Showing posts with label Widow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Widow. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

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.


Monday, February 8, 2010

The Devil and Mrs. Devine

The Devil and Mrs. Devine by Josephine Leslie
Cover Art by Lou Marchetti
published by: Pocket Books
Copyright 1974

THE
DEVIL
AND
MRS.
DEVINE

ETERNAL YOUTH ... ETERNAL TORMENTS

Barely out of her teens, winsome Danielle
Davine was already an orphan and a widow.
No man on earth, it seemed, could be to her
what her loving father and handsome young
husband had been. Was she doomed, then, to
wither into joyless old age? "No!" whispered
a strange, uncanny voice, a voice that seemed
to come from nowhere, promising Danielle
perpetual beauty - in exchange for her im-
mortal soul ...

In this tale of romance that spans two centu-
ries, the author of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
tells of one woman's quest for the peace and
salvation that only the greatest love, human
and divine, can bring.

Danielle Devine is not the first twenty year old to dread the thought of withering into "joyless old age". In fact I remember crying about turning 23. But did I listen to a strange uncanny voice offering me perpetual beauty in exchange for my soul? No, of course not. But I can thing of nothing more romantic.

Josephine Leslie seems to have a real obsession with the whole ghost thing. A ghost helping you write a novel is a little less evil than trying to buy your soul but to each their own. This cover is signed by the initials RES but I have had no luck in tracking down any information the possible artist.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

the Beckoning

the Beckoning by Virginia Coffman
published by ACE Books
Copyright 1965


Hatred and Peril
were her nearest neighbors,
beckoning with false
smiles from the turbulent sea on
one side and the treacherous
bogs on the other...

Beautiful, widowed Anne Wicklow though she was fortunate to find employment in the ancient, isolated castle high on an Irish cliff.

Once inside the gloomy castle, Anne discovered that evil walks beside her in the drafty halls-for someone in that strange household was determined to destroy her charge lovely young Maurie, who stood between a murderer and a fortune.

By protecting the girl, Anne put herself in mortal danger. To save her own life she had to uncover a ghastly secret-even if it meant betraying the man she loved.

Assignment: Okay, there is no need to live in such a bad neighborhood. Please go out and do real estate research. School systems aren't the only thing to worry about.