Monday, July 6, 2009

Goddess of Terror by Adela Gale [1967]

Cover scan not available; sorry. If Absinthe were reviewing this, she might point out that it's "a rare photographic Gothic cover." I recall her mentioning that once [yes, gentle reader, be warned: I'm long on memory!]. Doesn't matter much as the photo is a let-down: The background is very dark as to be expected, but the background building [hospital? mansion?] is the vaguest blur. The model, posing as a nurse, wears a dark coat and has black hair; her face is turned slightly to the right, as though something's suddenly caught her eye; she wears a '60s style pin-on white nurse's cap. That's it...*yawn.*

I give the novel 1 Star; Trixie gives it 0 Paws. It was strangely written, the characters [aside from the heroine...sort of] are up-front bizarre. When grandpa deliberately maliciously lets the neighbor's horse go [and run many miles home to the ranch "next door" thereby causing its owner/rider tremendous inconvenience], that'd have done it for me. The heroine arrives to an insane grandmother, a strange and possessive grandfather who keeps the old dame practically prisoner, a schizoid housekeeper with highly disturbed twins and an oddly menacing groundskeeper who instantly flashes out a knife at the slightest provocation. The heroine would be gone *PRONTO* in real life, if she had half a brain. Everyone's a nut from the word "hello."

Added to this, the interesting oddball characters are kept in the background while our heroine remains confused and clueless. She's also not much of a "student nurse," considering she's absolutely frozen and helpless when faced with someone having a seizure; what's she been doing in nursing school the past two years, watching Petticoat Junction marathons? :-p Maybe this is good reading for some folks; I couldn't finish it.

No comments: