Gothic Romance : time for a revival?
Occasionally I come across an author whose name I've known for as long as I've been reading romance, and recently I 'discovered' one of these, namely Victoria Holt, aka Jean Plaidy, aka Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellor and Phillipa Carr - real name Eleanor Hibbert. As you might suppose from all those pseudonyms, she wrote a lot of novels. And she did - over 2000 in fact! Anyway, I picked up a copy of The Lord of the Far Island in a second-hand bookshop recently and, once I'd begun to read, I was hooked. It's a modern Gothic romance, rather derivative of Daphne Du Maurier, but none the less enjoyable for that. And, having raced to the end in a few days, I ordered some more of Victoria Holt's book online. These are the ones I chose and the blurb on the back convey far better than I could why they are so hard to put down even now, fifty years after publication. Bride of Pendorric: Favel Farington and her new husband were almost strangers. In Capri, th