شب هفتمین بدر

by Victoria Holt, طاهره صدیقیان (translator)

در افسانه های جنگل کهن آمده است که در شب هفتمین بدر،لوک،رب النوع شرارت،روی زمین می آید.آن شب زمان جشن و شادی است.شبی برای آوازه خوانی و پایکوبی و شبی برای عشق.
هلنا ترانت مسحور جنگل سیاه شده بود-مردمش،قصرهای اسرار آمیز،افسانه های عشق
به ویژه افسانه های عشقِ آن.
تا اینکه یک روز خودش قدم به میان یکی از آن ها گذاشت و ناگهان افسون به کابوسی هولناک تبدیل شد.

Genres: Romance, Gothic, Mystery, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, Gothic Romance

414 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1972

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Eleanor Alice Burford, Mrs. George Percival Hibbert was a British author of about 200 historical novels, most of them under the pen name Jean Plaidy which had sold 14 million copies by the time of her death. She chose to use various names because of the differences in subject matter between her books; the best-known, apart from Plaidy, are Victoria Holt (56 million) and Philippa Carr (3 million). Lesser known were the novels Hibbert published under her maiden name Eleanor Burford, or the pseudonyms of Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow and Ellalice Tate. Many of her readers under one penname never suspected her other identities.
-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Marianne MC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read nearly all of Victoria Holt's books, but this was by far my favorite. I still remember the excitement of the mystery and love story. I just recently ordered my own copy to read it again. Her books have clean romance they are a simplified version of the types of stories Jane Austin writes. They often have a lower class girl/governess who falls in love with someone out of her league. There is often a mystery of murder or kidnapping to go along with it. They are set in castles or on the moor's with fancy dresses and parties. They are just fun easy books to entertain yourself.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aww yeah, 1970s Victoria Holt. This was the sort of thing I read with abandon in my impressionable late middle/early high school years, and is probably to blame for my deep lingering affection for anything gothic-tinged. This book has some issues--repetition of certain phrases and themes, and characters who are too stupid to live, mainly--but if you cut it some slack, it's thoroughly enjoyable.

[Obsidian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for "Gothic square". "On the Night of the Seventh Moon" by Victoria Holt.

So I just realized after finishing this book that I really can't write a very in-depth review, because if I do I'll be spoiling the entire book. So I'm going to try to keep this to just general things and then you can make a decision if you want to read this for Halloween book bingo.

On the night of the seventh moon is told from the first person point of view of a young girl named Helena. Helena is raised in a loving household, the only fly in the ointment so to speak is the fact that her parents are both desperately in love with each other and that doesn't leave a lot of love left over for her when they are in the same room together.

Helena's mother is from a Germanic country. The book doesn't really come out and say where she's from exactly and I couldn't guess and I was honestly not really in the mood to go do some digging about this. Helena's father is English and though many around them don't think the marriage is going to work, it does.

The only thing that Helena's mother really wanted was for her daughter to be sent away to learn Germany and French and other things and Helena is eventually sent to a boarding school that's near a town that her mother knows. So we find out pretty early on that Helena is sent away from home for four years and is being raised and taught by nuns.

Everything kind of goes sideways for Helena when she gets lost in a forest when mist suddenly forms. Helena meets some mysterious man and she calls him Siegfried. He takes her back to his lodge (as one does) and then goes about trying to seduce her. Long story short, everyone around can tell that Siegfried is up to no good, but Helena feels so excited by things. Blech. This little adventure ends up with her almost being raped (she bolts the door and is later awoken by the doorknob turning) but in the light of day is disappointed.

Smack upside the head for Helena.

Cue Helena having to go home after her mother passes away and then her father does as well. Being forced to go home to her dreary little village and not be able to see her Siegfried again it's just making her sad. I on the other hand think that if she had any sense she would realize that Siegfried was not a cool dude and she should just move on but then we wouldn't have a story here if that's what the author chose to do what do we?

Fast forward to some relatives of Helena's mother showing up and when she's given the opportunity to return with them to be at a nearby Village that is close to her old school she jumps on it because of course all she's thinking of is seeing her Siegfried again.

And see him again she does. I'm not going to talk much after that because that's where the mystery lies and the entire rest of the book is Helena unraveling who's being truthful and who is lying to her. I do have to say that even when she does find out what's been going on I think that she took things way too laid-back for for what I would have probably have done. And I honestly wish that Holt had just decided to end the book in a different way because I never did warm up to Siegfried.

I have to say that I thought that the writing that Holt did in this one was very good. I love the descriptions of the town's and other locations that appear in this story. Holt really made me feel like I was Helena in a couple scenes as she becomes more and more thrilled with her surroundings. Everything sounds positively Gothic at times which was nice to read on an overcast day.

The ending just turned into a mess though. Once again won't spoil for others, but it just didn't make a lot of sense at all. Then Holt does an epilogue that shows what happened to everyone and I ended up just feeling dissatisfied.

[Misfit · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Sometimes, looking back, I ask myself: Why did you accept this and that? Why did you not inquire more closely into these strange things that happened to you?"

I was wondering that myself.

Long story short. Helena Trant is attending school in Bavaria and the local villagers have this old festival every year on the night of the seventh moon. Lots of drinking and partying and creepy mists in the forest, and our poor heroine gets herself lost and then found by an ever-so-handsome-mystery man. IIRC, she's sent home to England and then comes back and that's when she meets her mystery man again and they are married in secret. Or are they married? Just who is this mystery man and why does he disappear from her life after three days of wedded bliss? Or were they married?

Don't you worry guys, you can guess every bit of plot point coming a mile away. I kept hoping Ms. Holt would pull the rug out from under me and surprise me at the end, but no...

Kindle copy obtained via library loan.

[CB · Rating 2 out of 5]

REVIEW

Rating: 2/5
POV: 1st; Single
Tropes: Gothic Romance; Historical Romance (1860s); Class Difference; Strangers to Lovers; Surprise Pregnancy; Suspenseful
Heat Level: 0/5
Kinks: N/A

Likes:
* There were a few good not what it seems moments
* The FMC had some really good character growth

Dislikes:
* Um the fact that there was basically no romance to exist in this book!!

Conclusion:
So not a great start to Gothtober for me :(. I had such high hopes for this too. What completely made it not what I wanted/liked was the fact that the romance part of the story was all of like 10 pages in a 300 page book. Very disappointing. Of course with it being a gothic there were lots of good "not all what it seems to be" moments but that's not the only reason why I picked up the book. I wanted romance dammit! Also the ending was very anticlimactic. I'll be honest I'm disappointed enough in this book I'm unsure if I'd read more by this author.

2/5

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up an old copy of this book for $0.25 the other day when I dropped off some items at my local donation centre. The pages were yellowed and the writing small but the topic intrigued me. It's been many years since I last read Victoria Holt, an author known as "the supreme writer of the 'gothic' romance".

Mystery, suspense, mystical forests, dark foreboding castles, trickery and folklore legends together with interesting characters made this book a very good read.

The story is told from Helena Trant, the heroine's point of view as she recaps her past, a past shrouded in mystery as she tries to uncover exactly what happened to her on the night of the seventh moon — when a festival celebration of mischief took place. She is rescued by a handsome stranger with whom she strongly believes to have fallen in love and subsequently married, only to wake up to a psychological nightmare of being told it had been all a dream and none of it had happened.

The mystery deepens as we speed through the pages to uncover what really happened. Some of it is predictable, but the plot is well laid out and we are continuously kept guessing regarding the different characters as to whether they are truly Helena's friend or her enemy. Although the heroine's character is well developed, I found the hero's was not. I should have liked their relationship to have been explored a little more.

However, if you are looking for a good gothic romance this book delivers.

[Manybooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

While Victoria Holt's formulaic historical romance stories certainly were fun enough and even rather delightful when I was reading them as a teenager, even then, even at that time, I did already notice that with regard to settings and thematics, Holt does seem to do a much better job and to present a more believable, less stereotypical and generally also sufficiently realistic sense of time and place when she locates her tales in the United Kingdom and not abroad.

For yes indeed, when I read Victoria Holt's 1972 novel On the Night of the Seventh Moon in 1984, while many of her descriptions of the German forest did kind of feel authentic and descriptively believable (even though they at times also rather reminded me of travel and tourist brochures touting the natural splendours of the Black Forest, of the Schwarzwald), the entire plot of On the Night of the Seventh Moon did (to teenaged me) not only feel full, full, full to the absolute brim with Holt's to be expected historical romance formulas, reading On the Night of the Seventh Moon also felt very strongly (and most annoyingly I might add) like I was reading a typical "German" fairy tale and one where ALL of the heroes and ALL of the villains were so woefully predictable and stereotypical that my perusal very quickly became rather a tedious and often a bit frustrating reading slog (and yes, where in particular the vast majority of the German characters were depicted by Victoria Holt as rather caricature like at best and certainly with much less nuance and depth than her English characters, such as for example her main protagonist Helena Trant).

And while at the age of seventeen, I was actually still only partially and thus not absolutely annoyed and frustrated with and by this (even if it did make me as a person of German background more than a trifle uncomfortable), the entire English schoolgirl meets Southern German prince in the forest and ends up marrying him scenario (only to have the couple separated by politics and evil machinations) has been upon rereading On the Night of the Seventh Moon not only (and as to be expected) too fairy and folktale like for my reading tastes, but yes, I personally also do think that Victoria Holt is presenting some rather problematic anti-German and especially anti-German politics attitudes in On the Night of the Seventh Moon (since the German individuals who are bent on keeping Helena and her princely lover/husband apart are ALL in my humble opinion depicted and presented by the author, by Victoria Holt as being pretty much total über-villain typecasts with major doses of rabid nationalism, as "persons" who are stereotypical politics and dynastics above everything nasties).

[Addy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not usually a book I would pick up but I remember a friend of mine giving it to me to read but I had never finished it. I had fond memories of it, so when I found it at the goodwill, practically in pieces too, I gave it a shot and couldn't be more glad that I did! Though this book is quite old, it delivers a slamming story. I would say this is romance with lots of mystery as I couldn't figure out what was going on until it was practically laid out for me at the end. I so enjoyed this book and plan to read more of her this year. Pb's are easily found, so that's good. 5 moons for me!

[WhiskeyintheJar · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.3 stars

And I had learned the truth of what happened on the Night of the Seventh Moon; I had taken back those six days of my life; they belonged to me and I had been wantonly deceived.

This story was full of gaslighting, obliviousness, and trickery. Helena starts off as a young girl going to school in Germany, she gets lost wandering in the woods and gets "rescued" by a man. This begins her journey of never forgetting him, going back home to England, time jumps, going back to Germany, reunions, lies, gaslighting, more time jumps, more back and forth between England and Germany, a wild card old nursemaid, danger, and truths revealed.

I don't want to ruin the surprises and mystery, so I'm not going to go into detail of the story but there are some spoilers in my previous updates as I tried to figure things out as I read:
30% update
70% update

This was good but the ending kind of jumbled together in a hurry and, dare I say, had too happy of a one?? Some Gothic vibes at times and people wilding out with their scheming.

[Jaimey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book probably fifteen years ago. It has been my favorite Victoria Holt book ever since--and yes, I have read all 32 books she penned under that name. To tell anything about this would be to give too much away so I'll just say this: The romance was breathtaking; the action was, in a way, believable; and the intrigue was shocking. For those of you who need a basic description, here's what the back of the book says:

On the Night of the Seventh Moon, according to ancient Black Forest legend, Loke, the God of Mischief, was abroad in the world. It was a night for festivity and joyful celebration. It was a night for singing and dancing. And it was a night for love.

Helena Trant was enchanted by everything she found in the Black Forest--its people, its mysterious castles, its legends and lore. Especially its legends of love.

Until, one day, she started to live one of them and the enchantment turned suddenly into a terrifying nightmare....

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book randomly in our school library in the 7th grade. It was my first gothic novel and I LOVED IT! I read several more Victoria Holt books after that, but this one remained my favorite. The basic premise is: a poor governess--handsome but not beautiful--moves into a castle and gets the pants scared off her (that's Kurt Vonnegut's definition of your basic gothic novel). Then there's the mysterious, handsome man who might be a brute but really turns out to be a rich guy who saves her. Many years later I read Jane Eyre and realized all these books were drawn from that template and I felt like a big dummy for not knowing that before!

P.S. I might have a couple of details wrong on the plot of this one, but I do remember I loved it.

[Sheila Majczan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like other reviewers here, I read this book many year ago...over and over again. I remembered it recently and hunted for it in the Used Paperback Bookstore I use. But, alas, there were NO Victoria Holt books to be found. So I purchased a kindle copy.

This is a book that will appeal to any lover of historic romantic mysteries. It has no sex scenes so can be shared with a daughter, granddaughter or teenage acquaintance.

The book description and the sample available to be read for free on Amazon or sent to your kindle tell you the premise of the story. This is a true fairy tale romance with lots of angst. Helena's naivete allows the reader to make fairly good guesses as to how this young lady's world is going to be set on its ear one day. But it is so romantic. A school girl being educated in a Duchy away from her English roots is rescued by a "handsome stranger on a white horse" after being lost in the fog! Does it get any better than that? Separations, trips back to England, unknown "relatives" or travelers needing help/showing up and offering to take our Helena back to the Duchy for a vacation, and then the Night of the Seventh Moon celebration leads her on one heck of a trip...but is it into fantasy land or...did it really happen? Was this all a dream, a matter of her romantic notions? But why would Ilse lie to her? Heart break and then redemption. Sigh!

Victoria Holt tells a great story. But this one has always been my favorite. I highly recommend it to those with a taste for a good romance/mystery.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I probably read this book back in the seventies. That is, the first time. I loved this book so much I bought my own copy and have read it several times. It is a timeless, beautiful romance, with suspense added for an extra emjoyment. Clean and wonderful I highly recommend it.

[Ana Lopes Miura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of Holt’s best efforts. Cheesy, extremely repetitive and painfully predictable.

[Regan Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love and Mystery in the Black Forest!

Set in Germany and England from 1859 to 1870 (with an end note in 1901), this tells the story of Helena Trant whose parents were so much in love they had little time for her. Still, hers was a happy childhood among books in Oxford where her father had a bookstore. When she was old enough, her parents sent her to Germany near the Black Forest to a convent school where her mother had been educated.

Helena loves the forest and the fairy tales surrounding it. She hears of the legend of the night of the seventh moon “when mischief is abroad and is routed with the coming of dawn.” On one night, she gets lost in the mist of the forest and is rescued by a man who takes her to his hunting lodge. She taken with him that she might have allowed him to have his way with her but for the intervention of a housekeeper who took measures to preserve Helena’s virtue. But Helena never forgot the man even though she did not know his name.

Years later, she returns to Germany and on another night of the seventh moon Helena meets and marries her German at his hunting lodge, but then she wakes from her idyllic honeymoon to discover she has been drugged by a physician who tells her she has escaped a horror that befell her in the forest. Helena lives in a fog of dreams and wonders where truth is.

I have to say that I love Holt’s writing, and this story sucked me in immediately. It is labeled as a romantic suspense, but I didn’t see it containing any more suspense than many historical romances. But it does have a Gothic feel and there is a mystery. Holt had me wondering what had really happened. She did an excellent job of that. The book is a bit slow in the middle, and the hero and heroine are separated for years. In that interim, I found passages that seemed repetitive, but the ending is a great one. As always, Holt is a master storyteller and creates wonderfully vivid characters. Despite the slower middle, I recommend it.

[Zahra Dashti · Rating 4 out of 5]

قشنگ بود ، ولی متاسفانه بیش از حد مورد انتظارم هپی اند بود. آخرش هم خیلی سر هم بندی و سریع تموم شده بود. اون همه مقدمات خوب ولی پایان شتابزده وکمی شانسی و خوش خوشکی...

[Jacqueline J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a reread for me for bookclub. I originally read this as a teenager back in the 1970s. It was just as readable this second time through. I didn't remember much of the plot even though I remembered vaguely that the book ended happily. I did feel the angst at the horrible things that were happening to Helena. I probably figured out what was going on earlier this time since I've read so many books since I first read this but it was all new the first time through and as a teenager I wasn't quite so savvy. Still the writing was such that you kept wanting to read to find out for sure what was going on and to get Helena through the bad stuff.

It is of course a gothic novel so even though there is a romance the main thrust of the story is the surreal things that are happening to the poor heroine. A fun read altogether.

[~☆~Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the silly heroine but not the irresponsible Prince. He was too careless about everything and should have searched for her after he was told she had died in the explosion.

[Wei Cho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gothic romance for the win XD!
Dunno, when I read this book, way back when (six years to be precise anyway) I was thrilled by the time period most of Victoria Holt's books took place in. Beautiful dresses and parties, eerie castle settings, English landscapes, etc, etc, etc.

I don't remember this book a whole lot. I just remember a story, a legend, a mystery, a love, and poor character development (especially on the hero, Maximillian, side). I also remember I was terrified for Helena's fate because she was asked to spend the night in a castle with a complete and total stranger she found in the forest. The charming stranger took her to the castle after she was lured into the forest and twisted her ankle (or something) and was invited to his humble residence (a castle in the middle of a forest).

Anyway, there was a scene in which she locks the door of her room because the servant of the man advised her to do so. And in the middle of the night she could hear the door knob turning as if somebody wanted to come in. Spooky and scary man! This passage is the one I remember most of the book because Holt described every little detail of fear and apprehension of it. I was as nervous and scared as Helena. And most of the time I thought her foolish for the irrational decisions she made when first encounter by this stranger.

But anyway. I felt Helena had some character development through the book, but I cannot say the same thing for Maximillian. He was just so plain and systematic.

Overall, this is a pretty easy and enjoyable read. If you like gothic, kind of Victorian-ish romance, you should definitely check this book out.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bottom line: this is a fun hairdryer book. Don't expect too much of it, and you'll be pleased.

On the Night of the Seventh Moon tells the tale of Helena Trant, the daughter of an English man and a German woman, who grows up in Oxford in the late 1800s, listening to her mother’s tales of the dark German forest where she was educated. When Helena is fourteen, she, too, is sent to be educated at the same seminary on the edge of the forest.

At the age of eighteen, Helena has lost her mother and is approaching the end of her time in the Lokenwald (Loki’s Forest). On a picnic with a nun and several fellow students, she gets separated from her classmates when a thick fog arises. She is rescued by a tall, handsome man on a beautiful horse, who, amused by her pluck and feistiness, takes her back to his hunting lodge and gives her supper. The intervention of a kindly housekeeper saves her virtue, for (OMG ENORMOUS SPOILER ALERT!!!) the man is a bit of a rake.

The next day, Helena returns to the seminary, and shortly after that, the death of her father calls her back home to Oxford. But she never forgets her rescuer, though she knows what his intent was.

A few years later, a cousin of her mother’s finds her in Oxford and offers to take her back to live in the Lokenwald again. Helena accepts, though she knows there is only a slight chance of meeting her rescuer again...

Yeah, ok, so you know they’re going to reunite and get married. But you don’t know HOW, do you? Read the book and find out. It’s a fun read.

[Jess The Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second book by this author and I enjoyed it just as much as the first one I read.

In the Victorian era, Helena Trant leaves Oxford to go and study at a nunnery in the Black Forest in Germany. On the Night of the Seventh Moon, the night where Loke, god of mischief is about, she gets lost in the misty forest. A mysterious man appears in the mist and takes her away with him, setting off a twisted and scandalous chain of events.

On the Night of the Seventh Moon, how does one know what can be believed and trusted?

I can't say much in this review without spoilers, but this book was full of twists, and intrigue. I really enjoyed the way that the Black Forest was portrayed, having been there in the mist myself 2 years ago. Recommended for lovers of gothic romances.

[Katie (hiding in the pages) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this book and enjoyed every minute. I love the German folklore and the twists and turns of this story. I love the true love connection, as well as the meddling old governess. Such a fun story!

(01/2010)I haven't read this book for years and I honestly couldn't remember what happened--just that I had loved it. I think this is probably my favorite of Victoria Holt's novels.

Helena has an English father and a German mother and goes to school in Germany. A celebration takes place on the night of the seventh moon of the year and a strange thing happens to her. Full of romance, mystery, and entertainment.

[Sajjad · Rating 5 out of 5]

از آخرین باری كه کتابی شبیه این رو خوندم و این‌جوری خوشم اومد، انگار سال‌ها می‌گذره. برای همین، داستان واقعاً برام یه چیز قشنگ، تازه و قدیمی و یه جورایی مسکن بود. حالا کاری به اصلش ندارم كه نقد كنم و فلان. امّا یه احساس خوبی و خاصی نسبت بهش دارم. در کُل، فقط می‌تونم بگم عالی بود.
+ شباهت كمی به دریای زمین داشت، البّته توی نثر و توصیف ها.
+ چیز دیگه‌ای به ذهنم نمی‌رسه!

[downtown · Rating 3 out of 5]

So taking fulling into consideration that this book was first published in the 70's, I did enjoy it.

The mystery/suspense of this was well done. I felt in my bones something was waiting to happen and that drove me to the end. I needed to know what would happen despite that this story was very much told to the reader. So while at times I was almost skimming passages by the end (there was some unnecessary repetition) the telling gave the story a more fairytale-like feel, especially in the beginning. I enjoyed all of the Norse Mythology and the set up of the Seventh Moon revelry. And as the story progressed we really do see Helena age from a silly school girl into a woman who stands her ground.

My biggest complaint is this: I have seen this book described as spooky. The blurb itself tells you something dark will happen (it does). This was not traditionally "spooky". This had a major ick factor that grew and became creepy. Now maybe I'm too new to vintage gothic romances because I suspect the "boys will be boys" mentality is strong in most of them. The more I knew the more I wanted Helena to gtfo but maybe more people can rest in the vagueness that her man wasn't like other men...to her. I think. Sort of? Anyway, I enjoyed the story not the romance.

If you would like to know more about the creep factor that made me not like this romance, it is a major spoiler:
What is first hinted at becomes kind of a major plot point. These rich men lured innocent unsuspecting women into the forest and had their way with them. If the women demanded to maintain their virtue then they would fake marry them, sleep with them, then ghost them. BUT ITS OK because they take care of their bastards...especially if they really happened to like that one mistress. Helena's man never did this to her, mind....but whether he ever did it at all is really quite vague. And this is the creepy icky plot point that really made me want her to run screaming.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

My (admittedly limited) experiences with Victoria Holt have been very uneven. The first book (The Silk Vendetta) did not impress me, but Mistress of Mellyn and Bride of Pendorric were both enjoyable. On the Night of the Seventh Moon falls somewhere between the dull Silk Vendetta and the more interesting "Cornish Gothics"-- nothing anywhere near approximating "brilliant", but also not quite as plodding as Silk Vendetta.

Though I suppose I'll award it three out of five stars, the third is rather grudgingly given, as I found myself disliking most of the characters and (more often than not) wishing the book would just hurry up and come to its conclusion. It felt long, which means it was boring me instead of whisking me away from reality, as a good book should do.

Unfortunately, the romance is very thin, and the "hero" is a handsome, lust-filled cardboard cut-out-- not very interesting. The heroine, Helena, isn't much better. You get to know her more as a character than you do Maximilian, I suppose, but-- but-- she's just so darn stupid! There are so many times that Helena should pick up on things, but she just won't/can't... Toward the end of the story, the Count says to her, "You are not your usual clever self today." Well, that was a delicious bit of unintentional comedy!

I'll probably continue to read Holt, as the mood strikes me, but I'm wary. The quality varies wildly from one book to the next. This one, for me, was closer to the "dud" end of the scale.


Specifics (with SPOILERS):
--Different times and all that, but it's just so gross when the male characters in a so-called romance are trashy philanderers who have fathered children with multiple women. When Frau Graben fills Helena in on all the dirty details of the Count's history with women, it's clear that Maximilian has a similarly icky past. ("My dear Miss Trant, he[the Count]'s only following the tradition. They've always been for the women. They see them, they fancy them and there's no holding them back. If there are results they don't mind and nor do the women.") Maximilian apparently hasn't been quite so cruel or duplicitous in his dealings with women, but it's still not appealing in a hero.

--After all the drama about how Maximilian couldn't just publicly declare his marriage to Helena because it could ignite a war between the principalities (or whatever the heck they were-- forgive my lack of knowledge or interest in German history)-- after all that, the extremely delicate situation is handled neatly and tidily in a single paragraph. "The Prince of Klarenbock, to whom Maximilian had told the whole story during his visit there, behaved magnanimously." ...Well, how convenient. The supposedly serious threat of the people revolting against Maximilian goes "poof", too. Everything is hunky-dory, because there was a war with France-- and war heals all wounds (or something).

--Even richer, Maximilian's fancy fake wife gets tossed into a convent to atone for her sins, while her son with Maximilian is raised in the big, happy family Maximilian and Helena create. Ah yes, I'm sure that was never the least little bit awkward, and I'm positive that the son who had been raised for (eight?) years to believe he was "royalty" was now perfectly fine with his new position as an illegitimate son whose father never really loved his mother-- while said mother is apparently whisked out of his life without so much as a backward glance. Good times.

Okay, I'll grant you that much of the tension would be washed away by the fact that Maximilian's position is no longer nearly so powerful, by the end of the book. There's not so much of a grand inheritance or position of power to bicker (or hatch murderous plots) over-- otherwise, I would've predicted trouble from Dagobert, who also becomes a part of Helena's Perfect Family (along with Liesel).

...But still, even in the humblest of homes, wouldn't there be a certain amount of bitterness in such a truly weird "blended family"? "Mom always liked you best" on steroids!

[Julia Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as a teen forty years ago, and re-read it out of nostalgia. It still holds up as a great read. Holt's dialogue-driven narration is clearly influenced by the Gothic greats like Charlotte Bronte and Daphne du Maurier, and her twisty romantic plot remains compelling to me after all this time.

[Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had never read a Victoria Holt book, and since there are so many, I chose the one that seemed to receive the best reviews. It was a quick summer read, but certainly not the page turner others described. I found several editing errors too which also served to distract. The characters were weak and ill defined. Those who were key were subject to the same foreshadowing inferences several times over. Her chosen settings were ripe for rich description, but again, Holt failed to hit the mark, only adequately describing both the prim British home and bookshop and the lush enchanted German forest. The plot was the best component, but so much more could have been made of it. I would give this novel a C, but I don't think I'll choose to read another book by this author.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ended up liking this a surprising amount. Not even really as a romance--the hero is gone from it so long, and isn't all that vivid. More as a development of the heroine, who suffers a lot, insists on believing her truth, and finally ends up happy. And the setting is beautiful. It all felt way more meaty than The Time of the Hunter's Moon, which I read a few weeks ago, as if Holt had started phoning it in by the time she wrote the latter.

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read these as a teenager and own a lot of them. They are mostly gothic mystery romances. The mystery still catches me up, but the romance is a little dramatic. That is the difference between being a young girl and a 30-something mom! Nothing explicit, but definitely some dramatic love at first sight romance. It's kind of funny to re-read things you read as a teen.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book of all time. I first read this book in high school for a class and have read it several times since. It is an old fashioned gothic romance that has a wonderful ending. I love Victoria Holt as an author and believe this book is by far her best. It includes some romance, some mystery, some sadness, some happiness . . .