Eight Candles Glowing - a Ballantine gothic

Here's another gothic novel I picked up based on the cover.  This one does not have the typical woman running away from a dark mansion in the background; rather, it has a frightened woman, half-turned, looking back at a mysterious, ghostly bride coming down the stairs in the candle light.  This imagery caught my eye for a couple of reasons:  (1) it made me instantly think of Dark Shadows, the gothic television show, when Victoria Winters saw the ghost of Josette DuPres; and (2) it also reminded me of one of Paul Frame's illustrations from the Nancy Drew Ghost Stories published back in the 1980s.  Nevertheless, that gorgeous cover conveys a frightening scene that piqued my curiosity about the story itself - and once I saw on the back description that the story was set in the Florida keys, well, I knew I had to have it.

Eight Candles Glowing is written by Patricia Muse, who, as it turns out, is an actual person and not just a pseudonym.  And what's even more coincidental is the fact that Patricia Alice Muse, from what I could find in my research, was born in Indiana (just above my birth-state of Kentucky!) and moved to Florida as an adult, where she was a substitute teacher in Key West, Florida from 1962-1968 (having obtained her post-graduate studies later at the University of Central Florida).  One source indicated that Muse herself admitted she never thought about being a writer until a close childhood cousin passed away unexpectedly, and she wrote her first book after that (a gothic titled The Belle Claudine, published five years prior to this book).  The author admits she used her cousin's summer home as the setting for that book.  Thus, it should come as no surprise, then, that this book is set in the Florida keys, where Muse herself spent nearly a decade teaching.  Other than Eight Candles Glowing and The Belle Claudine, the only other book I can find attributed to Muse is one titled Sound of Rain.

 

And yes, before you say it, the title to this book does bring to mind a certain Christmas carol (eight candles glowing, seven spirits floating, six creepy houses, etc., etc.).  But this book has nothing to do with Christmas; it is set in the summer.  The protagonist, Jessamyn ("Jess") Jenkins, is a teacher who has started her summer break and has gone to Key West for some rest and relaxation. During a terrible storm, she inadvertently ends up being washed to an isolated island just off the keys, where a bearded man by the name of Reeve Carstairs lives with his son, Tal, his brother-in-law, Adam, and Adam's wife, Becky.  The island is teeming with fauna, and what appears to be a dilapidated house from the outside is actually rather comfortable and well-kept on the inside.  Reeve and Becky treat the injuries Jess sustained during the storm, and when Reeve discovers Jess is a teacher, he asks her to stay on the island for the summer to help teach Tal, who had difficulties at the school this last year.  Oddly enough, despite the isolation and despite the strange behavior of everyone on the island, Jess agrees (which she really was not given much of a choice, since Reeve took her boat back to the mainland before Jess had a chance to wake up!).

Muse does provide a rather dark and supernatural-themed tale of loss, love, and anger as Jess tries to navigate through this very dysfunctional family.  Reeve's emotions run hot and cold - one minute he appears to genuinely love his son and care about Jess, but the next he seems distant and cold towards them both.  Tal begins to warm up to Jess, but he has his own anger issues and turns on Jess without any notice.   Becky seems the most friendly, but that is not saying much, because every time she seems about to tell Jess what is really going on, she clams up and walks away.  And Adam.  Well, poor Adam pretty much just stays in the background, gets a quick mention once-in-a-while, and is never really a part of the story.  And we can't finish talking about the "characters" without talking about the house itself - in this book, the house is definitely a character.  There's that door off of the living room that stays locked; yet, Jess is sure she hears someone moving around in there and has seen a light on behind the curtained window.  There's also that disembodied voice that begs Jess to "help him," which she hears coming from somewhere up the stairs.  And there's that ever-present feeling of someone else in the room, but when she turns around or opens the door, no one is there.  Is it really all in her imagination, as Reeve and Becky suggest, or is there something more sinister going on in that house?

There is a rather intense scene about two-thirds of the way through the story when Tal takes Jess to a hidden cover on the far side of the island in order to go scuba diving.  While exploring a sunken ship, the two of them encounter a shark that follows them back to their small boat - and when they struggle to get aboard as fast as they can, Tal's dog jumps in the water to stave off the shark!  Well, you can imagine how well that goes for the dog.  Muse is not overly descriptive, but definitely provides enough that it breaks your heart - and before you think the incident is merely thrown in to add some horror to the tale, think again.  There is a purpose to what happens, as it is actually the beginning of Jess finally learning the truth of what is going on within the Carstairs' house.  I mean, after all, she did find a couple of graves, one of which was marked with "Reeve Carstairs," leaving her to wonder just who was the man keeping her captive (and with whom she was beginning to fall in love)?

The cover art is a frighteningly beautiful image painted by Boris Vallejo, based on the signature on the bottom right-hand corner of the cover.  Vallejo is a Peruvian-American painter who is most recognized for his science-fiction and fantasy art.  I was not aware he did cover art for gothic titles such as this until I picked up this book.  It is stunning work, and it definitely sets the tone for the book.  I will say, the further I got into the book and did not come across any scene matching the cover, I was beginning to think this was another instance where the publisher simply threw art onto a book without worrying whether it actually fit the story (as a number of gothic publishers did at the time).  However, the scene does eventually appear, and when it does, the title to the book will also make sense to the reader!

As I indicated above, the cover drew me to the book because it not only made me think of Dark Shadows, but more because it resembled an internal illustration from the Nancy Drew Ghost Stories, drawn by Paul Frame.  Both scenes depict a woman in a white dress coming down the stairs; both scenes depict a young woman turning back to look at the ghostly woman; and both scenes appear to be set in a well-to-do house.  I suppose it would make sense that more modern Nancy Drew stories would be inspired by the gothic tales, since the early Nancy Drew stories featured so many gothic elements - stormy nights, hidden staircases, damsels in distress, unscrupulous men who pretend to be good, secret rooms, and countless "jump scares."  Since Eight Candles Glowing came out more than four years prior to the Paul Frame illustration, one can wonder if Frame took a cue from Vallejo's art in creating this scene for the Nancy Drew book.  Regardless, both images of art are beautiful in their own merit.

Now, for as much as I enjoyed the story, there are a couple of things worth mentioning that made me realize even back in the '70s, editing made its fair share of gaffs (although today, there seems to be no editing at all in books hitting the shelves!).  Once instance occurs on page 59, where Jess is apologizing to Becky for putting her through so much work to help her recuperate.  Muse writes, "Becky grunted, a reproachful grunt, as if Jeff shouldn't say such things..."  Who in the world is Jeff, and where did he come from?  Obviously, that was intended to be Jess, but someone's fingers slipped on the typewriter (or printing plate) and hit the "f" instead of the "s" key!  The other snafu can be found on page 86, where it appears something happened with the typesetting, and the paragraphs were scrambled:

He stopped her.  "You know what I mean!" He pushed his chair back from the table and moved his

"Becky will do that later!" it was a command she

plate aside.

"It's a long story, Tal," she said, gathering u their dishes and starting for the door.

stopped in surprise.

As you can see, the lines somehow got jumbled ... line three should have actually followed after that first line; and line five should have followed after line two.  Reading them as they got printed, however, can be very confusing to say the least!  I suppose as quickly as the publishers were pushing out those gothic books back in the day, it was inevitable that errors such as this would slip through the cracks.

Nevertheless, the story was a good one, the protagonist was a young woman worth rooting for, and the mystery was dark enough with the right amount of supernatural hints to it to keep it interesting and intriguing.  Plus, it was set in Florida, so it was an all-around win-win!

RATING:  9 rustling palm fronds out of 10 for a gothic tale of island suspense and locked-room mystery.