The Duncan Dynasty

by Dorothy Daniels

A Mississippi riverboat explodes en route to New Orleans. A victim of the tragedy, Jana Stewart is suddenly alone, without family, friends or possessions. Jana contacts Claude Duncan, a distant cousin who is the wealthiest and most powerful man in New Orleans. Duncan sees in Jana a means of prolonging the dying Duncan Dynasty and decides to take her into the family mansion. The price of his generosity -- Jana must marry his cruel son and bear an heir. In love with another man, and deeply distressed by these demonic demands, Jana tries to leave the plantation. But members of this strange, lavish household have made Jana their prisoner and they will stop at nothing to keep her amongst them.

Genres: Gothic

190 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 1, 1973

About the author

According to a mini-biography, accompanied by a photograph, on the rear cover of one of her many gothic novels, Dorothy Daniels was born in Connecticut but by the time she was a full-time writer, in the middle 1960's, was living in California. She was initially an English teacher at a state college but later wrote articles that appeared in national magazines, which led to her career as a writer of mostly gothic paperbacks. Lancer books, which published more than twenty of her novels, proclaimed her "America's Most Popular Gothic Novelist" while Pocket Books claimed her gothic novels had sold over eleven million copies by the middle 1970's. Her approximately 146 novels were published by a dozen paperback publishers, some had as many as four printings while others were printed only once. Lancer and Warner Books together published more than sixty of her novels. The vast majority of her novels were written in the first person and this was a trademark of sorts with Dorothy Daniels, as she rarely strayed from this pattern. Several of her novels take place in the Old South. Her novels were also considerably more involving plot-wise and contained more character development than other gothic novels. She published her last gothic novel, "House of Silence", in late 1980. Afterward she wrote a handfull of historical romances and her last published novel appears to be "Crisis at Valcour" in 1985.
The aforementioned photograph on the rear cover of her 1965 book "Cliffside Castle" contradicts some claims that Dorothy Daniels was male, and at least one internet website's author insists that Dorothy Daniels was actually a man named Paul Hugo Little who lived in Chicago and wrote over 700 books under at least a dozen pseudonyms. We may never know for certain who Dorothy Daniels was. Several of her gothic paperbacks, credited to Dorothy Daniels or Suzanne Somers, were copyrighted by Norman Daniels. She published one novel, "House of False Faces", under the pseudonym Helen Gray Weston, but this book was later reissued as "Dorothy Daniels writing as Helen Gray Weston". She wrote three nurse romance books in addition to her many gothic novels.

Also wrote under the names:
Angela Gray
Cynthia Kavanaugh
Helaine Ross
Suzanne Somers
Geraldine Thayer
Helen Gray Weston

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

If a book says Gothic Horror on the cover I'm interested. This isn't gothic horror. The house doesn't have a large part in this and there certainly is no horror. There's a pretty good mystery though. I didn't care for Jana and David's instalove but Jana is an admirable heroine. Walter is truly frightening for the majority of the book.

[Heather Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good little short read. I wasn’t too happy with the ending. I never really believed in the romance. In fact I’d almost wished the heroine ended up with Walter by the end of it. I feel I at least knew that character more than the conductor.

[Stephen Fodor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, I really wish I hadn't gotten rid of my copy of this one.