Rating: 
Summary: Still Fresh After All These Years
Review: This is really dating me because this is the first romance novel I ever read. I read it when it was published about 35 years ago--but then I was rather young at the time--so to speak. I thought it was one of the most wonderful books I had ever read, but then I was a young teenager. The world of romance was opened to me by this book, and I shall never forget it even though I have moved on to other types of books and away from romances per se. Besides being a romance, it is a mystery with a surprise ending, which lends itself to being compared to Jane Eyre and Rebecca. This novel, though not a classic, is refreshing still in the 21st century. Martha Leigh has come to Mellyn to care for Connan Tremellyn's difficult daughter, Alvean. In the process of caring for her, Martha falls under the spell of the home, Mellyn and its many secrets--the main secret being was the former Mrs. Tremellyn murdered, and if so by whom. As she searches for answers, she falls under Connan's spell while still frightened he may have murdered his wife. This books is still as delightful today as it was many years ago.
Rating:
Summary: Still Fresh After All These Years
Review: This is really dating me because this is the first romance novel I ever read. I read it when it was published about 35 years ago--but then I was rather young at the time--so to speak. I thought it was one of the most wonderful books I had ever read, but then I was a young teenager. The world of romance was opened to me by this book, and I shall never forget it even though I have moved on to other types of books and away from romances per se. Besides being a romance, it is a mystery with a surprise ending, which lends itself to being compared to Jane Eyre and Rebecca. This novel, though not a classic, is refreshing still in the 21st century. Martha Leigh has come to Mellyn to care for Connan Tremellyn's difficult daughter, Alvean. In the process of caring for her, Martha falls under the spell of the home, Mellyn and its many secrets--the main secret being was the former Mrs. Tremellyn murdered, and if so by whom. As she searches for answers, she falls under Connan's spell while still frightened he may have murdered his wife. This books is still as delightful today as it was many years ago.
Rating:
Summary: The book that made me a fan of Victoria Holt
Review: This is the first book by Victoria Holt that I ever read. I was 14 or 15 years old at that time. Though almost a decade has gone by, I can still remember that, from the moment I started reading "Mistress of Mellyn", I couldn't do anything else. Since then, many other books by Victoria Holt have landed in my hands. I remember that my cousins and I used to spend our holidays at the beach, lying on the sand, sunbathing... and trading with Victoria Holt's books. I don't know. It seems to me that they are very realistic (descriptions are superb). Romantic (in the literary and literal senses), too. And what about that feeling of happiness that evolves around you when you finish the book that you've been devouring for days?
Rating:
Summary: The book that made me a fan of Victoria Holt
Review: This is the first Victoria Holt book that I read, and I think it was where I should have started. I have always liked the stories of Jane Eyre and Rebecca, so this one sounded interesting. It lived up to expectations. It is about a governess that finds out she is in much more than she bargained for. The house she is living in is filled with history and mystery. Her employer, with whom she falls in love, is very much the same. With twists and turns, and a huge surprize ending, this book is one you will remember for years to come.
Rating:
Summary: The First Victoria Holt to Read
Review: This is the first Victoria Holt book that I read, and I think it was where I should have started. I have always liked the stories of Jane Eyre and Rebecca, so this one sounded interesting. It lived up to expectations. It is about a governess that finds out she is in much more than she bargained for. The house she is living in is filled with history and mystery. Her employer, with whom she falls in love, is very much the same. With twists and turns, and a huge surprize ending, this book is one you will remember for years to come.
Rating:
Summary: I LOVED this book! It had romance, adventure, and mystery
Review: This was one of the best books I have ever read. You fell in love with all the characters and it kept you turning the pages. I thought about this book days after I had finished it. Everyone should read it. It also has a shocking ending. I know I'll read this book many more times
Rating: 
Summary: Mistress of Mellyn
Review: This was the first book I ever read by Victoria Holt and I became a life long fan of the author. I also became hooked on gothic romance novels. I would recomend this book to anyone who would like a good book to read on a snowy afternoon.
Rating:
Summary: Great debut! but not a first novel
Review: Victoria Holt's first novel - but not her first novel. How can this be? Because Victoria Holt was the same woman as Jean Plaidy, who had been writing since the 1940s. Anyway.... Mistress of Mellyn is an interesting book. It is of interest to the literature student as being the first example of the modern historical-Gothic genre. Written in the first-person style which gives it immediacy and personal interest, it gives us a beautifully developing romance and a true sense of creepiness. The Jane Eyre theme of the governess, the masterful employer, and the sinister manor house is well-handled with an almost ingenuous simplicity, the heroine develops extremely well even if she is somewhat one-sided in her views. In later novels Holt showed a worrying tendency to recycle her old plots with minimal alterations; so it is best to read her in chronological order. She is a skilled and fluent writer, the book is a treat to be savoured and enjoyed in your own leisure. It isn't great literature, but it's great fun, and of interest and relevance to the student of the Gothic romance through the ages.
Rating:
Summary: Alice doesn't live here anymore...
Review: What happened to Alice, mistress of Mellyn? Was she just a high-class skank who ran off with philandering neighbor Geoffrey? And what is the mystery of the leper's squint? This is a fine combination of "Jane Eyre" crossed with a dash of Du Maurier's "Rebecca." For a romance novel, a genre that I normally despise, this is quite a fine read. Victoria Holt (aka Jean Plaidy) knows how to keep her plots moving swiftly and her surprises juicy.
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