Well this was interesting. Different but interesting. First off it was an exercise in purple prose. Sort of felt like a gothic romance. All of the descriptions were florid and the heroine was a wimpy ninny. She is a heroine that few are going to enjoy. My goodness she leapt quickly and often to conclusions. She saw her husband have a quick word with a local unmarried mother who he had just saved from suicide. She immediately is convinced that he is the baby's father. She holds on to that throughout the book but never asks him, not even in a round about way. With no particular reason she is convinced he loves yet another OW. She gets so het up about it that she continually turns him away in bed. At least here he doesn't then force her like in many older HPs. And unlike in newer HPs her lady bits don't lead her to sleep with him anyway. She was the master of blowing hot and cold. He basically does everything for her to convince her he loves her except say the actual words and she is just blind to it all. Finally he fesses up and all is well, HEA.

This was an interesting read from an historical standpoint. I liked it as an illustration of changing mores in the romantic fiction genre. At least it wasn't boring. I read it on my continuing quest to read the first 100 numbered HPs. This was number 30. I've got a couple more early VWs so I'm interested to see if they are all written like this. Is this style something she grew out of gradually or was it something she wrote just to try the style out. I've read later books by here that weren't so gothic in feel. ( )