Victoria Winters - the 2nd Paperback Library Gothic Novel based on ABC-TV's suspense drama (Dark Shadows)

I am having a thrilling time re-reading these Dark Shadows novels from the late '60s (which continued into the early '70s, well past the end of the television show).  It has been so many years since I originally read them, it is like I am reading them again for the first time.  And the author, W.E.D. Ross (writing under his most popular pseudonym, Marilyn Ross) does a pretty decent job with the characterization, capturing some of the nuances the actors instilled in the characters on TV.  I especially like the fact that these early books, like the early episodes of the TV show, focused on Victoria Winters, as she was by far my favorite character from the show.  Thankfully, Ross manages to instill her a bit more strength and awareness than she was given by the writers on the daytime soap.  It breathes a little more life into her, and definitely makes me love the character all the more!

 

Victoria Winters is the second book in the series, and the story picks up some months after the events in the first book (which depicted Victoria's arrival, her meeting the Collins' clan, her romance with Ernest Collins, and the terrifying events that led to Ernest leaving for an indefinite period of time).  Now, as summer has arrived, Carolyn and David are gone on a vacation, leaving Victoria behind to act as a personal assistant to Elizabeth Collins Stoddard.  The Collins' attorney, Will Grant, is still around (still trying to woo Victoria), and we meet his sister, Nora, with whom Victoria has developed a close friendship.  Burke Devlin makes a few quick appearances in this novel, and Matthew Morgan is his usual grumpy self.  Roger Collins continues to be the ultimate spoiled playboy.  The new characters who are introduced in this book are Paul Caine, a visiting artist who takes an instant liking to Victoria, as well as Henry Francis and his two daughters - the gorgeous Rachel Francis (who becomes entangled with Roger) and the invalid Dorothy (who is recovering from major brain surgery and is confined to a wheelchair in a near catatonic state).  It turns out Henry was an old classmate of Elizabeth's back in the day, so she welcomes the man and his daughters into her home unlike she would anyone else.  And now, with all the characters in place, the mystery unfolds...

 

 One might recall in the first book, it turned out Ernest's first wife did not really die as everyone believed, but was being kept secreted away in the dark halls of Collins House, as she had gone mad. It was revealed that she had murdered a woman Ernest had later fallen in love with - Stella Hastings, and she would have killed Victoria as well, if fate had not intervened.  Well, it seems that story was not quite over, as Victoria begins to see the face and ghostly apparition of a woman who she eventually finds out is none other than Stella Hastings!  Did the woman not die, as everyone thought?  Or was her spirit haunting the house where she had been killed?  As Victoria tries to figure this mystery out, she must also fend off a would-be killer, someone who is following in the footsteps of the silk-scarf strangler who Henry Francis tells her killed several woman back in Pennsylvania.  Did the killer follow the Francis family to Collinsport, stalking Henry's daughter?  Is Victoria simply another in a long-line of victims?  Or is there something much more sinister going on in the Collins' great house?  

 

We spend a bit more time outside of Collinwood (or Collins House, as Ross repeatedly refers to it) in this book.  Victoria and Nora head into Collinsport on several occasions, frequenting the Blue Whale, as well as Will Grant's office and the general store and post office.  Victoria and Nora also spend some time on the beach - after all, it is summer.  These interludes are nice reminders that there is an entire world within the Dark Shadows mythos, and the characters are not limited to the great house. It is also nice to see that Burke Devlin continues to make his brief appearances.  This book has a first printing date of March 1967, and by that point in the television show, viewers were treated to the final revelations regarding the mystery surrounding Mr. Devlin and his animosity towards Roger Collins.  Fans were also in the middle of the story where BIll Malloy is murdered and the phoenix, Laura Collins (David's mother and Roger's ex-wife!) shows up to claim her son.  While there are passing references in the books to Roger's ex-wife, there are no details given, and from what I can recall, the books never actually address who she is or her supernatural essence.

 

Ross once again gives strong hints at the supernatural, with the ghostly appearances of Stella Hastings, but as with your standard Gothic tale from this period, the haunting is explained away with real-world circumstances (in this instance, a look-alike who is mistaken for Stella).  Each of the continuing characters (Elizabeth, Roger, Will) are still exhibiting odd quirks and mood shifts that hint at secrets being withheld from poor Victoria, leading one to understand that Ross was likely hedging his bets, keeping their actions mysterious, yet not direct, so that if anything major was revealed on the television show, he could incorporate it into his stories.  I do like that he keeps Victoria true to form, in that she is not a Nancy Drew-type mystery solver, but rather, someone who seems to fall into these situations and is forced to go along for the ride until they resolve themselves.  I laughed at one line in the book, where Victoria was overwhelmed, and she realizes "[s]he had reached the stage where things when on around her and she simply sat in a kind of daze and allowed them to happen" (p. 100).  Many fans would say that is a pretty accurate description of how Victoria was always written on the TV show.  Thankfully, Ross does give her a bit more fortitude, so that even as she is forced into these situations, she has the mental acuity to reason things out.

 

As with the first book, this novel featured two different covers.  The first, which appeared on the early printings, was a painted cover (above), showing Victoria, in her overcoat, running away from Collins House.  This scene is taken from early promotional photos for the show, which shows Alexandra Moltke in that same position (also above).  For later printings, Paperback Library reprinted the book using a still photo from the television show, once again with Alexandra Moltke as Victoria and Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins.  As Barnabas did not make his first appearance on the show until April 18, 1967, a month after this book was initially released, and considering his character does not appear in the story at all, I find is somewhat misleading that the later printings used such a photo.  No doubt, Paperback was simply cashing in on Barnabas' popularity (since, by the time these books were reprinted, Barnabas had gained his success on the show, and the books were featuring Barnabas as their principal character).  Still, there were plenty of images of Victoria with other characters that do appear in the stories, which the publisher could have used.  Unless, of course, it was a mandate from Dan Curtis Productions, in which case, they would not have had much of a choice in the matter.

 

 This second book definitely takes the story of Victoria Winters further away from the direction she was written in the television show, and as such, it makes for some great reading.  These are new and unique stories, a "parallel time" of sorts, and it is a shame Ross was forced to write Victoria Winters out when she left the show.  This forum would have been the perfect place to reveal Victoria's true parentage, the one mystery that never got solved on any version of the television show (although, for the 1990's remake, that question was answered in Innovation Comics' Dark Shadows' comic book series, which picked up where the TV show ended and ultimately revealed Victoria really was Elizabeth's daughter...)

 

Only 30 books left to read in the ongoing saga of the Collins family!

 

RATING:  10 tiny silver earrings shaped like a leaf out of 10 for great Gothic suspense and ghoulish ghostly scares, with some well-written misdirects to keep the twist ending (somewhat) a surprise!

Dark Shadows - the 1st Paperback Library Gothic Novel based on ABC-TV's suspense drama

It has been so many years since I first read these Dark Shadows series of novels based on the television soap opera from the 1960s and '70s, that I decided it was time to go back and re-read them.  While I remember them being different from the show itself, I did not recall just how different.  The series was published by Paperback Library, with this first book being released in December 1966, nearly six months after the premier of the television show in June 1966.  The series continued for 32 books, not including the novelization of the House of Dark Shadows film, as well as the Barnabas Collins in a Funny Vein, Dark Shadows Cookbook, Book of Vampires and Werewolves and Jonathan Frid Photo Album.  The last five books in the series were published after the TV show went off the air.  While my favorite character, Victoria Winters, features heavily in the early books, when she was written out of the show, the book series followed suit (and, sadly, neither the television show, nor the book series, resolved the mystery surrounding Victoria's true parentage!).

 

Dark Shadows is the aptly titled first book in the series and provides readers with a very different version of Victoria Winters' arrival in Collinsport, Maine and her introduction to the Collins family.  The backstory remains the same - Victoria was raised in a foundling home, money was sent for years from Bangor from a mysterious, unnamed benefactor, and Victoria is offered a position at Collinwood (referred to as Collins House in the book) as governess for the young David Collins.  There is even a scene where Victoria meets Maggie Evans briefly, although in the book, Maggie is not quite as negative about the Collins family. Here, the story deviates, as Victoria takes a taxi up to Collinwood, but on the way, the taxi has a flat tire (in the show, Victoria is unable to get a taxi, because she is told the only taxi in town has a flat).  Along comes the Collins' family attorney, Will Grant, who helps get the tire fixed, and Victoria is soon brought to Collinwood, where the first person she encounters is an entirely new character, never mentioned in the television show!

 

Ernest Collins is Elizabeth and Roger's cousin (there is no definite explanation of how they are related; however, since he bears the name Collins, it can only be assumed his father and Roger and Elizabeth's father are brothers - unless the "cousin" is merely a casual reference, and they are actually more distantly related), and he surprises Victoria when he grabs her unexpectedly, only, as it turns out, to save her from stepping onto the rotting wood covering an old well.  Ernest is a concert violinist who has returned to live at the Collins' house after suffering some devastating losses - the death of his first wife, as well as the death of a young woman with whom he was becoming close in Collinsport.  Victoria has sympathy for him, but she soon learns Ernest has some dark secrets, and it's quite possible the death of the young woman was not an accident!  Is he mad, having had an emotional break after his wife died, or is there something else going on?

 

While Victoria tries to sort out her feelings for and thoughts about Ernest Collins, she must also deal with the secrets of the rest of the family.  She is warned that David is a "monster" and very difficult to handle, but she soon learns that his problem stems from his anger at being taken away from his mother.  When she broaches the issue with Roger and Elizabeth, she is told it is not her concern and to stay out of it.  As far as Roger is concerned, Victoria experiences his alcohol-induced womanizing first hand and must forcefully assert herself to him in order to avoid his advances.  With regard to Elizabeth, the woman is stern and secretive, clearly hiding something she had hidden in the basement of the great house (which,, I'm guessing, was taken from the whole mystery in the television show surrounding the disappearance of Paul Stoddard that left Elizabeth a recluse for eighteen years), and she is so quick to write off the mysterious happenings in the house, even going so far as to blame young David, even when Victoria knows the boy is innocent!  It seems Carolyn is the only "normal" person in the family, but even she has her moments, leaving Victoria to wonder.

 

The story throws in a number of nearly supernatural moments, when Victoria hears horrific scratching noises, sees moving shadows, and is frightened by a horrific mask in her room.  It all culminates in a dark, stormy night when the terrifying secret that has been haunting the house makes its presence known, and Victoria faces a life-and-death situation as everything (well, related to this story, anyhow) comes to light and a specter of the past comes back to seek revenge!  The author, W.E.D. Ross writing under the pseudonym of Marilyn Ross, does a fantastic job of building the suspense throughout the story, but as with most of his Gothic tales, the climax always happens a little too quickly, wrapping up usually in a few pages in the final chapter.  William Edward Daniel Ross (1912-1995) was known for the plethora of Gothic novels he wrote under various pseudonyms - Marilyn Ross, Clarissa Ross, Dana Ross, Leslie Ames, and others.  The Dark Shadows series was the longest series of Gothics that he wrote.

 

The book is thoroughly enjoyable in spite of (or maybe because of?) its deviation from the plotlines in the television show; yet, there are some glaring errors in the book that really stand out.  For instance, Elizabeth's daughter, Carolyn, is referred to as "Caroline" (p. 11), with even Carolyn referring to her name with that spelling (p. 34).  In addition, Victoria is told to stay away from the east wing, as it is closed off and in disrepair (p. 73); but, in the TV show, it as the west wing that was closed off and alleged to be haunted.  What I found even more surprising, however, is when Carolyn convinces Victoria to join her at The Blue Whale, Joe Haskell sits down at the table with them, placing three beers on the table - which they all drink (p. 88)!  Carolyn is only seventeen, and Victoria not much older - so Joe was basically serving alcohol to underage girls (as the drinking age in Maine at that time was 21 years old).  Some things did stay true to the show (at least, at that time), such as Elizabeth's reference to Jeremiah Collins as her great-grandfather (p. 23), which matches what she says in the second episode of the television show.  There is also a reference to Isaac Collins as being the one who founded Collinsport (p. 26), although the book indicates he arrived prior to the Mayflower, which is inaccurate - the Mayflower landed in 1620, and Isaac Collins did not arrive until 1690.

 

The book has two covers.  The first is a painted scene featuring Victoria Winters holding tight to her overcoat, with the wind blowing, while behind her is the stately house of Collinwood, the moon shining overheard.  The bare tree branches around Victoria give the scene a sense of loneliness and foreboding.  Later printings of the book featured a photo still from the television show, oddly enough showing Victoria (as portrayed by Alexendra Moltke) standing next to Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), who is not even in the book - in fact, at the time the book was first published, his character did not even exist!  Most likely, Paperback Library was simply trying to cash in on Barnabas' popularity in the later years, so covers were re-issued with his image on them to increase sales.

 

A good start to an alternate timeline for the series (and let's face it, the television show did plenty of altering its timelines - with trips to the past and the future, and even trips to parallel time!).

 

RATING:  10 bent steering rods out of 10 for offering fans of the television show some different takes on the same characters they had come to love! 

Harlequin Gothic Romance Series No. 32012 - Castle Malice

"The bizarre incidents kept mounting until she had no choice but to unmask the source of evil" (cover blurb)

 

This 12th novel in the Harlequin Gothic Romance series is the second and final volume written by Marilyn Ross (W.E.D. Ross).  While his last novel was set in the 19th Century, this book is set in the present.  Further, both the story and the cover art are a strong reminder just how much these Gothic tales are like reading grown-up Nancy Drew mysteries - dark, foreboding mansions, hidden passages, repeated attacks on the protagonist, and long-kept secrets that must be uncovered before the heroine can find her happily-ever-after.  Thankfully, Ross knows how to write a strong protagonist that does not easily fall under the spell of the men around her and who can think for herself (although, let's face it, she ultimately winds up in a desperate and dangerous situation by the end that reveals the true villain of the story!), which makes for great stories.

 

Castle Malice is the tale of another young heiress who inherits a fortune from a distant relative and must travel to Europe to claim her bequest.   As with so many Gothic tales that have come before, that distant relative died under mysterious circumstances, the house our protagonist is to inherit comes with dark secrets, and someone is determined to get the heroine out of the way in order to take the property for themselves!  In this case, Trudy Stone, a young woman from New York, travels all the way to a small village on the Italian Riveria after receiving a letter from her aunt's attorney informing her that her Aunt Julia passed away, and Trudy is her only heir.  But she arrives by train to the lonely station (gee, sounds very much like poor Victoria Winters from Ross' other series of novels) to be met not by the attorney as she expected, but by Dr. Carl Redman, who whisks her away to the home of his employer, Benson Steiburn, and his lovely daughter, Sylvia - whose grand castle (known as "Castle Malice" by the townspeople because of its horrid past) is located right next to the villa Trudy is to inherit.  She soon meets their other neighbor, aging actress Lena Morel and the young reporter who is penning her biography, Tom Clarendon, as well as Adrian Romitelli, a con man who everyone says was taking advantage of Trudy's aunt.  With all of these characters, the stage is set for a deadly mystery to be played out...

 

As always, Ross manages to build up the suspense as Trudy finds some very strange things are happening at Castle Malice.  First, she awakens to find the likeness of her dead aunt's face on the pillow next to her; then, she comes face to face with ghostly masked swordsman that supposedly haunts the castle; next, she is locked in an underground tunnel that connects the castle to her aunt's villa; later, she is nearly killed as she chased down the stairs of the villa and chocked by the swordsman; and at a town festival, she finds herself trapped in an alley, facing certain death at the hands of a cloaked madman.  All of these "foibles," so to speak, could easily be seen in a Nancy Drew mystery novel, just perhaps with the threat-level lessened a bit.  But, like Nancy, Trudy fights back and refuses to be intimidated by the masked man.  She does not believe in ghosts, and she knows that a living, breathing human is behind all of her attacks.  In fact, she realizes whoever is after her is likely the same person that killed her aunt, anxious to get their hands on her inheritance - you see, her aunt did not outright bequeath Trudy her great fortune; rather, she merely gave it to her while she lives, and upon Trudy's death, it passes to another.  The only problem is, that "other" heir is unknown, as it is sealed in a second Will that cannot be opened until Trudy's death.  Which leaves everyone wondering - who inherits after Trudy?

 

It's a great mystery, and readers will likely go back and forth (like Trudy does in the story) trying to figure out who is the one with enough reason to get rid of our poor protagonist.  Is it Mr. Steiburn, who wants to tear down the villa and build a museum to house all of his art treasures?  Is it Adrian, who willingly admits he was Julia's friend and confidante solely for the money she gave him?  Is it Carl, who shows Trudy attention, while at the same time seems to have a love affair going on with the very married Sylvia?  Is it Lena, who claims to have been Julia's best friend, yet was completely left out of the deceased woman's Will?  Or is it Tom, who has no money of his own and who everyone believes has latched onto the aging actress solely to get the money from writing her story?  All of them have motives, all of them have means, and all of them seem to have opportunity with each incident - until Trudy learns that one of them did NOT have opportunity, and perhaps she has been trusting the wrong people.  And when that one person turns up dead of a supposed suicide, Trudy realizes she is next!

 

Unfortunately, like his last book, Ross builds up the story, gets you completely involved in the characters and plot, and then, instead of a very dramatic revelation at the end and a page-turning final battle, Ross wraps up the story in just four short pages, with very little climax at all.  It is somewhat disappointing that the endings to his stories feel so rushed, when the rest of his work is so engaging.

 

I would be remiss if I did not point out Ross' obvious Easter Egg to his most popular series.  I think in pretty much every book he wrote, Ross manages to weave in the phrase "dark shadows" (which fans easily identify as his most recognizable works, based on the 1960s television show), and he does not fail with this one.  In this case, it is in Trudy's dreams, as she has a sleep "filled with gliding phantoms and abrupt appearances of the masked swordsman from out of dark shadows" (p.166). 

 

The cover artist is not identified, but the scene is taken from pages 54-55, where Trudy is exploring the underground tunnel and gets trapped within the dark maze after someone locks her in there.  The artist manages to capture Trudy's fear nicely, and even accurately depicts her wearing the "light blue cotton-knit dress that was flattering to her blond good looks" (p. 54).  The scene could also easily be translated over to a Nancy Drew book (The Hidden Staircase, perhaps, or Old Attic, or even Blackwood Hall).  In fact, comparing this with Rudy Nappi's art on The Clue of the Dancing Puppet (published in 1962), Trudy here seems to be a mirror version of Nancy from that cover!

 

This is the first Harlequin Gothic to list the author's other works in the series in the front, just opposite the title page (identifying book 11, Shadows Over Briarcliff as other "Books by Marilyn Ross" in the line of Harlequin Gothic Romance titles.  The book also has a dedication by Ross to his "good friends Dot and Bill Swangren."  Research reveals a rather unexpected Nancy Drew connection, as Dorothy "Dot" Swangren was, at one point, a secretary at Wellesley College - which, coincidentally enough, is the very same college from which Harriet Stratemeyer Adams graduated back in 1914!  And fans of Nancy Drew are well aware of the Stratemeyer connection to that series, which reminds us that this truly is a very small world, after all!

 

RATING:  8 battered red clown hats out of 10 for a great mystery filled with plenty of twists, proving Ross is a master at Gothic suspense.

Harlequin Gothic Romance Series No. 32011 - Shadows Over Briarcliff

"Her visit vividly brought back the unhappy past - and with it an unknown evil presence..." (cover blurb)

 

I finally reached the first entry into this series by Marilyn Ross (a/k/a W.E.D. Ross, best known for his series of Dark Shadows novels based on the successful television show of the '60s and '70s, as well as his countless other Gothic novels written under various pseudonyms).  Ross wrote a number of series (the Dark Shadows tie-in novels, the Fog Island series, the Dark Harbor series, and others), but he also wrote a few books in various other Gothic series, such as the Birthstone Gothics for Beagle Books, as well as the Gothic Romance line for Harlequin.  This is the first of only two books that Ross wrote for the Harlequin line, and while he captures the Gothic feel of the story perfectly, the ending was somewhat of a disappointment.

 

Shadows Over Briarcliff (I suppose he had to sneak the work "Shadows" in there somehow, eh?) is set in 1884 and features a rather dark mystery surrounding the death of the main character's sister. Jessica Rice's sister, Ann, married well when she wed Stephen Briar.  But something was amiss, and when Jessica leaves London to visit her sister at the somewhat isolated Briarcliff manor, she can sense her sister is worried about something.  Before she can uncover the truth, there is a horrific carriage accident, and Jessica awaks to learn that her sister plunged into the ocean, her body never recovered and presumed to have been washed out with the tide.  Jessica returns home, ultimately leaving her unscrupulous guardians and moving in with a friend's family who help her regain the wealth her guardians had been stealing.  A note soon arrives from her brother-in-law, asking her to come back to Briarcliff, as he was still grieving Ann's death.  Jessica decides to make the trip, but she soon discovers there is evil awaiting her at Briarcliff!

 

In true Gothic fashion, Ross weaves a tale of intrigue, secrets, and possible ghosts that will leave you guessing at the truth.  Is Stephen's stepmother conspiring to regain control of Briarcliff taken from her when Stephen's father died?  Is the neighbor's daughter plotting to marry the grieving widower in the hopes of becoming the new mistress of Briarcliff?  Is Stephen, himself, looking to remove anything and anyone that might reveal the truth about his indiscretions?  Is Adrian Swift, the son of Stephen's stepmother and a flippant gambler, causing problems as a way of getting even with Stephen?  Or is it something far more sinister and far more supernatural - has Ann's spirit returned to the world of the living to stop Jessica from becoming involved with her former husband?   Plenty of questions, plenty of motives, and plenty of suspects ... but so few answers ...

 

The story follows poor Jessica as she must not only cope with her sister's death and Stephen's grief, as well as her own growing attraction to her sister's husband - but she must also face the various attempts to scare, injure, and even kill her.  Plus, there are the mysterious appearances of a ghostly woman in a shawl, wearing the same perfume that Ann wore.  Is her sister's spirit really come back from the grave, or is someone simply trying to make Jessica think that so she will leave Briarcliff and never look back.  

 

There can be no doubt that Ross knows how to build suspense and tension (he certainly had plenty of practice!).  Unfortunately, he spends so long building up the mystery that when the resolution comes, it is a bit of a let down.  For 200 pages of great Gothic storytelling, Ross resolves the mystery, has Jessica face off against her adversary, and gives her a happily-ever-after all within the last four pages of the book!  I don't recall ever seeing a story wrapped up in such a short amount of pages before - I would have preferred to see a more dramatic confrontation, with lots of dramatic fighting and scares before the truth is revealed and the villain ultimately vanquished.  I think this is the first Harlequin Gothic that did not give me full satisfaction with the read, which is surprising, since Ross is one of my favorite authors.

 

The cover art, depicting the scene where Jessica awaits to not only smell the scent of her dead sister's perfume, but also finds one of her sister's handkerchiefs on the floor (p. 99), was pained by Len Goldberg (a/k/a Leonard M. Goldberg), who also provided the cover art for two prior Harlequin Gothics:  Castle at Jade Cove and The Blue House. A superb artist, Goldberg is an expert at capturing terrified expressions on the faces of his women, and it's almost a shame he did not provide the covers for all the books in this series!

 

The next book in the series is also by Ross, so we will see what that holds in store...

 

RATING:  8 large carriages careening off the side of a cliff out of 10 for a psychologically thrilling tale of ghosts, mystery, suspense, and moments of terror!