Broken Key

by Mary Linn Roby

Hardcover, no jacket, but author information flap included. 1978 Hawthorn Books edition

Genres: Gothic

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

aka Elisabeth Welles, Georgina Grey, Mary Wilson, Pamela D'Arcy, Pauline Pryor, Valerie Bradstreet.

Mary is the author of fifty-two Gothic, romances, regencies, and mystery novels. Mary also teaches English literature, creative writing, and rhetoric. Her husband is an English professor, a biographer, editor, and mystery writer.

Mary loves tennis, reading, and traveling, and her special editing interests lie in the field of fiction and memoirs. She enhances the creative talents of clients by giving their manuscripts a sympathetic reading, an in-depth critique, and meticulous editing.

Reviews

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Broken Key" is a flawed contemporary gothic. After three years of being a caregiver/companion to an elderly client, Sara Grey has inherited her former employer's small cottage on the family estate in Cornwall, a place where she can try to paint full-time. Once there, she becomes embroiled in a long-running family feud, as well as more recent trauma. The novel is frustrating because it sets up vivid characters, one of whom is truly menacing; yet some of these characters are never dealt with in depth. After a long set-up, the novel devolves into a murder mystery with a suddenly rushed ending. One gets the feeling the author's ambitions grew a little more ambitious than the editorial word count allowed. Not a bad read, but full of glimpses of something that could have been much stronger.