Just so you know, this is not your ordinary Victoria Holt
gothic murder mystery. Set mostly in France in the late Victorian period, this
tells the story of Kate Collison, of the famous (fictional) Collison family of
brilliant painters of miniatures, each artist signing the portraits “KC.” In each
generation, the next son takes up the art to astound patrons in England and in
Europe. Unfortunately, Kate’s mother, the daughter of a duke, gave Kate’s
father, Kendal Collison, only a daughter. But Kate was determined to become
better than any son of the family who had gone before her.
When her father develops cataracts and his ability to paint
the fine strokes diminishes, she becomes his eyes. Signing the portraits “KC,”
as all in her family have, no one would know a woman had painted them. A new
commission arrives from a baron in Normandy who wants miniatures of himself and
his fiancée, a princess. So, Kate and her father travel to France, intending to
do the miniatures together. At the baron’s castle, before he arrives, Kate
begins to fall in love with the baron’s cousin Bertrand de Mortemer. And then
she meets the Baron, Rollo de Centeville, who by his own description is
“arrogant, overbearing, impatient and self-willed.” In addition to that, he was
clever, soon figuring out that the miniature he comes to admire is being
painted by Kate, not her father. He also intends to have his way with Kate, no
matter the cost to her.
An ingenious, intricately woven plot that had me turning
pages, it tells the story of a selfish man who, like his Viking forbears,
thought nothing of raping a woman to get what he wanted. And so he drugs and
rapes Kate and then holds her prisoner for the purpose of reminding Bertrand
that he, the baron, is in control. I must say that I had a bit of trouble
understanding how Kate, having gone home to England, could return to France
after what happened to her, or how she could keep from those who loved her that
she’d been brutally raped by the man they admired. Nor could I understand how
the Baron’s mistress, Nicole, would, after being cast aside by the Baron, try
to convince Kate she should be more understanding of him. But such are the
twists and turns in this story.
I loved Kate’s spirit, her determination and her strength. And
I thought the way Holt showed how the artist gleaned the nuances of the
subject’s personality while the painting was masterful.
As in all bodice rippers, there is a certain satisfaction is
seeing the Baron have his comeuppance, though even then, one can certainly
agree with the hatred Kate feels for the man who ruined, as well as benefited,
her life. Unlike some of her stories, Holt brings the heroine’s feelings about
the “hero” (sometimes the baron seemed more the villain) to the fore early on, and
that was good.
Holt does a brilliant job of showing us what the people of
Paris lived through in the 1870 siege of the city by the Prussians when the
people were starved into submission.
Like her other novels, it is told in the first person. A well-written
bodice ripper, it does contain rape; and while there are no details or vivid
descriptions, the fact of it is no less horrible.
There’s a surprise ending awaiting you. The story is a
keeper. I recommend it.
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