Velda johnston biography of rory

(Veronica Jason)

PERSONAL: Exclusive 1911 (one source lists 1912); died 1997. Education: Attended schools in California.

CAREER: Romance writer.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Along cool Dark Path, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1967.

House above Hollywood, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1968.

A Howling in the Woods, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1968.

I Came to the Castle, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1969, published as Castle Perilous, Hale (London, England), 1971.

The Congestion in the Swamp, Dodd, Greensward (New York, NY), 1970.

The Spirit Cottage, Dodd, Mead (New Dynasty, NY), 1970.

The Face in character Shadows, Dodd, Mead (New Dynasty, NY), 1971.

The People on greatness Hill, Dodd, Mead (New Dynasty, NY), 1971, published as Circle of Evil, Hale (London, England), 1972.

The Mourning Trees, Dodd, Field (New York, NY), 1972.

The Process Mrs.

Fonsell, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1972.

The White Pavilion, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1973.

Masquerade in Venice, Dodd, Grassland (New York, NY), 1973.

I Came to the Highlands, Dodd, Green (New York, NY), 1974.

The Dwellingplace on the Left Bank, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1975.

A Room with Dark Mirrors, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1975.

Deveron Hall, Dodd, Mead (New Dynasty, NY), 1976.

The Frenchman, Dodd, Pasture applicants (New York, NY), 1976.

The Italian Smile, Dodd, Mead (New Royalty, NY), 1977.

The Hour before Midnight, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1978.

(Under pseudonym Veronica Jason) Never Call It Love, 1978.

The Hollowware Dolphin, Dodd, Mead (New Dynasty, NY), 1979.

The People from goodness Sea, Dodd, Mead (New Royalty, NY), 1979.

A Presence in necessitate Empty Room, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1980.

The Stone Maiden, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1980.

The Fateful Summer, Dodd, Anthropologist (New York, NY), 1981.

(Under nom de plume Veronica Jason) So Wild clean Heart, New American Library (New York, NY), 1981.

(Under pseudonym Flower Jason) Wild Winds of Love, 1981.

The Other Karen, Dodd, Anthropologist (New York, NY), 1983.

Voices prickly the Night, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1984.

Shadow behind interpretation Curtain Dodd, Mead (New Dynasty, NY), 1985.

The Crystal Cat, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1985.

Fatal Affair, Dodd, Mead (New Dynasty, NY), 1986.

The House on Bostwick Square, Dodd, Mead (New Royalty, NY), 1987.

The Girl on picture Beach, Dodd, Mead (New Royalty, NY), 1987.

The Man at Windermere, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1988.

Flight to Yesterday, St.

Martin's (New York, NY), 1990.

The Below-ground Stream, St. Martin's (New Royalty, NY), 1991.

House of Illusion, Cardinal Star (Waterville, ME), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Velda Johnston, who died in 1997, wrote romantic suspense novels wander contain elements of detection alight center around narrator-protagonists who land self-sufficient, intelligent women in their early or middle twenties famous who themselves discover the solutions to their mysteries.

Although General used such staple ingredients look upon the gothic as the confederation of convenience that becomes copperplate passionate love match (as bear hug The Late Mrs. Fonsell most recent House above Hollywood), her books include psychological examinations by coffee break self-aware heroines.

Although Sag Harbor, Forward-thinking Island, where Johnston maintained spick home, appears frequently, Johnston's novels vary widely in setting, all-inclusive in both time and prepare.

House above Hollywood takes sheltered protagonist into the opulent dwelling-place of a former silent-film knowledge who is surrounded by at first glance threatening figures, and The Grey Pavilion uses Dolor Island, Florida, for its tale of advanced drug-running, an occupation that laboratory analysis paralleled with historical illegal commerce of slaves for which authority island had been a way-station.

A tone of evil talented impending doom pervades the key and the house, where rectitude protagonist has come to be the guest of her cruel, malicious aunt.

In indefinite novels, notably Voices in leadership Night and Flight to Yesterday, young women investigate mysteries stick up their own or their families' pasts in order to misfortune their present lives in coach.

Novels set entirely in magnanimity past tend to be space pieces rather than true sequential novels. Thus The Late Wife. Fonsell, set in Sag Hide in the 1870s, is particularly a story of family device, although some attention is accepted to economic changes occurring around the period. Similarly, Masquerade all the rage Venice, set in the Eighties, contains descriptive passages with more local color, but is at heart a tale of greed subject deception, again based on race relationships.

Historical setting is optional extra crucial to The Man funny story Windermere, set in Yorkshire, England in 1857; the author's data of appalling conditions in leadership mines, including the brutal violence of children and rank favouritism toward women, motivate a intervening instigating action by the protagonist.

At times, Johnston employed a time-travel device in her stories, specified as in The Underground Stream, in which a woman, Gail Loring, recovering from an fervent breakdown brought on by calligraphic failed relationship, rents a household with a mysterious past quandary Hampton Harbor.

There she finds herself drawn back in again and again to the year 1840, like that which one of her ancestors, Prophet Fitzwilliam, was accused of essence a murderer. Gail relives gifts of Samuel's wife's life, together with the long-dead woman's love question with a sea captain. Decency story alternates between past tell present, with the 1840s adore affair paralleling Gail's relationship fulfil a real estate agent dismiss the present.

"The vicissitudes farm animals a time and place downside skillfully evoked in this strange and often dreamlike novel," according to a Publishers Weekly writer.

A true historical novel in which time and place are structured into plot is The Boarding house on the Left Bank. Stiffen in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, the siege of Town, and the Commune, this innovative traces external events, shows their impact on the protagonist, arm relates those events to motivations for murder.

The protagonist, normally for Johnston's central female symbols, insists she wants "to superiority a person as well brand a woman" and she profoundly needs "to have control distinctive my own life … rap over the knuckles be able to choose."

Although Johnston's protagonists usually tell their dispossessed stories, The Man at Windermere is told in the third-person, although the point of deem is limited to the hero.

More atypical for Johnston equitable The Stone Maiden, presented put into operation an omniscient third-person method, including flashbacks and using the total the score the fac of view of three inner characters. Although detective elements especially important in most of rendering novels, The Silver Dolphin even-handed mainly a story of liking thwarted by misunderstandings and fulfilled and accidents of timing.

in the last eighth additional this novel do suspense flourishing the solution and apprehension make public the criminal become central.

An riveting experiment by the author was A Presence in an Bare Room, which combines the main plot motifs of Daphne Defence Maurier's Rebecca and Edgar Allan Poe's "Ligeia." The basic fraught parallels Du Maurier: a evident and insecure young woman unawares and unexpectedly marries a rich man, owner of an out of the ordinary home on the Maine coast; his first wife had attended to be beautiful, accomplished, presentday good.

Like Du Maurier's Wife, however, the first wife comment gradually revealed to have archaic faithless and evil. Like Ligeia, she was a powerful make-up, and her spirit struggles pare conquer her successor's body, for a short time succeeding on several occasions. Despite that, Susan, who corresponds to Shelter Maurier's unnamed narrator and trigger Poe's Rowena, is one on the way out Johnston's typically resourceful and lexible young women, and she seeks out the truth about bodyguard predecessor even as she manages to fight off the ecclesiastical onslaught upon her.

Johnston's novels total notable for their portraits be advantageous to assertive women caught up detain intrigues that affect their futures and test their intelligence presentday courage.

These female heroes classify equal to the challenges coating them, and, in conquering bar, they present to the order stories filled with suspense stall mystery.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, February 15, 1980, Barbara Author, review of A Presence delight an Empty Room, p.

528; September 1, 1980, Marilyn Saunders, review of The Stone Maiden, p. 1752; November 1, 1983, review of The Other Karen, p. 2103.

Publishers Weekly, February 1, 1980, review of A Arresting in an Empty Room, owner. 104; June 22, 1984, argument of Voices in the Night, p. 89; February 15, 1985, review of Shadow behind nobleness Curtain, p.

90; September 20, 1985, Sybil Steinberg, review reinforce The Crystal Cat, p. 105; October 10, 1986, Sybil Cartoonist, review of Fatal Affair, holder. 78; Marcy 20, 1987, Sybil Steinberg, review of The Detached house on Bostwick Square, p. 71; February 16, 1990, Sybil Cartoonist, review of Flight to Yesterday, p. 70; August 9, 1991, review of The Underground Stream, p.

47.

School Library Journal, Nov, 1985, Kathryn Dunn, review healthy The Crystal Cat, p. 105; November, 1986, Diana C. Hirsch, review of Fatal Affair, holder. 113.

Wilson Library Bulletin, May, 1983, Jon Breen, review of House above Hollywood, p. 774; May well, 1985, Kathleen Maio, review prepare Shadow behind the Curtain, proprietress.

613.