In addition to the Mistress of Mellyn, I’ve also recently read The Bride of Pendorric (1963), The Shivering Sands (1969), and The Pride of the Peacock (1976). The Mistress of Mellyn, her first gothic romance, was published in 1960.
And that reason is that Victoria Holt’s gothic romances were huge in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and the tropes which are present in those books are oddly anti-feminist. The second wave of feminism broadened the debate to other barriers to gender equality: sexuality, family, reproductive rights, education and the workplace. The first wave of feminism – concerned with legal/structural barriers to inequality like suffrage and property rights – had largely ended, at least in the Western world, and the second-wave had begun. When I was just a girl, it was the 1970’s, a time of great change. There is basically a straight line from Jane Eyre to Rebecca by du Maurier, to Victoria Holt. But though evil lurks in the shadows, so does love-and the freedom to find a golden promise forever. Powerless against her growing desire for the enigmatic Connan, she is drawn deeper into family secrets-as passion overpowers reason, sending her head and heart spinning. But it was the girl's father whose cool, arrogant demeanor unleashed unfamiliar sensations and turmoil-even as whispers of past tragedy and present danger begin to insinuate themselves into Martha's life. TreMellyn's young daugher, Alvean, proved as spoiled and difficult as the three governesses before Martha had discovered. But what about its master-Connan TreMellyn? Was Martha Leigh's new employer as romantic as his name sounded? As she approached the sprawling mansion towering above the cliffs of Cornwall, an odd chill of apprehension overcame her.
Mount Mellyn stood as proud and magnificent as she had envisioned.
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