The Mask of the Enchantress

In short, this is a good story with missed potential.

Like most Victoria Holt novels, we get lots of suspense and build up, only for the climax to be resolved too soon and too easily.

It’s almost as if the author doesn’t know how to deal with the ‘big bad’ when it arrives, despite her being so good at leading up to serious confrontations. This applies to conflict in general in that she underplays scenes that could’ve been much more dramatic or hard-hitting.

Despite this, ‘The Mask of the Enchantress’ is a pleasant read, with some engaging moments and likeable characters.

I was looking for some light reading, so I remembered having a lot of fun reading Victoria Holt when It was in my teens. This started out as a mildly interesting story with enough momentum to keep you going with it but there are some disturbing characteristic, some overly judgmental tone on the sexual relations and behavior of others, distinct disdain for lower classes and native races. I have read "these people" at least a dozen times in reference to either the villagers, the natives, or the workers of the farm.

If for a moment you step back and consider that this is written from a Victorian era perspective you might be able to ignore these glaring flaws and concentrate on the story. But the story itself was a bit mediocre to my taste, show more the mystery obvious and the characters so starkly painted in black and white. However, it was short enough and eventful enough to keep you going to its conclusion.

Good to pass a few hours and to forget about for later. show less

I love Victoria Holt but I don't like stories with infedelity in them especially when it's deliberate and the characters are knowingly aware that they are doing them. So as much as I wanted to finish this book, unfortunately I had to DNF it. As for this author's writing skills and story-telling skills I still think it's superb. I believe she's the OG of dark gothic romance novels.

A friend sent me a copy of this book, by the extremely prolific Victoria Holt. I read many a Victoria Holt (and her other pen names) in high school. I was a voracious reader even then, but had to adhere to the school policy regarding numbers of books checked out. I'd check out my maximum each week, and then, during study hall, curl up in the stacks with a selection I'd pull from the shelf and put back when the bell rang each day, until that book was done, then pick out another one. Back then, the nom de plumes for Eleanor Hibbert were not widely known. I remember telling my mother that Victoria Holt, Jean Plaidy, and Phillipa Carr all sounded the same though they wrote about different times.

It was fun to re-read an author and a book I show more loved as a teenager. It presents the same innocent kind of romance (despite death and danger) that I find in Georgette Heyer's mysteries (and her regency novels, too.) show less

Read during Fall 2002

Pages and pages of set up so when the real story began there was no time for it. I saw most of the major troubles long before they arrived (guess what happens when you live on a South Sea island with a grumbling volcano?). There was also a disturbing tendency to make the South Sea Islanders sound like the West Indies. First, young Suwellyn lives with dissaproving relatives, occasionally taken on visits by the mysterious Anabel. In a long, long, flashback Anabel tells Suwellyn the entire story of her life and illict love affair with her cousin's husband ending with the murder of his lecherous brother and their escape with daughter to a small island where Joel and Anabel plan a hospital. But, woe, Susannah, Joel's show more other daughter appears, spreading mischief and looking oddly like Suwellyn. The volcano explodes, identies are changed, old wrongs righted, happily ever after, etc. show less

Victoria Holt's books do follow a set pattern (you can normally guess who's going to get killed and which man the heroine will end up with), nevertheless they are still well written and enjoyable.

One of the first "adult" books I ever read, and it hooked me in. I went on to read every Victoria Holt novel, and eventually owned them all.