I had a used copy of this book my mother had found at Goodwill, back when I was in high school, and was reading everything King Arthur I could get my hands on. (This author did an Arthur series.) I remember reading it several times, and really enjoying it, so I snapped up a cheap copy on Kindle.
I totally see why I loved it as a high schooler – it’s pure Gothic trash (I say that in a good way). That said, it was written in the 70s, so there are some parts I’m chosing to see as sweetly naïve, instead of a what would be these days a relationship just full of trigger warnings.
Bryony is an Ashley, a genteel family fallen on hard times, who still have the old home. It’s in a trust, so all adult members of the family must agree to do anything to the house, so it’s falling into disrepair. It’s also entailed to male heirs, so when Bryony’s father dies, it will go to his cousin, who has three sons of his own, all about Bryony’s age, who grew up with her at the house.
Here’s where it gets a little creepy – the Ashleys have a bit of a physic gift, ever since one of the ancestors married a gypsy, and all her life, she’s had a friend she can speak to whenever she wishes, who over time, she’s come to regard as her lover. She knows she’ll marry him someday. She assumes it’s one of her cousins, because he also clearly has the Ashley gift. But she’s not sure which one of them he is.
The book opens with her lover being the one to tell her the terrible news that her father has died – a hit and run in the German town where he had gone to convalesce. She has been working on Madeira while he’s been away, but now she makes her way back to the Ashley estate, where soon, Gothic horrors abound.
This is the kind of book you really need to read – it makes no sense to try to tell you all the plot twists. I was rather amused on this read to see the giant honking give away the author lobes at us of who the lover actually is, the first time he’s physically present in the book – teenage me was an idiot. So, I’d say, if you can take a giant historical grain of salt with your reading, it’s a fun book. If you’re not so good at that, give it a pass.