The Time of the Hunter's Moon

After a strange and unsettling encounter with a mysterious stranger, Cordelia Grant begins teaching at a boarding school in England. In the background: the rakish Jason Verringer. In the background of the background: a possible ghost.

Ohhhhhhh man, Victoria Holt! As a child, I used to spend a lot of deadly dull afternoons in houses with complete sets of Reader's Digest Condensed Books -- which, as you may be able to infer, contained abridged versions of popular fiction. I read a lot of them, and I was particularly enraptured with the Gothic potboilers of Victoria Holt. Of these, The Time of the Hunter's Moon was my favorite.

Re-reading it now, I can dimly see what my eight-year-old self adored about this book: its heroine is (mostly) show more cool, collected, and self-sufficient, and she exists in an overwhelmingly female universe. Cordelia's relationships with other women run the full spectrum, from her jovial spinster guardians to her silly school friends to her obnoxious students to her insecure employer to her arch social rivals. The Time of the Hunter's Moon, oddly enough, passes the Bechdel Test in spades.

Alas! This is a Gothic romance from the 1980s, so a few men need to turn up as love interests. One of them is creepy and spectral, so he's okay. The other is a Rakish Lord who repeatedly threatens to rape the heroine as part of his banter-filled seduction technique: "He was forcing me out of my coat. I kicked out at him and he laughed." They have a lot of leaden and belabored dialogue. Obviously, he is her One True Love.

The stuff with the romantic foil is dull and offensive. In contrast, Cordelia's visits back home to her guardian are charming and homey, while her experiences as a teacher document her growing self-confidence and enjoyment in her profession. Given the unequal qualities of this novel, I can't help but wonder what this novel would look like if you stripped out Generic Smoldering Rake and just made this a lesbian romance between Cordelia and Headmistress Daisy.

It would look a lot better, methinks. show less

Yes, there is a comforting sameness to Victoria Holt. Here it all was; that vaugely Victorian setting, the young woman of strong moral sense but innocent of the ways of the world, the older rouge, a hint of mystery, the feeling that perhaps this plot might be familiar. This one has the disturbing trend I notice in her later novels of a ruthless hero forcing himself on the heroine, who resists but secretly finds him fascinating. I knew she would eventually give in to him but I still said "Ugh" aloud when she did. I don't care if he is supposed to be reformed, it was still very unpleasant. Here Cordelia, who is a teacher at a girl's fininshing school, is supposed to shed that 'schoolmarm' exterior to find her true passionate self with the show more local lord of the Squire, who is apparently just a poor misunderstood soul looking for a good woman, which explains his arrogance, continual stream of women, and callous disregard for anyone's feeling but his own. It's because he loves her that he locks her into a room and plans to take by force, that's it. I think I'll go back and read The Mistress of Mellyn again. show less

This book could have been better than it was. The plot in itself was interesting, and the development okay, but Holt missed opportunities to increase the suspense and the connections, padded the narrative with too much repetition, and presented an otherwise clever heroine as dumber than the readers.
Most people are, of course, because dots are hard to connect in real time, but it wasn't a case of being convincingly dull-witted, just a plot-device for the author's benefit.
Also, the idea that one's heroine MUST marry the Reformed Rake is NOT plausible, given some of the events: even she baulked at maintaining contact after he tried to forcibly rape her and admitted he wanted to do it because "she needed to be set free" of her inhibitions show more .
On the subject of post-historical-period-Romances, the comparison of Holt (a really good practitioner) to Austen (who lived in the time of which she wrote) could be illuminating.
Holt is visibly trying to shoehorn modern sensibilities into the past, while keeping the window-dressing intact, and it doesn't really quite work, because of her need to stay within the stereotyped parameters of the genre (see Spoler Alert above).
Austen just told it like it was.

PS The time period was never definitively specified, overtly or by historical references. The use of trains and horse-drawn vehicles narrows it somewhat. show less

I rate this as one of Eleanor Hibbert’s best books under her Victoria Holt pseudonym of which I’ve now read all but one.

While some Holt novels take a long time to get into, this one drew me in early and kept me engaged throughout.

The Hunter’s Moon is the full moon in October, so I presumed the story would be predominantly set around this time of year, yet this isn’t the case. In one sense, the Hunter’s Moon plays a small part in the tale in that it’s hardly featured, but in another respect it’s vital to the main character’s life.

Cordelia, the narrator, is a young woman who gets a job teaching at an all-girls’ school. She’s a believable and likable character.

To describe the plot might make it sound boring, but show more it’s far from that. We follow Cordelia during term times and her visits to her aunt, who is an amusing character, as is the aunt’s female friend.

Cordelia’s different relationships with the other characters make for engaging reading.

The author is usually good at creating child characters of all ages, and she does well at bringing to life several teenage girls at the school with their various personalities.

Plot-wise, one thing every Holt novel is let down by is a rushed climax (I should stress that by ‘climax’ I don’t mean the ending, but the culmination of the sinister elements in the plot, which exists in all Holt novels. I liked the ending in this one.) Normally, the heroine will get into a dangerous situation, which is resolved to quickly after a suspenseful build up. In this novel, the heroine isn’t directly involved in the climax. Rather, the lead male character Jason is, so we find out what happens second-hand, which is passive and disappointing. I want drama, not a report.

The only other thing I can criticize in this otherwise enjoyable story is certain passive elements, such as reported speech. For example, ‘I replied that the snow had been restricting but that the girls had enjoyed it,’ would’ve been more vivid and active if it was put into dialogue.

Overall, though, I liked ‘The Time of the Hunter’s Moon’ a great deal and it's one of few Holt novels that I'd gladly read again. show less

I was hoping that Holt was going to surprise me with this one. Have the sensible heroine just marry the very good man that was standing in front of her. Instead we have the fact that the man had affairs and tried to rape the heroine hand-waved away by saying that she is needed in order for him to change. Bah to that noise. I really did like the plot in this one (there were two of them) and the characters were much more developed than I have found in other Holt books. Holt apes a lot of Gothic romance tropes here, but geez Louise I hated the hero in this one. I wanted him to just fall down a hole and die. There was nothing redeeming about the guy.

"The Time of the Hunter's Moon" by Victoria Holt is another Gothic romance I can now check show more off my list. So far the highest rating I have given a Holt book is "Mistress of Mellyn" which I gave five stars.

The main character in this, Cordelia, when we first meet her, is away at a school to "finish herself." She has been raised by her Aunt Patty and is looking forward to the day she is home permanently and can help her aunt run her own school. When Cordelia and her friend come upon a man in the woods, Cordelia is instantly absorbed with thoughts of him. When she finally returns home for the final time after finishing school she runs into him again and starts to think of him romantically. When he disappears without coming back to see her again she wonders what happened to him. However, she finds out that her aunt has to sell their home and Cordelia finds a position at a school which has her forced to interact with a major force in the village. The hero (I say lightly) is named Jason Verringer and he's a typical Gothic hero. Dark and brooding and just terrible. He attempts to rape the heroine at one point, and is literally shocked she cuts herself to get away from him. And then tells her if not for her, he could change. Bah dude. I wished the whole time that something would fall on his head.

Cordelia is sensible and smart and I thought had a lot more fire than the recent batch of Holt heroines I have been reading about prior to this one.

The writing was a little too modernish at times, but I think the book is supposed to take place in the late 1800s. I don't know. Holt doesn't include any references that I can think of at the top of my head that I can use to date the book. The flow was actually pretty good until we get towards the end. Then I think Holt suddenly realized she needed to resolve two plot points and didn't do a great job with either of them.

The ending was not set up very well. We have a mystery finally resolved about one of the male characters we were introduced to earlier in the book, but Holt throws up a couple of paragraphs and counts it as mission accomplished. I noticed with her books she was not that great at tying up loose ends in her books. show less

I read all of Victoria Holt's novels during my pre-teen years before I started high school. YA didn't exist back then. We had Sweet Valley, Babysitters club, etc. but not much to fill the gap from middle school to high school. I forgot some of her books but this one stands out in my mind. I recall mocking the love interest after his attempted rape. "You hate me that much?!?"I read this book no later than 1994 so please don't hold it against me if that scene was in another Holt novel.I had rewritten Jane Eyre scenes back then where Rochester's arm grew back. There was no Edward Cullen to snark on back in the barren waste land of the mid '90s. {Little did I know Angel was just a couple of years away on Buffy to satisfy teen need for silly show more melodrama.] show less

It has been a VERY long time since I've read any Victoria Holt books, but I remember that I loved getting them from the library and this one was no exception. This is one of my favorites! She has a formula that works for a quick light read and I have yet to be disappointed by it. Don't expect to have your mind blown or challenged, but great read for by the pool or on the beach.