Friday, December 9, 2016

Cupid Rides Pillion by Barbara Cartland (Arrow, 1968)

Found in a dusty corner of the shed part of the Green Shed (and pounced upon because it's perfect for this blog):


England under Charles II was a gay, pleasure-loving land.  And Lady Panthea Vyne enjoyed it to the full, for she remembered only too well the dark days of Cromwell's Iron Rule.  She remembered Christian Drysdale, too, Cromwell's bestial tax-collector who had been her husband for a few short hours, until she had been rescued by a mysterious Highwayman.  Five years later, at the richly colourful court of Charles II, others learned her secret, including the jealous Lady Castlemaine... and as the dangers besetting her drew closer, Panthea put her faith in the man whose life was in equal danger--the mysterious, yet strangely familiar Highwayman.
If the fact that the author is Barbara Cartland doesn't alert you to what kind of book this is, surely the fact that the heroine is named Panthea Vyne, must!

Anyway, for those of you who came in late, this was Barbara Cartland:


... self-appointed expert on Romance, upholder of traditional values, step-grandmother of Princess Diana, and the very prolific writer of over 1,000 books.  

Sunday, December 4, 2016

The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Ace, 1972)

Lifeline was having a pre-Christmas mini-bookfair, and I found this one one of the tables:


THE
MONSTER
MEN

Number Thirteen was what they called him--the latest and best of Dr. Von Horn's attempts to make life from lifeless chemicals.  He found himself an almost-human on Von Horn's hideaway jungle island off the coast of Borneo.  He saw the monsters that preceded him and grew used to those hideous mockeries of humanity.

Not until Number Thirteen met the American girl who was Von Horn's unwilling prisoner did he realize how different he was from the others.

Because, monster or not, he turned against his master and threw in his lot with the girl and his friends--in a desperate attempt to escape the island of terror.
 Or, in soap opera parlance: Can a Frankenstein's monster find love with a mad scientist's beautiful daughter?  This was first published in 1913, and alas, it shows.