She takes a job in Cornwall, a corner of England that, I was surprised to learn, actually has a subtropical climate (palm trees!). Martha (Marty) Leigh is an impoverished gentlewoman forced to become a governess due to her circumstances. It's a pretty good, old-fashioned novel of its type, one of the better Victoria Holt novels I've read here and there over the years. It's the quintessential 'governess in peril falling in love with someone above her station' plot.

Mistress of Mellyn is one of Victoria Holt's old gothic romantic suspense novels, published in 1960. It was not an unpleasant read, but it wasn’t the best of Holt’s repertoire. All of these are classic Gothic mystery elements, but, this plot was just too familiar and Holt was quite capable of more originality than this.īut, to be fair, the ending was a lot more sinister than Jane Eyre, as there is a legitimate murder mystery and our heroine is in genuine danger which for its day was probably a little shocking. The old mansion, the governess, the gruff master of the house, the mystery surrounding his wife’s death, and the relationship that begins to develop between the master and the governess. However, this book is, more or less, a poor man’s Jane Eyre. Her writing style is still quite effective and can create a strong sense of unease, even for the most jaded modern reader. Holt’s books may be true the era of time in which she sets her stories, the women of the day having little opportunity and often at the mercy of men, but her heroines are rarely ‘too stupid to live’, or present themselves as the proverbial ‘damsel in distress’.

They are often a representation of a simpler time, in the days when the suspense was more reliant on atmosphere and dialogue, and the romance was about as chaste as it comes.

So, it’s fun to pull one of these off the shelf and lose myself in a different time, despite the datedness of some of these stories. Victoria Holt’s name is nearly synonymous with this genre and she was quite prolific.Īs such, I’m still hunting down some of her harder to find books and haven’t come close to reading all of her novels. The Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt is a 1960 publication.Įveryone knows I am a huge fan of these old Gothic suspense novels and love to collect the old paperbacks.Those covers are just fantastic!!