Mistress of Mellyn

Martha finds herself on the other side of a couple of years ‘out’ in the ton and without a husband, and her aunt has gently reminded her of her options: find a husband, fast, or find a job as a governess. Martha decides on the latter and sets off for a remote manor to take up the tutoring and managing of a stubborn and motherless child with an aloof but also philandering father. The neighboring manor houses a flirty bachelor brother and his meek sister, who dotes on Martha’s charge and mooneyes the father. Martha finds herself in the middle of it all, fighting off both the advances of the neighbor and her disturbingly strong and growing feelings for the master of Mellyn.

Oooh, I loved this one. A fantastic gothic romance with all show more sorts of Jane Eyre and Rebecca vibes. show less

Since I resemble a hedgehog, at least I am not spineless.

This one owes a huge debt to Jane Eyre, but where Brontë's heroine is a meek little mouse, Holt's is as prickly as a hedgehog and has a spine of steel.

Martha Leigh is an impoverished gentlewoman who takes a job as governess to the daughter of Connan TreMellyn, a recently widowed wealthy Cornish landowner. As this is a gothic romance, mysterious occurrences and brooding men abound, but Miss Leigh is too level-headed and sharp-tongued to be a stereotypical gothic heroine: she is more of a detective than she is a wilting flower. I also award her bonus points because she actually spends a good portion of the novel with the child she is being paid to educate, something an inordinate show more number of literary governesses fail to do.

While Mistress of Mellyn may not be great art, it is greatly entertaining and would make one hell of a movie. show less

Martha finds herself on the other side of a couple of years ‘out’ in the ton and without a husband, and her aunt has gently reminded her of her options: find a husband, fast, or find a job as a governess. Martha decides on the latter and sets off for a remote manor to take up the tutoring and managing of a stubborn and motherless child with an aloof but also philandering father. The neighboring manor houses a flirty bachelor brother and his meek sister, who dotes on Martha’s charge and mooneyes the father. Martha finds herself in the middle of it all, fighting off both the advances of the neighbor and her disturbingly strong and growing feelings for the master of Mellyn.

Oooh, I loved this one. A fantastic gothic romance with all show more sorts of Jane Eyre and Rebecca vibes. show less

What a Gothic! All the elements are here: the isolated location, an orphaned governess, an unruly child needing love, the brooding master, the mystery from his past, and the danger to our heroine. Shades of Jane Eyre, anyone? Still, Holt manages to make the story her own and perhaps makes the story even creepier than Jane Eyre.

The mystery from the past was well done! It surprised me, although the clues were all there. And the danger was terrifying for me. But as any experienced reader of Gothics knows, all will come round in the end. It is the story itself getting the heroine from the start to the finish that is the joy to read. And this book was a joy.

The book is recommended for casual fans of Gothics. If you've read lots of them, this show more book may seem derivative. However, since I loved it, I'm giving it five stars. show less

Mistress of Mellyn is one of the novels that kicked off the Gothic romance boom of the 60s and 70s. Published in 1960, it's a fabulously spooky and cozy tale featuring a determined, no nonsense governess as the protagonist. The two little girls in this are written particularly well, and Victoria Holt does a solid job of making you uncertain of what exactly is going on and which characters are trustworthy throughout the story. The ending wasn't my favorite, but the book as whole is good enough to make it well worth reading. If you're a fan of Jane Eyre, give this one a try!

Mistress of Mellyn succeeds fabulously as a Gothic romance. The story of a governess who has come to educate the daughter of a wealthy widower at their estate on the Cornish coast certainly takes cues from Jane Eyre and Rebecca. An enjoyable voice, a likable heroine, a mysterious leading man, a nice dose of suspense, and an eerie old stone manor blend together splendidly making for a most delicious read.

I picked this up at a local church book sale over the weekend on a whim - I'd read and enjoyed one other Victoria Holt book, was interested in reading more, and the book synopsis sounded good. It sounded, in fact, similar to a favorite Phyllis A. Whitney book Window on the Square.

Indeed, the first third of this book read as though one author cribbed the plot from the other: orphaned, well-bred, but stubborn woman, forced to seek a position as a governess in a spooky old house, overseeing the education of a troubled young child, and waging a battle of wills against the broody but enigmatic master of the house. But Mistress of Mellyn deviates from Window; here the wife is dead but haunts those who remain, and from about the 1/3 mark the show more story goes off in a direction entirely its own.

I loved this book right up until the last 20 pages or so. Loved it. It was so easy to lose myself in the story... but those last 20 pages sort of let down the side. They almost worked perfectly, but either the author lost steam or the publisher felt parsimonious. I never bought Connon's sudden change of heart. In fact, I suspect it wasn't supposed to be a change of heart at all, but a slow growing realisation, but something was missing so it just felt like he flipped a switch. And the ending... oh man, that ending was good. I did not see that coming and it certainly put the suspense in the book's romantic suspense tag. But the motivation of the person (no spoilers) felt incredibly flimsy. I didn't buy it.

Ultimately, these things, along with an embarrassing amount of melodrama on the part of our heroine upon her rescue, dropped my rating down to 4 stars from the 4.5/5 it was heading for. It's still a very solid, enjoyable read, but it's not quite all it could have been. show less