Customer Reviews

Wingarden

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Anybody who thinks Gothic novels were always about wimpy heroines in flimsy nightgowns... hasn't read an Elsie Lee novel. Her heroines were smart, witty, often even wordly. Chloe Wingate can keep up with any hero. Even when she's frightened, she doesn't wimp out and depend on somebody else to get her out of a jam.

Also, Elsie Lee wasn't afraid to deal with controversial issues. In Wingarden, the heroine unearths violent racial prejudice in the South during the 1960s.

This is a wonderful story of an intelligent woman and a mystery surrounding a house she inherited. A great who-done-it to the end!

Elsie Lee was a Manhattan based writer who wrote prolifically in the 60s and 70s,

and this is considered her best Gothic novel. She also wrote cookbooks, and she recommended to her agent Bill Berger that he handle a writer friend of hers, Lawrence Sanders, who was having difficulty getting his first book published, The Anderson Tapes. WINGARDEN is a book that is written on a level that is far superior to what was being put out during her era by her sister writers in this genre, and on a personal level she was a warm, congenial and fun loving person to hang out with socially.

One of my favorite reads by one of my favorite authors. When my paperback version began to fall apart after much reading, I decided to find a hard back copy. Was happy to discover that some of Ms. Lee's works are still around in hard back. Will be buying more to replace other of Elsie Lee's paperbacks.

The heroine in Wingarden has inherited the old family homestead from the grandmother she never met, who had disowned her father. Set in the sixties in the deep south, she arrives at her mother's request to find her father's 'box', and see if anything is worth keeping before she sells the property. She runs headlong into local racial problems, and the mystery of who is causing local fires. But, nothing is what she expected, and too many people are too interested in forcing her to sell. Lots of nice suspense, with sympathetic characters to enjoy and evil characters to hate. A keeper.