The Master of Blue Mire and The Yellow Gold of Tiryns

The Master of Blue Mire

by Virginia Coffman

published by Dell Books

Copyright 1971

When lovely young Livia Roy was sent by Captain Nicholas Brandon to the isolated manor of Blue Mire, she was warned that the two Brandon children might seem strange, their minds still affected by the mysterious violent death of their beautiful mother.

But nothing could have prepared Livia for the hate in her youthful charges' eyes - or the growing signs they were in league with the evil that seemed to haunt this accursed mansion where so many already had died. Could these angelic-looking children be spawns of Satan? And if they were, what kind of man then was their father, handsome and dashing Nicholas Brandon, who Livia so helplessly loved and desperately feared? ...

I am sure you will agree that this book description has all sorts of awesome going on with it. We have our heroine who is not only lovely, but young. - Who would have thought! - We also have her new employer and lord of the manor Captain Brandon - We will just drop the Nicholas so we can pretend a loose association with Jane Austen to hopefully help the WRFH genre gain a little residual respect. - and we have evil young children. 

I for one have a handful of evil children at home and personally I go out of my way to avoid mentioning that they might seem strange or their questionable evil Satan pedigree when looking for a sitter but baby-sitting gigs were probably harder to snag back in the day.

One last thought. Am I the only one who has the fact that Livia helplessly loves and desperately fears Captain Brandon setting off all kinds of warning bells?

I have also received this awesome cover from John in California. This cover for The Yellow Gold of Tiryns besides being very cool has the distinction of being one of the rare Strange Dude On the Cover covers that I have so few of. It also appears from my research, and PLEASE let me know if I this is incorrect, that the cover for this edition was actually illustrated by the book's author Helena Osborne.

In the process of trying to locate the illustration information, I have also stumbled across this alternate cover for a later edition.

My thanks go out to John for sharing!

The Silent Place

The Silent Place by Rachel Cosgrove Payes
Cover Art by George Gross
published by: Ace Books
Copyright 1969

There was just one more year to wait
before Rome Barclay would be officially a
widower and free to remarry. Though
his wife Suzanne had drowned six years
before, her body had never been recovered.
His secretary, Paulette, was waiting out
the time with eagerness. But then so
was lovely Fiona, his little girl's governess.

But then Suzanne came back to Cliffhouse,
not remembering her past, her identity a
mystery to herself but to no one else. Everyone
in the isolated coastal estate had a reason
for wishing her gone again - permanently.

But whose reason was the most desperate?

And how many women would have to die
in the Silent Place before Cliffhouse could
be at peace again?

Hooray! We have a signed cover here. George Gross was born in 1909 Brooklyn to Jewish immigrant parents from Szeged, Hungary. Art ran in the family. His father attended Pratt and became a successful artist in the fashion industry, running his own art studio - Fashion Paper.

After graduating high school, George also attended Pratt, graduating in 1931 even while working within his father's studio. Later he moved on to Fiction House where he soon became a top illustrator, painting hundreds of pulp covers for Action Stories, Detective Book Magazine, North West Romances and many more.

After barely missing serving WW2 due to a life long vision impairment in his right eye. he began to sell freelance illustration to paperback books for publishers such as Dell, Bantam and Ace Books.

His work can be seen on hundreds of fiction book covers and men's magazines. If you are interested in learning more about George Gross take a look at the "Guide to the Wild American Pulp Artist" listed in my Artist Resource Links.

Below are just a few examples of his other illustrations.

Bellwood

Bellwood by Elisabeth Ogilvie
published by Dell Books
Copyright 1968

AT FIRST CAROLINE ASKED NO QUESTIONS...

Bellwood seemed too good to be
true when lovely Caroline Brew-
ster took up her post as governess
at the isolated mansion on the
great cliff overlooking the sea.

Her young charge, Tim, though
crippled, was delightfully alive.
The landscape was dreamlike. And
above all, there was the darkly
handsome master, Rees Morgan.

Caroline was sure she could help
this proud and lonely man forget
the horrible death of his wife, ease
the torture in his eyes, stop his
strange, savage outbursts of rage.
Too late Caroline realized that
Bellwood held a secret that
cursed all who dwelled (sic) ther, and
there was no escape...

We have a three choices here. Caroline is either wearing her schoolmarm get-up, a sexy nightgown in hopes of seducing Rees Morgan, or a cheap wedding dress with a elastic waistband.

While white is great for helping to camouflage chalk dust and on a governess's salary an economical wedding dress maybe the only option, I am voting for seduction-wear.

What woman wouldn't go to any length to secure herself the darkly handsome master of a mansion. Especially if he has tortured eyes and has savage outbursts of rage. The later of which was nothing what-so-ever to do with the horrible death of his wife. Nothing.

Remember there isn't a character defect in the world that really loving a man can't fix.