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!

A Shadow on the House

A Shadow on the House by Florence Stevenson
published by Signet Books
Copyright 1975

FAME, FORTUNE, ROMANCE -
OR TERROR IN A MANSION OF DOOM ...?

The concert at the magnificent Fowler mansion was to be
the beginning of a long and success-filled career for
lovely, young opera singer Leila MacKenzie. But when her
chaperone fell ill, Leila was forced to remain with her as
an unwilling guest of the Fowlers, mournfully watching
the opera company move on without her.

Yet almost before she knew it, Leila found herself caught
up in a new life - a life and love centered around
George Fowler, the handsome master of the mansion.
Even when she learned his dread family secret and the
tragic destiny of the other women in his life, Leila was not
afraid. It was not until the ancient curse began to work
that Leila understood the true meaning of fear and
the horror of the fate from which even George might not
be able to save her ...

Ah, once again we have another dumb girl with more time to kill than common sense.

I am willing to admit that we ALL have secrets. I, for one, would never want any of my business clients to know that I spend my spare time blogging about bad romance novels, comic books and View-Masters under the name Spectergirl. But it is always a good rule of thumb to NEVER pursue a romance with anyone who has a "family secret". It almost assuredly will have something to do with some sort of Wilbur Whately recessive gene, Hitler or cross-dressing (and not in a good Tim Currey kind of way).

Terror? A mansion of doom? Even the advertisers weren't going to pull out their A game for this sad little collection of clichés.

But what a great cover! The mansion is fantastic and the execution of the dress is wonderful.

The Jackal's Head

The Jackal's Head by Elizabeth Peters
published by Dell Books
Copyright 1970

The Curse of the Dead and
the Treachery of the Living ...

Young and lovely Althea Tomlinson had
hoped never to return to the Valley of the
Kings. Here her father was disgraced and de-
stroyed amid the ancient tombs and treasures
that had been his life's work. From here Al-
thea fled to New York, to start life anew.

But now a strange message from a dying fam-
ily servant and a bizarrely marked newspaper
on her doorstep had brought her back ...
back to face the brilliant, ruthless man who
had brought her father to ruin ... back to un-
earth a secret from beyond the grave ... back
to find herself trapped in a labyrinth of sus-
picion and fear, with a corpse at every turn
and the jackal-like laughter of a murderer
echoing everywhere ...

I would like to say that I have had more than my share of experience with the "Treachery of the Living" but you don't see me running from place to place. Althea flees to New York and now seems to be fleeing the Valley of the Kings. It wouldn't surprise me if she fled to Egypt originally to begin with. Althea's father looks to have been an archaeologist and if he wasn't able to "unearth a secret from beyond the grave" I don't see how how our little Miss nomad plans to do it.

I was excited when I got to pick this one up a few weekends back. The cover is a great twist on our theme but just a deserving of swift escape.