I read this one around 2001, probably, but I remember liking it fairly well, all things considered… the Marilyn Ross Dark Shadows novels are like, if you gave me the names of some Real Housewives and asked me to write stories about them. The names and locations would be right. I know they are reality shows about rich wives, so I could make some stabs at the kind of drama to go for, but I have never seen any Real Housewives and I have no idea what they are about. It wouldn’t be right but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be amusing, and it’s always funny as someone who knows Dark Shadows extremely well to see where he goes with these characters.
Marilyn Ross is a pseudonym for W.E.D. Ross, a Canadian author who wrote a lot of gothics under a few names, and countless other books under countless other names. Just. So. Many. Books. He was a machine and his gothics do feel a bit rushed and simplistic with varying quality. I usually start them a little bit disappointed and get sucked in by the end.
We get a pretty delightful introduction with Victoria being titillated by thunderstorms and thinking about the upcoming family trip to Vermont and then something truly amazing is revealed:
Just copying and pasting from my keep notes:
They dated and she had hoped he would propose, but he never did. Still she only barely recognized the portrait in the main hall.
“She was not as fresh-looking as she had been five years ago in London at twenty-one, but she was still a striking beauty and she hoped she might this time win the enduring love of Barnabas.”
Rita heard screams after midnight. They stopped and she decided they had nothing to do with her so she went to sleep. The next day she was told one of the script girls had been attacked and she’s like, “Oh, that must be the screams I heard.” HOW could you hear screams and then just go to bed!?
Everything about Joab the deaf-mute manservant is so lazy and unnecessary I don’t even want to talk about it.
“‘Or leave his peculiar mark on my throat,” she said, making a joke of it since it seemed the only thing to do. She was whistling in the dark and knew it, but better than breaking down completely.”
“The portrait of herself which she always carried with her and which had been placed on the dresser had been ruthlessly slashed so that the face and shoulders had been obliterated.”
I’ve now decided that Rita Glenn is played by Donna McKechnie.
Originally Published October 2022
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