Voices in a Haunted Room

I just finished prior to this two books of the generation two back and I must admit I spent most of the time trying to sort out who was related to who, a task complicated by all the children whose father was not their wives husbands.

Claudine is the heroine and, in this novel, very few other characters get the same starring role. Her sort of partial half cousins are the twins, David and Jonathan. David is quiet, bookish, and good natured. Jonathan is the rakish cad. Claudine spends most of the novel castigating herself for falling for the unpleasant charms of Jonathan and every set piece between them is just awful. Carr has advanced her male characters of this type from being "Take The Woman You Want" to a more subtle flattering seducer show more but the basic character is the same and just as repellant. Unfortunately, the women have also moved on to remorse and self-loathing for either being attracted to these rotten men or some other complicated set of motives never quite spelled out.

Besides the Claudine/Jonathan/David thing, there are about 200 side plots that are not hard to follow and not very interesting and leading to a very Victoria Holt style crazed killer type ending. Plus, there is always the French Revolution in case you get bored!

I'll advance a few generations in the next book of the series I haven't read but my desire to go back and read these all in order is rapidly diminishing. show less

Like the previous book in the series, we have a plodding narrative with little action and lots of repetition. The repetition in this case occurs between Claudine – the narrator – and Jonathon, who’s Claudine’s step-brother, brother-in-law, and lover all rolled into one. They have the same type of conversation every time they meet, which grows more annoying each time.

I also feel that certain themes from this story – adultery and the heroine not marrying the man she desires most – are repeated from the previous two books. This shows a lack of originality.

Some quality scenes emerge in places, though they often wind-up too quickly. Without giving the ending away, I’ll just state that I liked it, but the ‘danger’ element show more was over too quickly, as it is in every other book I’ve read by this author, be it as Carr, Holt, or Plaidy.

Of the characters, I rate Dickon as the strongest creation. He stars in the previous two books, but unfortunately, he isn’t featured as prominently in this one.

In short, this is an average volume in the Daughters of England series. show less