An historical gothic built around Annis, a young woman caught between inheritance and suspiscion and Mistress Alton, the imperious wife of Sir Humphrey Cavill, who no interest in taking Annis under her wing.

With zero maternal warmth present, Annis is drawn into a world of hierarchy, servants, secrets, locked rooms, bitter women, predatory men and a household already rotting beautifully from the inside. Plaidy, one of the many pen names of Eleanor Hibbert, had a remarkable talent for turning dynastic and domestic power into compulsive melodrama. Here the historical setting is less about clean period detail than atmosphere: damp corridors, class pressure, jealousy, sexual danger, inheritance anxiety, and the ancient literary pleasure of watching a vulnerable young woman try to work out whether the house wants to protect her or eat her alive.

A good one for readers who like old-school historical suspense, gothic melodrama, cruel households, suspicious benefactors, and women with extremely bad options behaving as sensibly as the genre allows. Basically: big house, bad vibes, satin, Satan. Efficient little machine.

1970 Pan Books paperback edition. Originally published in 1952 by Robert Hale. General age-toning, spine and cover wear, creasing, rubbing and small marks to the wraps; pages tanned but intact. A solid vintage reading copy with excellent lurid-gothic shelf presence.