The Woman In Black

by Jenna Ryan

THE MAN WAS HARD TO RESIST

Aidan Brodie's sensual stare could seduce a woman almost against her will. Samantha Giancarlo found herself to be no exception. Her reporter's instincts screamed at her to stay far away. But fate, in the form of a woman in black, had united them for a reason.

An explosive interview with the stranger thrust Sam into the thick of a murder investigation. And when her search revealed truths that struck too close to home, she was forced to heed other, more womanly instincts. She had no choice but to accept the safety of Aidan's strong embrace...and the protection he was only too eager to provide.

Genres: Romance

250 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1997

About the author

Jenna Ryan was born in Victoria, British Columbia. After long stints in different cities across Canada, she returned home to Vancouver Island where she has lived ever since. She has had thirty-one books published in the Harlequin Intrigue series. Her ideas come from real life, and she is helped in her writing by her sister Kathy.

She enjoys reading and is a big fan of women's fiction, psychological suspense and mystery novels. She also enjoys watching classic suspense movies. She loves strong heroines, heroes with character, romance stories and a good whodunit by the fire on a rainy night.

Her heritage is a blend of English and Irish — which is probably where the gift of blarney comes from. She is unmarried, but involved with a wonderful man. She also has a little white cat named Sheena.

Whenever she is not writing, she travels as much as time and finances will allow. After North America, Europe is her favorite continent to explore, because it was in those countries that many of the myths and legends she drew upon in her early years of writing were born.

Growing up, she considered various careers and dabbled in several of them, including, after university, the travel industry, tourism, sales and modeling. Work in the fashion industry in Toronto and Montreal gave her an interesting peek into various aspects of that world. She learned that where money, power and people come together, there will always be unpredictability — an element she feels is essential to a strong mystery. Add a healthy measure of personal conflict, an intriguing setting and a spicy romance into the mix, and you have the ingredients for what she believes to be the best of all possible stories — a great romantic suspense.

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thirty-year-old reporter Samantha (Sam) Giancarlo works for a newspaper in LA. One day her boss sends her on an assignment to the home of an old-time movie star from the 1940's/1950's who has been living in seclusion. The elderly movie star (Margaret Truesdale) tells Sam that she asked for her specifically, and that she is her grandmother (Sam is adopted and never knew who her parents were). Margaret also tells Sam someone knows of her whereabouts (Margaret is back in the USA after living abroad for many years) and that someone fully intends to kill her (Margaret).

Back in the 1940's Margaret had a film rival (Mary Lamont) who was deeply jealous of her and always held a grudge against her. Throughout the years Mary was institutionalized for her apparent insanity. Now, in 1996, Mary has escaped and is out looking for Margaret. Margaret is worried about her safety and the safety of Sam, her only living relative/descendant.

Sam goes to Oakhaven Sanitorium where Mary had been staying before she escaped. She talks to the head of the sanitorium, and also meets handsome hero, Aidan Brodie, (who is in his late 30's and is an insurance investigator). After an attempt is made on their lives they both team up to try to find out where Mary is, and if Mary is receiving any outside help.

I liked Sam, she was a good heroine. I also liked Aiden. He had some Irish ancestry, his family moved from Dublin to Boston when he was thirteen. The supporting cast of characters/suspects were lively and interesting. I also liked all the references to the 40's and 50's---movies, stars, etc...

I did enjoy this book, but it didn't grab my attention as much as the other Jenna Ryan books I've read. Maybe it was my mood? It seemed slow at times, but it sure wasn't bad. An okay read.

[Penny Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ryan Delivers Another Suspenseful Tale
September 23, 1998

Jenna Ryan is a master at creating a creepy atmosphere and delivering an intricate story. "The Woman in Black" is no exception. When Samantha Giancarlo is summoned by a faded movie star who reveals that she's Sam's grandmother, Sam's life is suddenly put in danger by a mysterious woman in black who wants to kill the old star. Only our hero stands between her and certain death. Ryan manages to create a dozen clearly-defined personalities, tell a twisting mystery, and deliver a good love story all in 250 pages--no easy feat. The book may have a few flaws, but every page seems to drip with atmosphere. Not too many authors can have you shivering by the end of page one. That alone was enough for my money, though the rest was great as well. A terrific book for suspense and romance fans.

[Emm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is wild, wild, wild. I loved the investigation aspect. And how much of a send up this is to golden age Hollywood while also critiquing it.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

My grandfather loved classic Hollywood. Everything about it made him feel like a kid again, and some of my fondest childhood memories involve sitting on the couch with him and watching the likes of Fantasia and King Kong. Grandpa died before I was old enough to enjoy the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable or Audrey Hepburn with him. But even today, watching a beloved film of his in glorious black & white, I feel that connection. Hollywood was so important to him, a way to bring back his childhood, to get swept up in the passion, the excitement, the joy of watching a story unfold. You can't bottle that enthusiasm, you just have to experience it for yourself. Grandpa would have liked "The Woman in Black."

This Intrigue entry is Jenna Ryan's love letter to the classic Hollywood screen gems of yore, when actors showcased in far more than a mere fifty shades of gray exploded off the screen in ways more lifelike than many of their modern full-color counterparts. Romance was more passionate, criminals were more evil, stories were more grandiose, and your imagination was left to fill in the blanks computers weren't yet around to fill in for you. It takes a certain something to capture that innocence and danger, that luxurious drama that bordered (sometimes too closely) on melodrama, the acting that was sometimes overwrought but we forgave anyway because that's just the way things were. Ryan seizes all this and weaves a back-story that I dearly, dearly wish revolved around a real film.

The film in question is a 1950s Hitchcockian suspense vehicle entitled "The Three Fates," a film that was to catapult its ingenues to superstardom. A film never completed. A film that someone is willing to kill over.

Into this milieu is dropped Samantha Giancarlo, a journalist from the 1990s whose ties to "The Three Fates", though unknown to her, put her into extreme peril. For Margaret Truesdale, the star of "The Three Fates," the woman who disappeared from Hollywood and fell off the face of the world for forty years, has been found. She believes that her co-star and competitor, Mary Lamont, has escaped from a mental institution and is planning to follow through with the vow she made four decades ago: to find Margaret and kill her.

Sam now has to use every instinct she's honed in her career as a reporter to put together the pieces of the puzzle, but the pieces keep changing, and it doesn't help that charismatic insurance investigator Aiden Brodie keeps popping up to help her whether she wants it or not. What's his angle in all this old Hollywood nonsense, anyway? Aiden's not saying. Much like Vertigo, "The Woman in Black" leaves one confused, reeling, and guessing throughout with a wonderfully-executed, didn't-see-that-one-coming ending.

So why only three stars? *sigh* I hate critique, but if a reviewer isn't honest then how can he engender trust in readers? It's three stars instead of four because it's obvious that Ms. Ryan is working very hard to find her voice on this one. She's telling a great story, but for some reason I can't put my finger on, it just doesn't have that sense of togetherness that most of her other books have.

Keep in mind, it's not fair to compare something written in 1998 to something written today--every author grows in fits and spurts, and this was just one of those growing pains. Maybe there are a few characters too many, maybe the plot is a bit too twisted, or maybe it's some unconscious feeling I got that isn't tied to any one thing in particular. The Woman in Black is just one of her weaker efforts to my eye.

Am I glad I read it? No two ways about it--anything that brings up happy memories from my youth is well worth the time it took to read. Like I said, Grandpa would have enjoyed "The Woman in Black" as a story, and "The Three Fates" as a film. Three stars on Goodreads translates to "I liked it." And that's really all that needs saying in the end, isn't it?