Jennifer Wilde (1938–1990)

The turbulent story of an English beauty -- sold at auction like a slave -- who scandalized the New World by enslaving her masters. Marietta was a woman wronged--raped by her employer, charged with theft by her jealous mistress, and shipped to the Colonies to serve fourteen years as bound servant to the man who bid highest. But Marietta was beautiful, educated and resilient, with a provocative body meant for love, and she was determined to prevail.Over the handsome, silent planter who bought show more her to be his housekeeper. Over the dashing entrepreneur who supplied girls to the New Orleans red light district. Over the wealthy sadist who used her in his madness.She would conquer them all--if she could subdue the hot, unruly passions of her heart. show less

The writing was good enough that I wanted to keep reading and managed it in just a couple long sessions, and the tension was pretty strong. But the bad guy was exactly who I thought it was from the very first moment he was even mentioned. I kept waiting for a plot twist, and it wasn't there, except maybe for one detail about him.

HOWEVER, I'm happy to report that no kittens were harmed in the narration of this book. When one reads a murder mystery, one agrees to have certain expectations show more about what may befall the human characters, but one does NOT want fluffy animalkind to be involved. Considering the dark nature of this story, I had the gravest fears when a scrappy little kitten was introduced, but all was well. show less

Betrayal at Blackcrest by Jennifer Wilde is a 1971 publication- reissued in 2015 by Open Road Media.

Thank goodness ORM and Jennifer Wilde- who wrote the book as “Beatrice Parker” digitized this book- and many others by this author. There are very few of these older ‘Gothic/Romantic Suspense’ novels digitized- even by some of the more popular authors like Dorothy Daniels, for instance.

I loved reading these back in the day- they pre-dated the explicit ‘bodice ripper’ that pretty show more much sent this genre to its grave- and was ‘safe’ reading for teens and young adults. Many were mass produced and one author would write under multiple pseudonyms sometimes- which is also kind of funny- so they weren’t all created equal. This one is certainly above average.

There is no supernatural quality to this one- it’s pretty much a straight up romantic suspense novel- but with very little romance- one ‘bruising kiss’ and that’s about it. Yes, it’s dated. Duh- but the plot is pretty darned good, considering. The atmosphere was fantastic and there really were a few spinetingling moments. There were also some pretty farfetched eyerolling situations too- and some really horrible misogyny from some of the men in the story-but… this came from the bad guy… so there’s that. The behavior of our ‘hero’ is also really bad, but is usually the case in these books, he’s also mostly misunderstood.

Frankly, I had a blast reading this story. It was clean and suspenseful and had me turning pages- and even had a nice little twist I didn’t guess- though I’m so familiar with this format I knew who the bad guy was right from the beginning. Overall, a fun ‘retro-read’ for me.

*This book is available with Hoopla- and some Libby libraries may have it as well. It is also available in digital format in the Kindle store. show less

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via Netgalley.

The story of a decade (late 1950s/early 19060s) in the lives of Julie (married at 15 to Doug, a law student, after he got her pregnant), Carol (an orphan who fails to win the scholarship to university she is expecting, but gets to go anyway after she sleeps with the millionaire who makes the awards) and Nora (who writes salacious "confession" stories to fund herself through university after her Jewish parents refuse to do so if show more she leaves New York). The three meet at Claymore university in Indiana. Julie is working as a waitress to pay for Doug's law studies, but is asked to join an acting class because she is so talented. The "slipper" of the title refers to the Cinderella story and to the dream each girl has for her life. Julie (having had a miscarriage) wants to keep Doug happy and have a happy marriage, but deep down she also yearns to act. Carol has gone to university also aiming to become an actress (really?) and Nora dreams of becoming a famous author.

Carol does indeed become a move star (and ditches her studies immediately) but the film business proves to be as much a curse as a blessing. Nora eventually becomes a best-selling author and Julie, having fallen pregnant again just as Doug ditches her and goes off to become a lawyer, acts first in a soap opera and then also in the movies. The movie business makes up a very large part of this slightly overlong book and we learn a lot about how films were made and the industry operated at that period. There are constant references to real life authors and actresses (e.g. Doris Day, Jean-Paul Sartre) although I had no way of knowing how many of the many people referenced in passing I should have heard of.

The novel makes constant references to the difficulty the characters face as women in putting their careers first. At the end of the story two out of the three are single and tell each other that they love their careers and that it is all worth it, but I have to say that neither of them seem to enjoy their lives that much and I struggled to agree that it had indeed been worth it. While I sympathised completely with Nora leaving Hennessy after he described her writing in such disparaging terms, I fail to understand how exactly he had held her back during the year they spent together. None of the women seemed capable of sitting down with a partner, explaining how much writing or acting meant to them and negotiating to make the relationship work. I appreciate that the 1960s were a different time (they probably all died of lung cancer just after the novel's time frame for one thing), but none of the characters led particularly conventional lives in any case. Surely Norman and Carol were in the ideal position to make things work - he could have just followed her around as he seemed to have no real purpose in life as it was.

Anyway, I cared enough about the characters to want to argue with them about their choices, which is always a good sign. show less