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On the Night of the Seventh Moon

by Victoria Holt

     

Helena Trent, attending boarding school in Germany, is enchanted by everything in the Black Forest. On a picnic one day in the Black Forest with a group of her classmates, she strays from the group and becomes lost in the mist which has developed. She is rescued by a man on horseback, "Siegfried." She spends the night in his hunting lodge and is returned unharmed by Siegfried to the school.

Back in England after her father dies she is left with his strict aunts. She assists in the bookstore that was her father's. They are visited by German relatives of her mother, who invite her to return to Germany with them for a visit. There she again meets Siegfried, with whom she has been obsessed. They fall in love and marry. He reveals that he is really Maximilian, Count Lokenburg. They lead a life of happiness and love until he must leave her to fight for his father. She finds herself alone and pregnant. Her life becomes a nightmare in which she loses days of her life and her baby. She is told that the marriage and the birth of her baby is all a delusion. When she recovers and Maximilian hasn't returned, she returns to England, only to return again as an English tutor to the Duke's children. She is determined to find Maximilian and her lost days.

St Martin's has rereleased another of Victoria Holt's romantic suspense novels. In this story of a young woman fighting to find her way out of a nightmare Holt writes an intriguing story of love, delusion, betrayal and political intrigue. This is an intricate plot with many twists and turns. It is well written, as are all of Holt's novels, with an interesting cast of characters.

For myself, I found the premise of missing days and lost memory difficult to accept. How can a woman be so naive and gullible?

The Book

St Martin’s Griffin / an imprint of Macmillan
March 2010 (reprint from 1972)
Trade Paperback
9780312384319
Romantic Suspense / Germany 1870
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Excerpt
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The Reviewer

Barbara Buhrer
Reviewed 2010
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