Barbara Michaels wrote Gothic Romance/ Mystery novels, starting in the late 1960's all the way up until the late 1980's.

The genre was at its peak during the 1970's when Ms. Michaels wrote many tales of mystery, suspense, and the supernatural. However, the genre began to falter in popularity during the mid to late 1970s.

Barbara Michaels and Victoria Holt, two of the authors who defined the genre were were the only ones able to write Gothic Romance with any real success during that time after the peak of its popularity.

In fact , Victorica Holt wrote into the early 1990's, although her books lacked the paranormal or supernatural element that Barbara Michaels normally employed. If you pull out any of these books today, you may find yourself irritated with the female protaganist who are often entirely too naive- and Marianne Ranson is bit that way, as well.

Set in the mid 1800's Marianne Ransom found herself orphaned and broke. She must take a position somewhere, probably as a governess, however, she longed for a career on the stage. She briefly finds a job as a singer, but then realizes what kind of establishment it is she works for and leaves immediately.( after a really frightening struggle) Then, she approached by a lawyer she met earlier about a meeting with an aging, very wealthy duchess.

The Duchess believes Marianne is the daughter of a famous spiritualist. Everyone doubts this is true, but humors the Duchess. Marianne is asked to participate in a seance to see if she has inherited any of her "father's" gifts. Turns out she may have the ability to channel spirits.

Then the Duchess takes a turn health wise and the two men closest to her, a doctor and the lawyer decide it's time the duchess should think of making a will. This hurries the plot along since someone is in a hurry to inherit from the duchess.

The mystery was predictable, the romance was understated, which was common in these novels. The book had the feel of a regency period historical romance/mystery, with a slight feel of a cozy mystery. Much lighter than any of the other Barbara Michaels books I have read so far.

It was fun mystery. It wasn't the best of Barbara Michaels but quite enjoyable. ( )

Not sure if this book was trying for sarky or straight.

Marianne Ransom is a complete cliché, orphan, innocent abroad who falls into a job that means that she's put in danger, with a wealthy roue looking for her "virtue" she ends up with a Duchess who believes that she has occult powers and that she can help her find her lost love, believed dead.

Shenanigans ensue.

Entertaining but sometimes it felt like too much, there was so much going on, secret passages, kidnapping, veiled widows, it was like Barbara Michaels threw a huge chunk of ideas at this book and hoped some of them would stick but forgot to really deal with the romance. ( )

A genteel young woman left near-penniless after her spendthrift father dies is taken up by a dowager duchess who believes the girl is the daughter of a medium the duchess strongly admired, based on the the real D.D. Hume, but here named Holmes. ( )

I generally like for fictional heroines to be more intelligent and spirited than the naive and insipid Miss Marianne Ransom. Fortunately, the mysterious and ghostly plot of this book was enough to keep me from tossing it across the room. While I wouldn't go so far as to pronounce her Too Stupid To Live, Miss Ransom put herself in quite a lot of daft situations, such as wandering on the stage of a London theater one day after arriving from the country and bursting into song, fantasizing that she would immediately become a Famous Actress. This does not happen of course, but what does happen, a duchess decides she is the long-lost child of an old friend (who was a spiritualist) and takes her in as a companion (and makes her perform table turning)is almost as far-fetched. So, is she really? Or is someone playing tricks? The answers to these questions are not what I expected; however, had I given this author a little more credit I probably would have figured it out. Upon reflection, there was certainly enough foreshadowing. I just expected the ending to be less of a revelation. My mistake.
I'm not terribly tempted to check out more of this author's work, although I wasn't unimpressed. I would recommend this only to fans of chaste gothic romances. ( )