Victoria Holt, Part 2

Victoria Holt, Part 1 can be found here.

Slowly but surely I am getting through the pile of Victoria Holt books I borrowed from the library.

I read Secret for a Nightingale by Victoria Holt early in November, so I thought I would write a quick review and save it in drafts until I can read more VH novels. I really liked this one! I gave it four stars, not five because it did drag on a little bit at times with characters repeating themselves. I know people do that IRL, but they also go to the bathroom, and we don't need to hear about that either. The heroine Susanna (Anna, at times) was incredible, a flawed but relatable person who experienced great emotional growth during the story. There were lots of other strong female characters, plus many instances of women looking out for each other instead of fighting over some dumb man, which was wonderful to read. As you may have guessed from the title, we do encounter Florence Nightingale during the story because Anna becomes a nurse around the time of the Crimean War (1853-1856). The experience of caring for the ill and the wounded is presented very realistically (as far as I know anyway) and not romanticized. War is hell. I feel that Ms. Holt had a great fondness for the mountains and forests of Germany because she painted a beautiful word-picture of them in this book similar to how she did in The Night of the Seventh Moon. I read SFAN as a teenager and remembered it vaguely, but happily I forgot what happened at the end, so that was a nice surprise. 

Tonight I finished The Black Swan, written by Philippa Carr, another pen name Eleanor Hibbert used, along with Victoria Holt. I also awarded this book four stars, which is an excellent rating, though not perfect. I'm not sure why Eleanor likes to begin novels by confusing us with a bunch of names, complex family arrangements, and baby-switching, but I find it tedious during the first few pages. I know the story itself will be wonderful, so I slog through the beginning, and then all is great. She has this technique of telling us that something shocking is coming, instead of simply flinging it at us like most authors, and there are many teasers leading up to the big reveal. With another writer, I might find this annoying, but Eleanor excels at this sort of suspense. Also, I probably didn't appreciate her knack for creating strong female characters when I was a teenager as much as I do now, particularly in this story, given the late 1800s time period. There are several female main characters besides the protagonist Lucie, and they are all interesting in their own way. 

Bonus mini review: I watched The Deep End of the Ocean yesterday and was disappointed in it. (I read the book ages ago, and I don't remember how I felt about it.) The story basically had one of the most ridiculous coincidences you could possibly imagine (I don't want to give it away, just in case one of my readers plans to watch), and I couldn't deal with that. I thought the acting was excellent (Michelle Pfeiffer and Treat Williams as parents whose son disappeared), and it's not the actors' fault that the absurd twist came about. Oh well.