago and loved them. This one was borderline awful. The characters are shallow, immature, selfish and evil. Creepy and sinister, rather a disappointing read.

[Patricia Mayne-Schlachtun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Phyllis Whitney's stories. They're a quick read, lightly romantic and a great break between reading more intense books.

[Carla Remy · Rating 3 out of 5]

From 1970
Whitney is a good writer with satisfying plots and details. I wish I'd read this when I was twelve or eleven. I would have loved it.

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was good! I enjoyed it, I just wish there were more scenes with Lacy and Giles, but it was a really good book!

[ᗰ.ᑕ. ⛵ O͎L͎D͎E͎R͎ ͎&͎ ͎W͎I͎S͎E͎R͎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long Ago = It was good.
2026 = +1 star added for successful reread.

This is another old book favorite I revisited to see what I think now. Phyllis Whitney mostly still works for me. It's great that her books are now available on KU. Like many stories of yonder years, there's history and pages of scenery descriptions. Some I appreciated, but others I skimmed to keep my interest.

The plot kept me engaged throughout. I couldn’t remember who was trying to kill the heroine, so it was fun to find out who the villain was. Whitney does a good job creating complex characters who are flawed, distinct, and feel real. All the characters are a mixture of good and bad, and bear some responsibility for what happened. In the end, the mystery was resolved well with everything finally uncovered. It was satisfying to see the villains meet their end.

My only complaint is that the MCs come together in the last few pages. I would have liked to see them as a happy couple for a longer time, with an epilogue to see how they’re doing years later.

Overall, it was a nice reread by a talented author with the gift of storytelling. Much like the heroine, who felt a sense of nostalgia upon returning to Hampton Island after ten years and recalled her happy childhood, I too felt a deep sense of nostalgia for my own youth. It's a reminder of how swiftly time passes for us all. 🥹

————————————————

📕 𝚂𝚄𝙼𝙼𝙰𝚁𝚈 𝚆𝙸𝚃𝙷 𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝚂𝙿𝙾𝙸𝙻𝙴𝚁𝚂:

Lacey returns to the Southern Island and the grand white house at Sea Oaks, where her memories of a youthful romance with Giles Severn surface. At 17, she spent a summer with him, but when cousin Elise arrived to claim Giles, Lacey, young and naive, fled back to New York. She left a heartbroken Giles, who then fell under Elise's control. Lacey thought if Giles truly cared for her, he would have pursued her.

Lacey learned she was pregnant. Convinced by Aunt Amalie (Elise's mother), she agreed to let Elise claim Richard as her own and raise him with Giles, thinking it was best for him. Giles never found out the truth. Ten years later, Lacey regrets her decision, especially as she sees Richard becoming disobedient and deceitful. Elise manipulates his love to get back at his father.

Elise is a heartless villain with no redeeming qualities. One of the things that kept me reading was knowing she would somehow die, freeing Giles (typical in gothic romances). She refuses to divorce Giles despite her affairs, including a man staying as a guest. She’s selfish, obsessed with her status and the island, and will do anything to preserve her home and position.

Lacey stays on the island to help her son, but her old feelings for Giles—and his for her—resurface. With Richard still under his mother's control and no support, she leaves to go home. Giles visits her there when he's in town on business, and someone sees them together. Rumors of them having an affair spread. Lacey returns to the island to put the rumors to rest just as preparations for the Camelot Ball begin.

Strange warnings and accidents threaten her life, and while Elise seems responsible, someone else is actually behind it. On the night of the ball, Elise plans to cause trouble for Lacey and Giles. She overhears Lacey arranging to meet Giles on the beach and races ahead. A loose stone on the path causes Elise to fall to her death. The perpetrator then loses their sanity and makes a final attempt to kill Lacey. When it fails, they end their life by jumping into the river.

Giles is quick to forgive Lacey for not telling him about Richard. Richard now has a chance to grow up as a normal boy with two loving parents—no longer influenced by Elise or his late grandmother Amalie, who he admitted sometimes scared him. Turns out, she hated Lacey over something that happened long ago with Lacey's mother and a man they both loved.

[Arismeire Fiedoruk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hampton Island, envolto em névoa, assombrado pelo passado, tinha lançado um feitiço sobre Lacey Ames do qual ela não poderia escapar nem esquecer. Lá ela havia se apaixonado por Giles Severn, o belo e orgulhoso herdeiro da ilha e lá ela o tinha perdido para a astuciosa prima Elise.
A mãe de Lacey nascera em Hampton Island e, junto com a irmã, havia sido privada do que seria sua herança de direito quando a propriedade principal e a ilha passaram as mãos de outra família. Era certo de que uma das irmãs se casaria com o novo dono de Oaks ( mais precisamente a tia da protagonista), mas algo dera errado e a mãe de Lacey fugira da ilha com o noivo, levando consigo a famosa joia da família, uma pedra famosa por suas histórias trágicas. Até a morte a mãe de Lacey negara ter levado a pedra consigo e este é um dos mistérios da trama: o destino da joia.
Culpada do pecado que cometera (ter um filho de Giles e entregá-lo para a prima como se fosse filho desta), Lacey decide corrigir os erros do passado e zelar pela criança.
Quando Lacey volta para Hampton Island, após anos ausente, ela novamente é tomada pelo amor por Giles e se vê ameaçada pelos conflitos esmagadores que se seguem.
Seu filho, Richard, é uma criança problemática, completamente temerosa e obcecada pela pretensa mãe, mulher que gosta de se divertir usando as pessoas e maltratando-as, destilando seu veneno especialmente sobre o "filho" e o marido, a quem odeia e por quem é odiada.
É intrigante o fato de que foi a própria Elise que escreveu uma carta a Lacey, avisando que Richard estava com problemas e de que nem tudo eram rosas em Oaks, sugerindo a volta da prima, para ser hospede na casa e talvez resolver a situação com a criança.
Obviamente as coisas ficam muito tensas e Elise torna a vida de todo mundo um inferno. Para complicar mais ainda Richard reage de forma negativa a presença de Lacey, mesmo sem saber que ela é sua verdadeira mãe, Giles ainda tem sentimentos por ela e... bom, os sentimentos explodem e os personagens ficam pisando em ovos. Juntemos a isto tudo alguns atentados contra a vida de Lacey e temos um livro interessante.
Em Oaks, a grande mansão governada pelos Severns durante gerações e em Bitterns, a casa da fazenda ainda mais antigo que Oaks, Lacey deve desafiar seus velhos sonhos e temores e modificar seu presente, mas apenas uma tragédia vindoura poderá acabar com os segredos, medo e ódio que habita a ilha.
O único problema é que Lacey não é uma personagem com quem eu tenha simpatizado. Simplesmente não havia fundamento no comportamento dela, abandonando Giles e dando o filho para a prima assumir a maternidade, enganando toda a família. Depois, quando ela volta, e fica quieta, engolindo os sapos lançados pela prima (alias, todos engolem os desaforos de Elise sem nenhum tipo de reação...eu teria acertado a bruxa com um soco bem no meio das fuças) fiquei mais desgostosa ainda com ela. Não chega a estragar a história. É uma trama que prende a atenção, apesar de ter seus momentos irritantes, e até surpreende no final.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

To inaugurate the 70s, Phyllis A. Whitney wrote "Lost Island," a contemporary gothic with a more explicitly mature theme at its heart: illegitimacy and its repercussions. Lacey Ames has grown up visiting her aunt and cousins on Hampton Island off the Georgia coast, a magical place that has become a refuge for her after the death of her mother. The four children of the island—Lacey, her first cousins Floria and Elise, and Giles, son of the family's closest friend—form a tight bond marked by shifting relationships. But when Lacey is seventeen, everything changes, resulting in her self-imposed exile from Hampton Island. Ten years later, her extended family draws her back in, where long-buried secrets will be revealed and old animosities flare into life. It's not a great secret to see where events lead on the night of the Arthurian Ball, but Whitney does manage a few surprises in the revelation of the mystery. What sets "Lost Island" apart from Whitney's contemporaries, is her interest in shaded, complex characters, including her own heroine. No one is all good or bad in Whitney's world, which is really the difference among her works and those of Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart, with whom she was frequently compared at the time—and while those complicated nuances of motivations and personalities were more thoroughly explored in her earlier historical novels written in the 1950s, they are still present as the author settled into a comfortable span as a reliable bestselling novelist.

[Crystal Karre · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deep page turning read

[Ryann K. Martino · Rating 4 out of 5]

OMGOODNESS you have to read this! It's the perfect summer read and it instantly makes you feel like you're on Hampton Island. Also so much drama!

[Laraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars. This is an older book that was on my bookcase and I finally got around to reading it and I quite enjoyed the story. Hampton Island, Georgia is a magical place where Lacey Ames grew up. She fell in love with her neighbour Giles but he ended up marrying her conniving cousin Elise. Just 17, Lacey discovered she was pregnant with Giles' child and she entered into a bargain with Elise and her mother to Have the child under Elise's name and give him up. Years later, Lacey returns to the island and she realizes that she still loves Giles and she finds her heart going out to his son, Richard, her son. But Elise is still conniving and vindictive and soon Lacey realizes someone wants to harm her, but is it Elise or someone else.? And when Elise threatens to tell Richard about his true parentage, to hurt him, Lacey wonders how she can stop her. This was a pleasant and interesting read.

[Julia Buckley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always loved Phyllis A. Whitney, and when I picked up this book for nostalgic reasons, I was immediately immersed in the Gothic setting and the haunting narrative tone. Whitney's plot is more romance and suspense than mystery, but she has a gift for drawing in the reader and making them read on. Her setting of an island off the Hamptons is ethereal and appropriately mysterious, and the novel contains many staples of a Gothic romance: unhappy love affair, hidden pregnancy (not a spoiler--it's revealed in the first chapter), regretful heroine revisiting a place of past mistakes.

The only drawback is that I knew the solution to the mystery almost from the start, but it didn't stop me from reading the book in one sitting.

[Serena S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Other than the setting, Lost Island was fairly lackluster. The motto of this story should be, if one love triangle is good, then 5 ought to be exceptional. As verified by this book, more is not always better. All of the characters acted like children and none of them had good morals making it hard to cheer for anyone. Would have been a lot better if the first chapter (or two) of the book portrayed the main characters as children, then flash forwarded to their adult life instead of having the main character constantly reminiscing about the past in every scene. If you want to read a Phyllis Whitney book, try Sea Jade.

[Cynthia Egbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fun to remove myself from the world and all of my responsibilities for a while and be on a remote island off the Georgia coast filled with people who were either insipid, sinister, or downright evil. Not my favorite Whitney, I pretty much wanted to punch every character and would not have been sad if the whole island had been sunk as a way to end the story. But it had a decent twist and it was as atmospheric as one expects in a Phyllis A. Whitney novel so I enjoyed the escape.

[Debi Emerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first discovered Phyllis Whitney as a teen more than 50 years ago. She was still writing then, so I read many of her books as they were published. Re-reading them 50 years later is a treat! Along with Mary Stewart, and Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters, Phyllis Whitney has been & will always be one of my favorite authors!

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading chronologically through Whitney's books and can say that this is the first that really drew me in in the way I remembered from my high school days. I felt that the ending was a little hard to believe and a bit of a rushed conclusion, but I liked that it finished slightly open-ended and I thought the characters and growing sense of malice were well done.

[Libraryassistant · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have enjoyed Whitney books since my early teens. This was a bit more melodramatic, even for the gothic romance genre. Southern Gothic maybe?
But one thing you can never fault her for: you always get a very compelling and full sense of place. She always did her research and loved making you feel what she felt about a setting which had compelled her to set a story there.

[Carie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, but most things by this author I have loved. I read her books as a teenager and recently found them at a used bookstore and bought them all. This was the first I read and was not disappointed.

[Delia Aguilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still a great read

I love to read and when l was in my early 20's l fell in love with Victoria Holt and all gothic novels. I read this book long ago and decided to read these marvelous stories again.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoyed Daphne D'Maurer's Rebecca, you will enjoy this book by a Georgia author. The setting is an imaginary island off the GA coast, occupied by generations of two families. I don't often read suspense, but this one had me fully engaged and I never guessed the villain, which is rare for me.

[Sydney Flowers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprising end, lovely thoughts.

[Judith A. Benner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic Phyllis A. Whitney book. Always a good read.

[Mlg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pulled this old chestnut off the shelf and found it to be a surprisingly good story with a good twist at the end.