The Vintage Romance Reader

"Ye have been here before, child. Ye cannot deny it."

As an infant, she was left in a basket on the steps of a simple cottage in the South of Wales. Now, the kindly couple who raised her have died; Gwynneth Morys is an orphan once again, totally alone in the world with only her odd, recurring dreams - dreams of a towering mansion on the moors...a beautiful lady in a pale green gown...a tall man whose dark eyes speak of passion.

Bereft of funds and family, Gwynneth has no choice but to accept the only offer of work to come her way - a position as companion to an elderly woman in the North of Wales. And as Gwynneth approaches the many-turreted manor house rising out of the mist, close by the fog-enshrouded moors and still closer to the roiling sea, she knows that this is the place she has dreamed of all her life. And the handsome, dark-eyed Owen Price-Jones, who steps forward to greet her, can be none other than her destined lover...

But not even in her dreams had Gwynneth learned of the tragic death of Lady Jane's only daughter, or the dark desire for vengeance that still burns in the old woman's heart. Nor does she guess that an enemy - her enemy - lurks among the shadowy towers, waiting for her to climb a certain flight of stairs to the one turret from which there could be no escape...and no one to hear her plea for mercy.

Original Publisher: Zebra
Original Year of Publication: 1991
Page Count: 304

The October 2024 #TBRChallenge is "Spooky (Gothic)," and I knew exactly where I wanted to go: my tiny collection of Zebra Gothics, all of which have amazing covers and intriguing blurbs. I definitely got into my feels with this, and whilst in the mood for Gothic romance, sought out as many of the Zebra titles as I could find. What I found was that they are extremely rare on the secondhand market - I added books to my PBS wishlist that haven't been posted in 17 years 😲😲😲 Some were available for more than $20 at other known sources of secondhand books, which is way too rich for my blood. Plus I learned that Harlequin had its own Gothic line at some point, so now I only want to find these elusive books even more, LOL.

But I digress...

This was an interesting read, because the blurb up there is only half-right. 17-year-old Gwynneth Morys has known for all of her life that she was adopted by the couple that raised her, but she's never known anything about her family of origin. So when her father dies and leaves her alone in the world, she has very few choices. There's no one to help her work her hardscrabble farm, and no marriage prospects on the horizon. So it seems like the hand of God intervening in her life when her priest, Rev Jenkins, receives a request for an intelligent, hard-working young lady for a position in a grand house in the north of the country. She is being asked to be an assistant aide/companion to the sickly lady of the house, Lady Glendower. Jenkins and Gwynneth feel she has no choice but to accept the position, so she does.

She arrives at Glendower Hall and is struck by its unusual appearance. She has an innate sense of having been there before, though she knows logically that she has never been beyond the village where she was raised. She meets the woman who sent for her, Mrs Hoskins (aka Nanny), a fiercely loyal woman who serves as companion and nurse to Lady Glendower. Gwynneth is surprised that her duties as a servant are extremely light, and that she's invited to dine with Nanny Hoskins instead of with the other servants. Nanny practically commands Gwynneth to tour the huge pile on her own time. Gwynneth is confused (she's a little dim) and scared, because she has strange visions of scenes from the past, all centering around a beautiful young woman dressed in shades of green. She sees things and hears things that others can't, but tries to convince herself that she doesn't because she had been shamed and taunted for this gift as a child.

So Gwynneth is wandering around the house, confused and curious about why she's really there. She has a deep sense of foreboding and a sudden desire to learn more about her family of origin. In the midst of all this, she she meets Charles Price-Jones and his nephew, Owen. The Price-Jones men are neighbors and welcome, regular visitors to Glendower Hall and dear friends of Lady Glendower. Gwynneth learns that Lady Jane is the last of her family, long widowed and with a munch-hinted tragic loss of her child in the past.

Unlike what the blurb implies, Lady Jane is basically a non-entity in this novel. Gwynneth sometimes spots Nanny Hoskins and Lady Jane whispering about her, but she's so afraid of losing her position in their service that she doesn't question it. Owen Price-Jones is also an extremely minor character in this drama. He's only lived with his Uncle Charles for the last two years, and knows very little about the deep, dark secrets of Glendower Hall. He's the first person Gwynneth trusts of the lot of them, but that's about it. If you're looking for romance, you're going to have to look elsewhere.

The story of the tragic Lady Anne, the beloved daughter of Lord and Lady Glendower, comes in dribs and drabs from various members of the household. Indeed, the romance of this romance novel is squarely centered on Lady Anne. Apparently she was extremely sheltered as a child, and never allowed to know disappointment or failure; when she began to exhibit talents for the arts, a special tutor was sought and hired to develop these talents. Lady Anne was all of about 15, and her tutor scarcely older than her, so they fall in love with each other, though they are careful to keep their feelings secret from the household.

This is problem enough, but as Lady Anne grows up, she has several admirers who are far better placed to pay suit to her - including Charles Price-Jones, who returns from a long time abroad to find Anne has grown up before his eyes. He is quite a bit older than her, and though he dances with her at her coming-out ball, he decides to wait until she is a bit older to press his suit.

Unfortunately, he doesn't bother to let Anne know that he's fallen head over heels for her; instead, he goes straight to Lord Glendower to ask for her hand in marriage. Anne has no idea that her father has agreed and betrothed her to Charles; when she's told, she has a rather typical lovesick teenage reaction. Her feelings for her tutor are laid bare, and that man is summarily dismissed from the household, but Anne runs off with him and elopes before her family can stop her. Nanny Hoskins is sent after the young couple, and Anne only agrees to return to Glendower Hall if her new husband accompanies her. Lord Glendower will not yield; he's determined to send the man away and have the marriage annulled. Only...oopsie doodle, Anne is pregnant and is adamant that her husband will return for her, no matter what her father says.

I think we all know where this is going. Gwynneth is obviously Anne's illicit love child (though she doesn't figure this out until the end of the book, and doesn't believe Nanny when she tells her). But Anne is dead - Gwynneth has nearly daily visions of her jumping from the turret of the chapel, though she is too fearful to tell anyone - and what of her long-lost husband? Why does no one recognize her (other than her copper-colored hair, which neither parent possessed)?

Nanny Hoskins is the one who holds the hatred and vengeance here. Lady Glendower has some awful, grasping relatives who show up during the winter holiday season, basically to remind everyone that they're waiting for the old lady to die so they can swoop in, take over the estate, and help themselves out of/further into debt. Nanny is practically gleeful when these relatives show up this year, and the male half of this duo serves as a red herring for the "enemy" from the blurb. Gwynneth has had no real fear of anyone in the household until these people show up; so why not? She finds herself drawn to the tower where Anne killed herself and she doesn't really understand why, until she goes up there one day and realizes that someone is following her.

The novel moves at an almost excruciatingly slow pace until the last three chapters, when the action really ramps up. Gwynneth finally tells someone about all the things she's seeing and hearing; Nanny convinces her that she has 'the gift' of clairvoyance/mediumship; her unusual appearance is explained (she looks like her great aunt, natch); the fate of her birth parents is revealed; Gwynneth is stalked to the tower by a mad man who is determined to be reunited with his life-long unrequited love.

The ending is really rather bittersweet, considering all the characters and how their roles ultimately played out. Lady Jane makes a full recovery; Gwynneth takes her place has the true heir to Glendower Hall; she visits her adoptive parents' graves one last time. You really have to suspend disbelief during the climax of the plot, because the author really leans hard into the supernatural elements, even throwing in a bit of reincarnation just for good measure. It was about two twists too many for me, personally, but hey.

And yes, the stones of Glendower Hall do indeed shimmer in the light, as there is mica embedded in said stones, which were quarried locally. There is a big to-do about the shimmering in the winter light at the end that I didn't 100% understand, but hey. It's a nice visual no matter how you slice it!

This is definitely the best of the Zebra Gothics I have read thus far, and will stay in my tiny collection. If you don't mind a Gothic that's not really all that dark, lacks present-day danger and romance, and leans hard into the supernatural, I'd say give this one a shot.

⭐⭐⭐

Anna and Rick had become engaged "for mutual protection," not intending to marry. Then, in his beautiful Cornish home, she learned to love him...but would he ever be free of Alix, his cousin and first love, who, with his family's approval, had every intention of recapturing him?

Original Publisher: Mills & Boon
Original Year of Publication: 1957 [1967 reprint]
Page Count: 192

The book blurb, short as it is, is indeed accurate. This is a fake engagement story set in my most favorite part of England, so of course it was the first book I chose from my latest thrift store treasure hunt. This sounded like 1000% my catnip!

Upon first opening the tattered cover, and upon registering this on Goodreads, I was rather impressed that I was holding at least the third edition of this book. It must've been very popular when it was first released to earn so many print runs, so my hopes were already raised. The opening scene from the hero's POV? They got even higher.

Rick Peveril is brooding away at a London convalescent home. He's both ready to get back to his life, and dreading it. His cousin Alix's husband recently died, so they all expect him to return to Cornwall and marry her. That had been the plan all their lives; practically from childhood, it was just anticipated that they would marry and take on the run of Trevallion, the family estate. Only, Alix dumped Rick in a huff one day and ran off with another man. Rick washed his hands of her then, and has no intention of taking her back, no matter what his family says. But it would be much easier if he returned home with a new fiancée on his arm.

He spots a young girl running out into the courtyard in tears. He recognizes her as a regular visitor to another patient, a young military officer recovering from an injury. He's surprised to see her crying as she looks up into the sky and watches the planes go by.

He approaches her and learns her sad tale: she arrived at the home that morning to find a Dear John letter from her man, ending their hasty engagement. Unfortunately, she's already planned her life around being able to escape her terrible current situation, and has gone as far as to quit her job and give notice to her boardinghouse. She's an orphan, and incredibly poor, and too proud to slink back to her job or ask for an extension on her room. Now what's she going to do?

Even though Rick perceives her as a child (and learns during the course of their conversation that she is, indeed, only 19), he also sees her as the means to his end. She is unlike anyone else in his life and will do nicely as his means of sabotaging his family's expectations of him. Given her circumstances, she seems likely to agree to his deal, so he asks her.

Anna Crewe is taken aback at his offer. She doesn't know him at all, and he's much older than her (36, he confirms). On the other hand, she has nothing to go back to in London. Homeless, jobless, without family, what does she have to lose? He offers to bring her to his estate in Cornwall for the summer, where she can rest, lick her wounds, and plan her next move. After some thoughtful consideration, she agrees to accompany him home.

They arrive in Cornwall a few days later, and Rick basically dumps her at Trevallion with his sister and his grandmother, and returns to his daily grind at the nearby mine. Neither woman is welcoming to Anna, whom they perceive as an interloper; they even tell her that they believe she won't last very long as Rick's fiancée, because guess who is also lurking about? Alix!

Rick is furious that his grandmother let out a cottage on the estate to Alix without telling him. She's there for the summer, and she makes it quite clear that she is still very much in the hunt for him. His domineering grandmother, old Mrs Peveril, sees in Alix someone who can rise into her place as lady of the house; his sister, Ruth, absolutely worships the ground she walks on. Anna begins having second thoughts about the whole thing.

We haven't had a scene from Rick's POV since the first one, and we continue with Anna as she struggles with life at Trevallion. Rick is of absolutely no help; he spends long days at the mine and doesn't return until dinner usually. Ruth is sullen all the time, Mrs Peveril spends her days holding court from her bedroom, and Alix taunts Anna. Even the Peveril poor relation, Birdie, shies away from Anna; he keeps to his garden and his piggeries and fades into the background during the family meals.

Ruth eventually starts to open up the tiniest bit to Anna, especially when the latter realizes that Ruth is head over heels for the local veterinarian, David Evans. He comes out to the house rather often to check on the animals. The Peveril family doesn't approve of him because he is Welsh and new to the village, and Ruth has been beaten down her entire life to the point where she has no spine whatsoever. She bends to the will of her grandmother and her cousin early and often, but Anna encourages her to keep seeing David if she wants to. Ruth still brushes her off most of the time.

Anna continues to have a hard time. She is not athletic like the other members of the family, so she can't join them when they swim in the sea off their bit of coast. Rick continues to be of no help whatsoever; he told her back in London that "anyone would do" for his predicament, so Anna doesn't believe Rick will keep his end of the bargain. She's waiting for the other shoe to drop - for him to realize that he still loves Alix and wants to be with her. God knows no one misses the chance to tell her that.

Anna does the best she can while she waits out the summer, and the inevitable. Somehow she manages to fall for her fake fiancé, though I'm not sure how or why. He's indifferent to her most of the time, mocks her when they do talk and calls her a child on more than one occasion. The family seems to take some grim joy in constantly tearing strips off each other, so its a pretty miserable place. Between him, Alix, and old Mrs Peveril, Anna is about ready to give up entirely.

But Ruth is determined to have her romance with David; Anna learns that her last boyfriend was run out of town by her grandmother, also for the crime of not being "good enough" for a Peveril. Anna encourages Ruth to stand up for herself: she's 30 years old and no one can tell her what to do. If she wants to get married and leave Trevallion, she should do it! Her grandmother can go kick rocks, and Rick doesn't care either way. So what's stopping her?

As Ruth starts to pull away, Alix begins to realize her power over her cousins is waning. Rick is still spending time with her (why??) but refuses to return to their past relationship, and she's near the end of her rope. She does some especially cruel things to Anna at the end, but gets her just desserts when old Mrs Peveril learns of the incident and drags Rick along with her to confront Alix.

We have our requisite happy ending, with Rick professing his love to Anna and Mrs Peveril directing her to call her Gran as the rest of the family does. Ruth is allowed to marry her vet, Alix is kicked out of the cottage, and they all live happily ever after.

Considering this novel was originally released in 1957, it's not a half-bad book; it's a bit more like proto-women's fiction than actual romance, considering how much time Rick spends off page, and how much time Anna is interacting with the other Peveril women. By today's standards, there are plenty of problematic elements. Anna is a pretty weak heroine. Rick is cold and aloof, when he's around.

I didn't love it, but I don't hate it, either. It's firmly in the "meh" category for me, probably because of my love for Cornwall. I'll keep it, but I won't exactly be rushing out for the rest of this author's backlist.

⭐⭐

Marjorie Wetherill had always known she was an adopted child; her adoptive parents, the Wetherills, whom Marjorie loved deeply, had made no secret of it. Their death leaves Marjorie well provided for but terribly lonely. Soon she is consumed with the desire to find the family she has never known. But how can she find them when she knows nothing about them--and when Evan Brower, her handsome, wealthy neighbor, seems determined to make her forget about her unknown family entirely?

Then Marjorie finds a letter from Mrs. Wetherill, written shortly before her death, in which she tells Marjorie her real father's name and last known address! And so Marjorie's search begins--a search for a family to call her own; a search that will ultimately change her life and bring her a love more wonderful than anything she has ever known.

Original Publisher: J.B. Lippincott
Original Year of Publication: 1937 [1991 reprint]
Page Count: 306


As the novel opens, Marjorie Wetherill is knocking around her huge family home in Chicago all by herself. It's a week before Christmas and her mother has just died, leaving her an orphan. She is an adult (having graduated college, so likely ~22 years old), but no matter what your age, losing your parents hurts. Marjorie is dealing with another bombshell on top of this loss. She's always known that she was adopted, but never knew anything about her birth family - until now. Her adoptive mother left her one last letter, detailing all she knows about the family, including their last known address. She more or less implores Marjorie to look them up, because they have always regretted their decision to give her up for adoption and long to see her, even now - especially now, because the Wetherwills have always refused to let them see her.

Marjorie is at a loss about what to do. She's always yearned for her birth family, but she fears all the same. They didn't want her as a baby, so why would they want her now? Would they resent her for growing up in the lap of luxury, now an heiress worth millions, when their lifestyle was much more modest? She knows that her mother is still alive, and that she has a twin sister, but basically knows nothing else.

Her childhood friend and neighbor, Evan Brower, actively discourages her from reuniting with her birth family. He's convinced that they would take advantage of her wealth and basically mooch off her, because what else could they be but lazy and spoiled? He's decided that he wants to marry Marjorie, even though he hasn't really shown her any romantic attention ever, and he's bullheaded enough to believe he can bend her to his will simply by wanting her bad enough.

Mercifully, Marjorie has a will of her own, and when she decides to seek out her birth family, she goes right ahead and does it, without telling anyone beforehand or seeking out anyone's permission. She travels to the tiny, shabby house where her family lives and is appalled by the conditions. Her family has fallen into deep poverty, as her father lost his job and they lost their beloved house, the titular Brentwood. They are so poor and hungry that they've sold all of their belongings, save one chair, and are living in the cold, snowy Midwest without gas or coal or food, saving all of their money to buy medicine for the mother, who has taken to her sickbed.

Marjorie immediately springs into action: she pays off the family debts, has the gas turned back on, buys two tons of coal to heat the house, brings in a doctor for her mother (whom she hasn't even seen yet), and buys nutritious food. The first person she meets is her twin sister, Betty, who is actively hostile towards her. One by one she meets the rest of her family: her oldest brother, Ted (about 19), and the younger kids Bud, Sunny, and Bonnie. They are all half-starved and sick, and they are all slow to warm up to Marjorie, but she powers through it, happy to know that she has the means to help them. She meets her father that same evening, but its a few days before she can see her mother - though when she does, it is a joyous reunion!

The family slowly but surely warms up to her and begins to accept her: first as their fairy godmother, then as their sister/daughter. Betty is the longest holdout; she is wary and bitter and jealous, and she struggles with these feelings for the entire story. Ted quickly takes to Marjorie, as they have church-going in common; the younger kids take to her because she is kind to them. Marjorie decides to spend the holiday season with them, leaving her hotel that very first day and moving into their tiny house, sharing a bed with her twin and helping out as much as she can.

She learns of Brentwood from Ted, who still attends a chapel near the house. She makes up her mind to restore her family to their rightful home for Christmas, and goes about it quite smartly. She also helps her siblings and parents in their current abode, especially with food, medicine, and the doctor for mother, and the various sick children. They are coming together and enjoying the holidays; Marjorie meets Gideon Reaver, the young minister that Ted absolutely adores and she is also smitten.

Meanwhile, Evan is simmering with rage in Chicago. Marjorie left no forwarding address, and she went to her heretofore unknown family, against his explicit wishes! Practically the moment he learns where she is, he goes after her, stomping into the Gay family house on Christmas day and demanding that she return to Chicago with him. He's just a complete ass to everyone. Marjorie holds her line, though, refusing to leave with him that day, or any day. She's still deciding what she wants to do for the rest of her life, but his sudden and unwelcome appearance makes one thing crystal clear.

Her family insist that she return to Chicago after the New Year for some time and space to make her decision, whether she wants to come live with them at Brentwood or carry on by herself in the social and luxurious whirlwind to which she is accustomed. Marjorie already knows what she wants even before she returns to the Wetherill mansion, but she abides by their wishes. She dumps Evan for good in an extremely satisfying scene that only gets better because he is as stubborn as he is assholish, and he keeps coming around because he thinks he can change her mind. Haha, joke's on him! This is one GLH heroine who knows her own mind and isn't afraid to assert herself.

In the end, Marjorie is happily reunited with her birth family at Brentwood, and they all live happily ever after :)

The romance is rather blink-and-you'll-miss-it between Marjorie and Gideon. Betty also has a romance with the doctor who's tending them all. We kinda spend equal time with both twins, and it really highlights their differences in their outlooks on life as well as how they fit into the family. I think GLH did a great job exploring the feelings from all sides around the issue of adoption and how it affects everyone involved: the birth parents, the adoptive parents, the child herself and the other siblings.

The "God stuff" is of the born-again variety, which is not my thing, but it wasn't laid on too terribly thick. The fact that this is set at holiday time disguises some of this, too, given the customs around going to church in the Depression era. I enjoyed the entire cast of characters and their interactions, and it was a very happy ending all the way around!

⭐⭐⭐ 1/2