Customer Reviews

The Secret Woman

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Victoria Holt's romance novels aren't always gothic romances, but gothic romances are the only kind I'll read -- the genre with castles or at least scary mansions, and ghosts, and usually a young woman who seems vulnerable but actually escapes death several times and brings family secrets to light. When Holt writes a gothic romance, she is a master! "The Secret Woman" is among my favorites. It seems heroine Anna Brett is doomed to be a governess for a rich family in England, but she later is led through circumstances to the captain of a ship named "The Secret Woman" and its secrets, many of which are diamond in nature. She also learns about the secret woman within herself while trusting the wrong people and learning the hard way about evil in a friend.

I read The Secret Woman my junior year in HS, and would get in trouble in class, becase I couldn't put the book down. The romantic story will trap you into believing that you are really there and part of the story. You will go on a wild trip with a young woman who falls in love with a man that is royalty. I really recommend reading this book whether for a school report or just for pleasure. I guarentee you'll fall into the story, and never want to put it down!! Victoria Holt is a wonderful autor and all her stories will trap you into believing you are there. PLEASE read this book!!!!

Anna Brett meets Chantel, the well-trained nurse, and her life will never be the same. Victorian intrigue with the added spice of romance in the tropical islands.

This is a very interesting story and, as usual with V.H. books, full of unexpected twists and turns. I was able to read the ending with pleasure, unlike a different book in which the hero was killed at the end. In this book, however, all finally ends well. I'm reading it again.

I have just ordered this book -- and may revise my review accordingly, later. The reaosn I have bought this book is that I remember, when it was first published, that the book-critic world did a double-take on it, and gave it a GREAT compliment.
"Regular" book reviewers, you see, (especially then), looked down their noses at such "non-serious" books, as gothic romances. However, many of them said that THIS book -- "The Secret Woman", by Victoria Holt -- was far more than "just another" gothic romance -- that it was REAL LITERATURE. Hmmm.... any REAL gothic romance with THAT type of critical acclaim, seems to be the type of gothic romance for ME! (More later, I hope....)

I just finished The Secret Woman...what are they talking about? Anna doesn't change! There's no passionnate being there....I just didn't like this book. It had no point.