MISTRESS OF MELLYN by Victoria Holt

PUBLISHER: Doubleday, 1960
GENRE: Fiction/Gothic Romantic Suspense
SETTING: England, 19th Century
PSEUDONMYS: link
MY GRADE: B-

FROM PUBLISHER: From the moment Martha Leigh first glimpsed the cold, brooding manse high on the fog-shrouded Cornish cliffs, she felt a chill of apprehension.

Then she met her employer, the arrogant master of Mellyn, and his spoiled, headstrong daughter, Alvean, and knew why the three governesses before her had left the eerie mansion.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Martha began to be aware of an atmosphere of menace. There had been whispers of past horrors, warnings of violence yet to come--and now there were strange accidents. It was madness to stay on.

But Connan TreMellyn's dark charm had over-powered Martha's natural caution. Against her will she felt irresistibly drawn to the handsome, enigmatic master of Mellyn.

Now, even as she found herself being pulled deeper and deeper into a frightening web of unseen terror, she knew she could not, would not leave...

MY THOUGHTS: This story was interesting enough but the plot was very slow moving the entire way through and fairly tame. There have been a few suspicious happenings at Connan's home lately; mysterious letters, falling boulders, ect. I never once guessed who the culprit was. I don't like that the tiny bit of action this story had took place during the last thirteen pages. I didn't get a gothic feel from this story either, not once.

Every single character was underdeveloped and I didn't feel as if I'd gotten to know any of them. With Connan I'm not seeing any 'charm', dark or otherwise. He wasn't around all that much. I don't understand where his attraction and 'love' for Martha came from at all. They're hardly ever together and all of a sudden he wants to marry her. I don't know why he didn't just marry Lady Linda Treslyn since they were involved with each other.