Angel among witches

by Adela Gale

The Devil Reigned at Froelichsburg!Centuries ago, the halls of Froelichsburg Castle had echoed with shriks of torture and moans of bizarre occult rites. Now, hundreds of years later, the ghosts of that hideous past returned to stalk their victims down dark corridors and in subterranean dungeons.When Nurse Joyce Miller came to the snowbound Austrian castle to care for its famous writer-owner, she looked forward to a pleasant stay in a fairytale setting. But all too soon, she discovered the demon-like side of Froelichsburg - a place of brooding evil, where strange dead screts rose to haunt the living, where love turned to fear...and black magic to brutal, bloody murder!

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Gothic

167 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Zynab · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fair gothic--2 stars might be a bit harsh, but it takes forever to get the action going and the denouement was predictable and carried out so poorly. There were some cool oddities that made feel I was reading a winner at first, like the narrator's near-lesbian attraction to the woman who is at the center of the story (a paralyzed gothic authoress) and the way the 2 main male characters who are not the hero are written--I don't think Miss Gale liked men very much; she spends a lot a time going over the grotesque natures of these 2 louts (one is an impotent deadbeat husband, the other a foppish, snarling male secretary) but we get next to no personal detail of the hero (who is introduced halfway through the book), just the narrator finding her heart beat mysteriously when she's around him... Something that annoyed me was the narrator saying "If only I knew __", "Little did I know __", etc; seems to be regular storytelling device in not-so-good gothics.

[Dasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.
It was suspenseful and light all at the same time.
The characters really were distinct from one another and the descriptions by the author allowed me to picture them down to the T in my mind.

I never expected what came at the end. I must have thought about various combinations- "who or what could it be?"
However, I was surprised to the point of actually screaming out loud "No way"!

I think this was a well written book and I would read others by Adela Gale.

[Breeze · Rating 2 out of 5]

After watching some 1960’s horror this past week I was in the mood for more in that vein. On paper this has all the elements you might want; an isolated castle, a gothic writer, a tortured artist Byronic man, witchcraft, but ultimately it fails to deliver. The bulk of the novel is spent giving the Byronic castle owner August Froelich the personality of Prince John from Disney's Robin Hood; particularly the scene where he sucks his thumb and calls for mummy, and things Dont improve from there. Almost no building tension in the first 2/3 culminates into a rushed one chapter love story and then everyone running through the castle at such a break neck speed the author can’t even keep track of them. Motivations were nonexistent, thrills were rare and ultimately this got a far better title and cover illustration than it deserves.

[Mermarie]