Trelawny

by Isabelle Holland

Kit wouldn't rest until she exorcised the spirits of her scornful ancestors from the mammoth house which she now possessed. Or so she thought, until the house strangely began to take possession of her. In the mysterious attics which spread like tentacles over the roof, legends of the past came to life. Somewhere there lurked what remained of her lost, unrequited love, and he was coming to claim his kin.

Genres: Gothic, Fiction, Mystery, Gothic Romance, Romance, Horror

403 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Isabelle Christian Holland (born June 16, 1920 in Basel, Switzerland — died February 9, 2002) was an author of children and adult fiction. Her father was the American Consul in Liverpool, England during WWII. She moved to America in 1940 due to the war. She wrote Gothic novels, adult mysteries, romantic thrillers, and many books for children and young adults. She wrote over 50 books in her lifetime, and was still working at the time of her death at age 81 in New York City.

Two of her novels have been made into movies:

Bump in the Night, 1991,
The Man Without a Face, 1993

Both of these novels deal with issues or allegations of pedophilia.

Reviews

[Linda (NOT RECEIVING NOTIFICATIONS) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh. My.

I have read a number of older ‘modern gothic’ stories. A few were gems but this one takes the cake. If you love this genre, Trelawny should be right up your alley. Me? I am still trying to understand everything that happened.

The Trelawny families have been over-populating the planet since the American Revolution. For the most part, they were not nice people. A few were successes -enough to keep the eerie Trelawny estate functioning- but the majority were leech-like snobs. And before I forget, male twins abounded -their names were always Nicholas and Giles- and Chretien-Chretienne aka Kit was the other name given to the children.

Kit Trelawny first met her standoffish twin cousins when she was twelve. I believe they were 29. She fell in love at once with Nicholas. Fifteen years go by and she was once more visiting the Trelawny estate in Maine.

In adulthood, she was apprised of her inheritance -surprise! it was Trelawny- and she planned to turn it into a MacDowell Colony for starving artists. What happened next was anything but that.

There were lots of bizarre twists including a subplot regarding the Vietnam War. The era was not the best of times. The writing style was good but, overall, I didn’t care for the characters.

Suspense: 4 stars
Writing Style: A very vintage 3 stars
Like-ability of Characters: 2 stars

A side note: many of Ms. Holland’s stories including Trelawny are available to read on openlibrary.org.

[Rachel Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent specimen of the modern Gothic. The final six pages alone contain at least nine hilariously head-spinning plot twists, and such intricate interwoven impersonations that I am still not one hundred percent sure who several characters actually are.

The huge, ghastly mansion Trelawny Fell has been held by the snooty Trelawny family since Nicholas Trelawny left his identical twin brother Giles behind in Cornwall and moved to Boston just in time for the American Revolution. But Giles was hanged as a highwayman and Nicholas hanged himself from a beam in one of the tentacle-like attics in Trelawny Fell. And ever since, every fifty years, a Trelawny has hung him or herself from that very beam!

Kit Trelawny was the product of a Trelawny father (missing; legally dead) and a country mother (definitely dead) from Wyoming. She was traumatized as a child when her dying mother attempted to foist her on the snooty Trelawnys, and they were both ridiculed and snubbed. Kit crushed on the handsome identical Trelawny twins, named Nicholas and Giles as is traditional for Trelawny twins-- and twins, like insanity and snootiness, run in the family. Mean Nicholas almost drowned her, and sullen Giles rescued her from a runaway horse. Kit and Mom left.

Now Kit is an adult, and has inherited Trelawny Fell, since Nicholas and Giles are both MIA in the Vietnam war and presumed dead. (Yeah, right.) She decides to turn it into an artist’s colony, and invites an assortment of counterculture artists. She gets lost and locked up inside the labyrinthine attics, hears spectral footsteps, and sees ghostly figures. There is poisoned stew, rabid rats, and exactly halfway through, the plot really gets cooking.



Nicholas is not dead, but is lurking in the attic! He has not claimed Trelawny because in Vietnam, he impersonated Giles, but Giles had murdered his own fiancée and is a wanted man, and Nicholas can’t prove that he is really Nicholas, not Giles, because people actually witnessed “Nicholas” (really Giles) die in Vietnam, whereas “Giles” (really Nicholas) is only MIA, so if the real Nicholas ever leaves the attic, everyone will think he is Giles and arrest him for murder and for making brainwashed propaganda broadcasts from Hanoi, which of course were really done by Giles. Or something like that.

Nicholas suffers from war wounds and malaria, and is prone to artistically fainting in coils, and also to painting in oils. He lurks. He produces spectral footsteps. He has opinions on Kit’s counterculture artists’ art. He gets poisoned with weedkiller-spiked stew. He was in a POW camp and tortured. He tames mice when he's not too busy fainting or lurking. Apart from his unfortunate habit of grabbing and forcibly kissing Kit to teach her lessons of an unclear nature, and of threatening to hang himself from the Beam of Doom, Nicholas is kind of awesome.

It is possibly a nod to that mother of all Gothics, Jane Eyre, and its mad wife in the attic that the romantic hero lurks in an attic for almost the entire book. It’s a big attic.

Then it turns out that Nicholas is really Giles. I forget why he impersonated Nicholas – maybe because he thought Kit preferred Nicholas. The stuff about impersonating each other in Vietnam is true, but really it was Nicholas who did the brainwashed broadcasts and murdered Giles’ fiancée. And Nicholas is really dead.

Then the handsome doctor who has been courting Kit and so clearly is the villain, hits on Kit, then pulls a gun on her. He is stopped by the surprise appearance of Nicholas, back from the dead! Only really it’s Giles impersonating Nicholas! Because Nicholas really is dead. I think.

The villainous doctor reveals that some ten-year-old girl in town is the daughter of Nicholas, and so the heir to Trelawny Fell. He first macks on the girl, then hangs her from the Beam of Doom. She survives, and a totally random other doctor ALSO macks on her. EW.

It is then revealed that Nicholas and Giles are fraternal twins, not identical, and that Nicholas, who was born first, was illegitimate because the priest rushing to marry their mom to their dad before the babies crowned was late, and married them after Nicholas was born but before Giles was. So only Giles is the heir, and Nicholas’ spawn is not in line to inherit.

But it is then revealed that Giles and Nicholas were switched at birth! I am not sure if that means that really Giles is Nicholas or what, but I THINK that this was all hushed up and the mom thought only Nicholas was legitimate but really Giles was. Anyway, the nun knew them by their birthmarks the doctor took blood samples before the switch, so Giles can prove that he’s really Giles. Or that he’s really Nicholas. Whatever. Anyway, he’s no longer a wanted man.

Oh, and one of the counterculture artists turns out to be an undercover cop, and another one was actually a psychic investigator. I was waiting for the caretaker to reveal that he was really Kit’s missing and legally-dead father, but I think Holland had forgotten about him by then, or he surely would have taken his bow.

In conclusion, girl gets house, which Giles (or Nicholas) persuades her to make into an orphanage for Indonesian (not Vietnamese, Indonesian) orphans. (I swear I’m not making this up.) She also gets Nicholas. Or Giles. I think not even Nicholas/Giles knows for sure.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twins and the mistaken identities that result from them; the push and pull of family loyalties; the scars families leave on us as adults—Isabelle Holland explores all of these in "Trelawny," a contemporary Gothic novel. Kit Trelwany has grown up with a grudge against her extended family, who live in fabled, aristocratic splendor in a sprawling mansion on the coast of Maine. When fate makes her, the least of the clan, the heiress to the estate, Kit's plan, motivated by spite, to turn the house into an artist's colony results in a reckoning with her past. Holland, known for her young adult novels, creates a memorably prickly heroine with a difficult, sympathetic backstory. The novel's only flaw is that its denouement winds up explaining a lot of its climax; otherwise, it's a fast-read spun by a pro.

[Lynn Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars Hot twins who are somewhat ambiguously dead and a possibly haunted house? Count me in.

If you're in the mood for a wonderfully bonkers gothic read, this one is quite entertaining. If you're a fan of books where the house is practically its own characters, this will be up your alley as well. Trelawney Fell is a rambling giant pile of a house in a remote corner of New England. It has belonged to the snootier-than-thou Trelawney family since the 1700s and has been added onto for generations.

The premise of this book is a surprise inheritance. Kit is the daughter of one of the black sheep of the family, and given the tragic deaths in battle of the Trelawney heirs, the estate is now going to Cousin Kit, the poor relation. Kit decides that she is going to start an artists' colony at Trelawney Fell, so she heads out there with her first 4 candidates.

In some ways, this was a really fascinating book. There are obviously mysterious doings afoot, and the artists at the colony are clearly not quite who they seem. However, what sets this book apart is that, mixed into the mysterious story, we get quite the picture of family dynamics. The Trelawneys have a pretty toxic family history and Kit has her own memories of being mocked by her wealthier relatives as a child.

And then there's the mystery of the Trelawney twins. They weren't the nicest of people, though one was clearly less awful than the other. Their mysterious fates in Vietnam, as well as the question of whether one turned traitor, looms large over the story. Since this book was originally published in 1974, that era would have been in living memory for the book's original readers and I imagine that would have provoked quite an emotional response. There is a fair amount of creepiness and mystery in this book, but one can also sense the grief and pain tied to the Vietnam war as well.

The story unfolds at a fairly leisurely pace, but I enjoyed it. My only major complaint was that the ending was extremely rushed. The author spends time weaving various threads of plot, but then everything gets thrown together at the end, with crazy revelation after crazy revelation, finishing with a very rushed romance indeed. So, I wasn't the biggest fan of the ending but I did enjoy the book overall.

[Stacey Jeffreys · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this book 5 stars...not because it is a literary masterpiece but because it was one of my very favorite books when I was in high school in the 80's. The book itself was a castaway from my mom and I snagged it before she threw it away, or sold it, or whatever she did with her old books. It became a book that I read and reread numerous times through my young adulthood.

The heroine finds out she is the sole heir to an old mansion that had been owned by a distant and very rich side of her family. She had met these people once when she was a child and they had been cold and cruel to her, an experience that caused her to become driven and self-made. That side of her family had died out when a set of identical twins had been killed in Vietnam.

I'll leave the rest to you to enjoy but there is romance and some spookiness. That old house holds a lot of surprises. I really have no idea why I loved this book so much, but I did. An engaging, quick read.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Loved the cat, lol.

[Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

The start of a happy Isabelle Holland glom - I first heard of this book through a blog mention somewhere (I suspect it may have been Sarah Rees Brennan’s post). So I requested a copy through my library and ended up with the 1970s hardcover complete with original checkout card, but minus the paper cover sadly (I like to think that it would have been like this). Love.

This was all kinds of modern Gothic goodness with a heaping of romance. There was an over-the-top evil villain, mistaken identities galore (with identical twins!), and all set in a gloomy isolated manor house.

Yes, it was good. I finished this in one sitting and promptly went to the library to request more Isabelle Holland.

[Bibliophile · Rating 3 out of 5]

Groovy mansion and hot twin cousins, woo!

[Sushma · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it started off great, I felt lots of twists and turns were unnecessary. Same could be said about the main character, Kit Trelawny. She seems like a very strong an independent woman in the beginning which was one of the compelling reasons for me to continue reading the book. But as the story moves forward and especially when the book reaches its end, she seems like a weak-hearted and fragile person, which I despised.

However, the narration is very intriguing and I just raced through the whole book.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This author knows how to pack an amazing amount of plot twists into one small book! Most of it felt authentic and well-done, with just a few details seeming unnecessary because they were simply tossed out, matched nothing from the build up, and then left to hang without any follow up. For the most part, however, I enjoyed the read and would recommend it. A decent rainy-day book.

[Debi Emerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent classic gothic!

[Sep · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely gothic that I enjoyed in the seventies. The heroine inherits the house from distant relatives who humiliated and scorned her and her mother years before. She is determined to turn it into an artists' colony and quickly acquires a quirky group of boarders. All appears smooth except something is odd about the attic. . . A nice sense of time and place.

I wish Ms. Holland's books were all on Kindle. (Hint, hint)

[Mary Crotty · Rating 3 out of 5]

not bad

[Dorothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable 1970's era Gothic novel with a pretty good plot line.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this book since 1976. The book as 251 pages not 403.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good fun, if fairly formulaic. How did I survive without The Gothic Novel?

[Sharon Buxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

B+. gothic suspense, romance, mom's stash. keep