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Advisory (Read Carefully)
Advisory (Read Carefully)
This page includes discussion about mainstream romance novels written by authors who are considered pioneers of a genre of romance novels not seen or heard of until they published their novels. This page is NOT about "erotica" or "porn".
While I advise discretion as the novels were and are clearly not intended for very young audiences, they do contain elements and themes that readers today might find unsettling, for example, gender roles. I understand how unsettling these things can be, but remember they are a product of their time. The novels are remembered today for many reasons, not all of them negative in any way.
Introduction
Introduction
I had this page on my original website, but I didn't back it up before migrating the rest of the site. This page discusses how what might influence how we imagine a literary universe appear. In this case, how having seen the film High Spirits at the same time as when I first read one of the novels discussed here might have influenced my mental picture of the settings in the novel.
To begin, I want to provide an overview of romance novels as a genre and some of its publishing history. The novels most focused on here are the novels of Laurie McBain, focusing on one title in particular.
There is also an historical overview of the real-life filming location in High Spirits, a pictorial overview of the film and finally, its influence on my imagination as a reader of the novel I focus on.
Let's start with the romance novels...
Bodice Rippers and Other Romantic Moments
Bodice Rippers and Other Romantic Moments
Perhaps the most well-known and successful genre in fiction is the romance novel. It has always been around, yes. But in the early 1970s, a new author would persist in trying to get her first novel published--and impact the entire genre.
Her name was Kathleen Woodiwiss. After sending copies of the manuscript of her novel to several publishing houses and being told NO (what author hasn't gotten THAT letter?!), Woodiwiss sent her novel to a paperback publisher, Avon. Rather than a novel being published first in hardcover, then in paperback (trade or mass market), this publisher just went straight to paperback and never mind the usual. Unless, of course, that paperback novel was extremely successful.
The Flame and the Flower (1972) by Kathleen Woodiwiss
When an editor at Avon saw the manuscript for this novel called The Flame and The Flower by an unknown author named Kathleen Woodiwiss, she apparently took it home to read. And found that despite being an editor, she had experienced a "can't put it down" moment.
In 1972, that "can't put it down" moment resulted in the publication of The Flame and the Flower, and a new genre within romance fiction was launched. The "bodice-ripper".
The novel, different from other romance novels up until that point, would soon be joined in this new genre by another novel called Sweet Savage Love, written by yet another new novelist, Rosemary Rogers.
As I understand it, Rosemary Rogers had written her novel and stored the manuscript in her desk. Where her daughter (adult at that time) found it. And read it. She encouraged her mother to send the novel to a publisher, and within a couple of years of The Flame and the Flower, it was published.
Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers
Moonstruck Madness In the Midnight Garden
Moonstruck Madness In the Midnight Garden
Laurie McBain
Laurie McBain
There was another young woman who had read Kathleen Woodiwiss's novel and loved it. When she tried to find more novels like it, she could not. This young woman finally decided that if she could not find the type of romance novels she wanted to read, she would just have to write them herself.
Devil's Desire (1975)
She did just that.
Her name was Laurie McBain. At age 26, she became a publishing sensation in 1975 with the publication of her first novel, Devil's Desire.
Laurie McBain went on to publish three more stand-alone titles. Tears of Gold (1979), which was set in San Francisco and New Orleans, with the main character being from Ireland and, after the one series she wrote...
Tears of Gold (1979)
Wild Bells to the Wild Sky (1983)
Wild Bells to the Wild Sky (1983), set in Elizabethan England and the Caribbean, and finally...
When the Splendor Falls (1985), her last novel, which went from South Carolina at the start of the Civil War to New Mexico.
When the Splendor Falls (1985)
After 1985, Laurie McBain never published another novel. Or, if she did, I among many am not aware of it.
In the last decade, as eBooks really exploded in popularity, all of Laurie McBain's novels, originally published in paperback by Avon, were published in digital format by Casablanca. The images of each novel that you see here includes a cover from the novel's original paperback publication, and a tablet with new covers for each novel in eBook form.
Did I have Laurie McBain's novels in paperback? Yes. Do I now also have copies of her novels as eBooks. Yes. And like my eBook copies of the Lives of the Mayfair Witches, I do have the ability to confirm my eBook copies of Laurie McBain's novels are verified purchases with Amazon.
And now for the novel I focus on the most...
The Dominick Series
The Dominick Series
Between the publication of Devil's Desire in 1975 and Tears of Gold in 1979, Laurie McBain published the first of the series that she is probably best known for: the Dominick series.
Apparently, she was inspired by some of her own family history when writing Moonstruck Madness, which was published in 1977. The novel does indeed open in Scotland during an actual historical event, the Battle of Culloden Moor. This is something I think Laurie McBain did well. She did her research, no question about that. And this novel, like most of her novels, includes quite a bit of the nobility in Scotland and England in the middle of the 18th Century.
Moonstruck Madness (1977)
Before Sabrina became the Duchess of Camareigh, she was a highway robber trying to support her family. Her mother was dead, her father was nowhere to be found and she, along with her older sister and younger brother, were struggling to survive in a house that was basically standard for Scottish nobility. The prospect of her being caught is a terrifying one (guess why). And things become extremely complicated when Sabrina holds up the Duke of Camareigh.
Yes, they marry, which was an arrangement Sabrina's father, when he finally chose to resurface, had made. Sabrina did NOT like this a'tall. But as we know, tension between the two lovers is exactly what fuels all action and leads to that happy ending we all love.
Chance the Winds of Fortune (1980)
In 1980, a sequel to Moonstruck Madness was published: Chance the Winds of Fortune.
The novel begins in 1769, and after Sabrina had married Lucien Dominick and become the Duchess of Camareigh, she and Lucien had four more children together. The first, a daughter named Rhea Claire, had first appeared in Moonstruck Madness as a baby. Now, Camareigh was no longer the gloomy old estate of the Dukes of Camareigh, but a house filled with a lot of light, the grounds featuring, among other things, a "sylvan" lake.
Camareigh, created on NightCafe from novel description
Rhea Claire is of marrying age, but even her brothers quietly tolerated an Earl they thought was beneath her. But while Rhea Claire and her family were entertaining her family in Scotland among other guests, someone was in a vindictive rage in Venice, Italy. Lucien's cousin Kate, who, along with her brother, had tried to get the dowager Duchess to hand over Camareigh. They had even tried to have Lucien killed. Classic, right?
Well, Percy, who was Kate's brother, had just died in some undignified way. And, Kate decided, it was all her cousin Lucien's fault. And so was the gruesome scar on Kate's once beautiful face. Without giving too much away, the original injury would best be described as "self-defense".
The Sea Dragon, created on NightCafe from novel description
Along with Kate fuming in Venice, Italy, an apparent pirate who was in reality a displaced Marquis, was in command of a brigantine called the Sea Dragon instead of the ancestral estate that was in fact rightfully his in Devon. Dante Leighton is described by the publisher as "titled lord turned pirate". Guess why.
Because he is one.
Dante Leighton had a traumatic history of his own, of course. That history is what led him to sail the West Indies (the Caribbean) in search of a sunken galleon that was believed to still contain a substantial amount of gold in its cargo hold. Of course, after Kate hired some thugs to help her get revenge on cousin Lucien in the form of kidnapping his daughter Rhea Claire and putting her on a ship destined for the Colonies, Dante Leighton and Rhea Claire Dominick would meet. But how?
Rhea Claire had been put on the ship as an indentured servant rather than the titled nobility she actually was. Now, if Rhea Claire had still had the ring given her by her parents and the necklace containing a miniature portrait of her family, things might have gone a bit better. But no.
When the ship with Rhea Claire on it reached Charles Town, South Carolina (the novel makes an historical note about the naming history of Charleston, South Carolina), she somehow manages to flee among the docks, looking for help. Or at least a place to hide for the time being.
And stumbled aboard the Sea Dragon.
The Sea Dragon, created on NightCafe from novel description
No way was Dante Leighton going to let Rhea Claire off that ship when she'd found the treasure map he'd hidden among sand in a bottle in his quarters. Even though she'd been looking for something to eat. And he did NOT believe that this ragamuffin was the daughter of Lucien Dominick. Please, he'd played cards with the man several years earlier and Lucien Dominick had been something of a "playboy" then. And certainly not married.
In the meantime, Lucien and Sabrina Dominick come to realize it was Kate who had taken their daughter away from them. Lucien had not been aware of Percy's death, but he sure knew Kate and Percy had been fraternal twins. Just like his own youngest son and daughter were.
Dark Before the Rising Sun (1982)
From there, you can imagine where they go and what happens next. Just for funsies, I'll give you a hint.
It's called Dark Before the Rising Sun.
I was a kid on Christmas break when I finally indulged my curiosity about the book that had been around the house for months. Chance the Winds of Fortune, like many romance novels of its kind, had this cover art that seemed to imply naughtiness without actually being naughty. So, I picked up the book and began to read.
I've always been fascinated by what settings and people and things in fiction novels would actually look like if they were reproduced in images. Photo, film, whichever. At the time, though, the homes and strongholds of nobility were not something I was terribly familiar with. This was before the Internet, and at a time when my school library was closed. That was...inconvenient.
I did my best to try to imagine what a huge estate hundreds of years old like the fictional Camareigh would have looked like. At a time when we're just beginning to learn what things even ARE let alone what they look like, this was a pretty tall order for my young mind.
Then, as is customary in my world, I watched a movie on cable TV that I'd never seen before. But before I go into that, let me point out that having a model with red hair on the cover as a character described as being a blond was terribly confusing. So I guess I can be forgiven for my young mind conjuring up the wrong kind of house from a country not even in this naughty new novel I was reading.
Still, I happened to notice that the model had REALLY full lips. So, I decided I'd use some of my NightCafe images I generated for the fun of it (but specifically in Ireland) and see what this could look like from a different perspective.
...and THIS Happened...
...and THIS Happened...
High Spirits on the Emerald Isle
High Spirits on the Emerald Isle
High Spirits (1988, Columbia/TriStar)
High Spirits (1988, Columbia/TriStar)
Yes, there's more to come. In fact, one of my little tricks is to periodically check on my content, add things that should be added, dump what needs to be dumped, and of course, update stuff. This section primarily features still images and promotional material of the film I'm going to talk about here.
Before he directed Interview With the Vampire (1994), Neil Jordan directed a 1988 comedy called High Spirits. Set in a crumbling old wreck of a castle turned hotel in Ireland, its struggling owner decides to try to boost bookings by claiming the castle was haunted.
To that end, the proprietor of this cold, leaky, rundown establishment was not going to merely claim a haunting. The hotel staff are also going to engage in a series of parlor tricks for the guests.
Why?
Well, because Peter Plunkett (whose middle name was NOT "low life s*** for brains p***erhead) had a serious problem. The hotel was not just his business; it was his ancestral home: Castle Plunkett. And unless he caught up on the mortgage, the lienholder would foreclose on the castle and then move it to Malibu to establish a theme park with it.
Say what.
In fact, the film opens with an approach to the castle grounds and a sweep of its interior, leaking water from the rainstorm outside. This place has not had necessary maintenance in quite some time. The reason why is what we figure out by way of the staff listening in on Peter Plunkett's phone conversation with Jeb Brogan.
Brogan is the one holding the mortgage and telling Plunkett to catch up on said mortgage in what is clearly a heated phone conversation.
Judging from what Jeb Brogan apparently assumed Peter Plunkett's middle name was.
The staff stay silent. They are eavesdropping after all. Peter Plunkett's mother would do no such thing. Not only does she pick up the phone...
She wanted to know what postal strike has been keeping Peter from sending mortgage payments to America.
"WHAT postal strike?!"
"I will take this check, which I am holding in my hand..."
Of course, Peter will take the check he's holding in his hand across the water to New England, because, you know, he can...
After a temporary moment of despair (it really is one of those hopeless situations), Peter Plunkett got an idea. Since his mother was knowledgeable on what she claims are the ghosts of Castle Plunkett, she could be of help. Peter Plunkett and staff don't believe the castle is haunted, but Peter is going to find paying customers who would.
"The hotel is in tip top condition..." High Spirits (1988)
Of course, guests will be very comfortable in the accommodations of Castle Plunkett, which are "strictly modern"...
And here they are...
Peter Plunkett did not believe his ancestral home was haunted (this is a scam, remember). But he did know details of its history.
When American guest Jack Crawford sees an old painting of a beautiful woman hanging in the dining room during a dinner of whiting everything, Peter was able to answer his question.
And that the woman, Mary Plunkett, had been murdered in Castle Plunkett 200 years earlier. In classic Ghost Bride fashion, it was on her wedding night. By her newly wedded husband.
Funny how Peter and his staff have arranged all manner of fun and games for their skeptical guests to convince them the place is haunted. Then, Peter recounts the story behind what is probably its most likely source for a haunting.
Now, Camareigh no doubt looks NOTHING like Castle Plunkett. At the time, it was about the only point of reference my imagination had to draw upon. That, and the ghost herself. To be fair, Castle Plunkett had what looks like a Tiki Room effect. Even so, as I read Chance the Winds of Fortune, I would envision in my mind what that world looked like. For some reason, it always seemed to look like Castle Plunkett.
Camareigh is not a castle. It's not a palace. However, there is a real-life location in England that does seem to have a lot of similarities. Blenheim Palace.
Even if romance novels aren't your thang, looking up Blenheim Palace is well worth the time. It has a VERY interesting history.
This scene in High Spirits where the castle's bridal chamber is transformed into something more like what it once was, is probably the most important one in this train wreck of mine. Of all the areas of Castle Plunkett in the film, this bridal chamber is probably the biggest reason Castle Plunkett was initially an imaginary stand-in for Camareigh.
Scroll to the end of this page where I had a bit of digital fun with that painting High Spirits...
The Real Castle Plunkett: Dromore Castle, Limerick, Ireland
The Real Castle Plunkett: Dromore Castle, Limerick, Ireland
I do have a bit more about Dromore Castle in Limerick, Ireland. The images you see do have sources; I just have to find my files first.
To start, though, I wanted to show a few images that show what it really looks like. And what it looked like in the past. More will be added later...
The hotel is in tip-top condition...
Accommodations are strictly modern...
Kinda.
WOW.
A Bit of Moonstruck Madness on the Emerald Isle
A Bit of Moonstruck Madness on the Emerald Isle
Yep. That's the face from the novel blended with the painting. This was done a LONG time ago, but I thought it would be fun to share here.
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