Helpful Score: 1
Once called the Queen of American Gothic by the New York Times, the novel is a classic example of Whitney's work with such themes. Her writing style is slow, tantalizing, and very smooth. Both writing style and character actions reflect the period in which the novel was written. Violence isn't graphic, and romance is likewise typical of the period. Called a romantic mystery, this book is really a mystery because romance exists only in the earliest and latest pages.
Sharon Hollis, the key character, is an innocent and sheltered individual who marries a much older man, Ross Logan. A friend of her parents. he came to her rescue after her parents are killed by a bomb in the theater in which her mother was performing. Her mother was a famous actress whose life focused on the stage with little time for Sharon. Her father, Ian, lived to promote her mother's career. Lonely and starved for affection, Sharon turns to Ross for what she needs.
A refreshing and enjoyable tale, the reader finds surprising plot twists amid a tense atmosphere. The couple return from their honeymoon to the ancestral home, Poinciana, to find an uneasy atmospherer. (The mansion's name is from the flame tree called Poinciana which Rossâs mother loved.) Several incidents make Sharon uneasy. She is shoved down stairs but emerges largely unhurt, only bruised and frightened. Dismayed, she finds a decaying coconut laden with ants on her dressing table and begins receiving notes letting her know that there are those who resent her presence at Poinciana and asking her to leave. With the suspicious deaths of Ross and his daughter, Gretchen, suspense builds. Who is doing all of this and why?
Sharon Hollis, the key character, is an innocent and sheltered individual who marries a much older man, Ross Logan. A friend of her parents. he came to her rescue after her parents are killed by a bomb in the theater in which her mother was performing. Her mother was a famous actress whose life focused on the stage with little time for Sharon. Her father, Ian, lived to promote her mother's career. Lonely and starved for affection, Sharon turns to Ross for what she needs.
A refreshing and enjoyable tale, the reader finds surprising plot twists amid a tense atmosphere. The couple return from their honeymoon to the ancestral home, Poinciana, to find an uneasy atmospherer. (The mansion's name is from the flame tree called Poinciana which Rossâs mother loved.) Several incidents make Sharon uneasy. She is shoved down stairs but emerges largely unhurt, only bruised and frightened. Dismayed, she finds a decaying coconut laden with ants on her dressing table and begins receiving notes letting her know that there are those who resent her presence at Poinciana and asking her to leave. With the suspicious deaths of Ross and his daughter, Gretchen, suspense builds. Who is doing all of this and why?
Inside Flap Copy
The Palm Beach home of Ross Logan contains his celebrated collection of oriental art, and a prized new possession -- his terrified young bride....
Adorning the Florida coastline stands Poinciana, the fabulous mansion of the Logan family. Inside its regal walls a volcano of intrigue and violent emotion has begun to erupt, and not one of the Logans is safe.
Especially not Sharon Hollis Logan, the lovely young bride of patriarch Ross Logan. For reasons unknown to Sharon, Ross seems to be hated by Gretchen, his daughter from a previous marriage, by her ne'er-do-well husband, Vasily, and by Ross's strange mother, Allegra -- and all their hostility is readily transferred to Sharon.
But as she tries to find out why, Sharon uncovers a devastating secret about her own relationship with her husband -- a secret that, in the end, will test the limits of her courage as well as her ability to love
The Palm Beach home of Ross Logan contains his celebrated collection of oriental art, and a prized new possession -- his terrified young bride....
Adorning the Florida coastline stands Poinciana, the fabulous mansion of the Logan family. Inside its regal walls a volcano of intrigue and violent emotion has begun to erupt, and not one of the Logans is safe.
Especially not Sharon Hollis Logan, the lovely young bride of patriarch Ross Logan. For reasons unknown to Sharon, Ross seems to be hated by Gretchen, his daughter from a previous marriage, by her ne'er-do-well husband, Vasily, and by Ross's strange mother, Allegra -- and all their hostility is readily transferred to Sharon.
But as she tries to find out why, Sharon uncovers a devastating secret about her own relationship with her husband -- a secret that, in the end, will test the limits of her courage as well as her ability to love
One of my favorite authors... A mystery with a little romance added
The Palm Beach home of Ross Logan. it contains his enigmatic past, his celebrated collection of oriental art. And a prized new possession-his terrified young bride.
A spellbinding saga of love betrayed and of a woman trapped by the past.
A spellbinding saga of love betrayed and of a woman trapped by the past.
Adorning the Florida coastline stands Poinciana, the fabulous mansion of the Logan family. No one of the Logan family is safe
Saga of love betrayed and of a woman trapped by the past. Many twists and turns.
A classic Whitney and one of my favorites!
A little wordy, but in the last third it moves quickly. The who-dun-it might be surprising, as it was for me.
www.phyllisawhitney.com
From the jacket
When Ross Logan proposed, it seemed that Sharon Hollis's dreams had come true, and that the nightmare of her recent past was at last over. She would be safe with Ross, she would find happiness, a family, a home....
Now, as the wife of one of America's richest men, she arrives at Poinciana, the fabulous Palm Beach estate built by her mother-in-law, where she begins to sense hidden undercurrents of hospitality. From Jarrett Nichols, Ross's principal aide, to Ross's impetuous sister Gretchen-only a few years younger than Sharon herself-every resident of Poinciana greets her with suspicion and resentment. Even her dynamic, solicitous husband begins to seem like a dark and menacing stranger.
And then the incidents begin. Have the missing pieces of the priceless Logan art collection been mislaid or stolen? Did the rushing figure on the staircase whisper a warning or a threat? Who is behind the haunting that echoes down the elegant hallways, filling Sharon with remembered anguish and renewed pain? Suddenly her dream is again transformed...into a nightmare where love is a shining light at the distant end of a deadly passageway.
From the jacket
When Ross Logan proposed, it seemed that Sharon Hollis's dreams had come true, and that the nightmare of her recent past was at last over. She would be safe with Ross, she would find happiness, a family, a home....
Now, as the wife of one of America's richest men, she arrives at Poinciana, the fabulous Palm Beach estate built by her mother-in-law, where she begins to sense hidden undercurrents of hospitality. From Jarrett Nichols, Ross's principal aide, to Ross's impetuous sister Gretchen-only a few years younger than Sharon herself-every resident of Poinciana greets her with suspicion and resentment. Even her dynamic, solicitous husband begins to seem like a dark and menacing stranger.
And then the incidents begin. Have the missing pieces of the priceless Logan art collection been mislaid or stolen? Did the rushing figure on the staircase whisper a warning or a threat? Who is behind the haunting that echoes down the elegant hallways, filling Sharon with remembered anguish and renewed pain? Suddenly her dream is again transformed...into a nightmare where love is a shining light at the distant end of a deadly passageway.
