The devil of Aske;: A novel

by Pamela Hill

Simon Carden has one dream, one to be mater of the House of Aske. To gain this end, he is willing to defy all the rules of this world and the next - even the legendary curse of the Askes. But one thing he cannot the will of the only woman who truly loves him.

In Simon Carden, Pamela Hill has created a figure to be ranked with Heathcliff, Mr. Rochester, and all the passionate heroes of romantic fiction. With the House of Aske she has given the world a name to be remembered with Wuthering Heights and Manderley.

Genres: Gothic

558 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

AKA Sharon Fiske and Isabel Tain.

Reviews

[Kagama-the Literaturevixen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Leah Considine is our narrator remembering back to when she was a Young girl.Her father was the local curate and Always on the outsides of her World was the Aske family.

Her life becomes involved with theirs when her mother suddenly dies leaving her father a grieving widower. When Lady Kintyre the daughter of the Aske matriarch offers to console him one thing leads to Another and they form an attachment and marry. Their happiness is cut short however when both are killed in an horrific carriage accident on their honeymoon.

Now Leah is truly an orphan but she is taken in by Old Madam Aske her stepgrandmother to be raised at the mansion alongside the the two Aske Children,the heir is Peter(a sadistic creep) and Ann (a Beautiful dimwit)

Peter grows up to become a spendthrift degenerate and gambles away the ancestral home leaving the Aske womenfolk on the mercies of Simon Carden who is the bastard son of the eldest son of Old Madam but who was killed fighting for the Jacobites. Simon harbors resentment being not only denied his birthright but also blaming the Askes for the Death of his mother.

And now when he has become a rich man he wants it all from the house to marrying Ann Aske and taking her name.

I am not sure I have ever been so equally bored AND appalled by a book.

Now dont get me wrong when I pick up a gothic I dont excpect it to be all sunshine and happiness.I do expect many things like old forbidding houses,strange families and Deaths. (not to mention the heroine running scared in a nightgown.)

But the "Devil of Aske" first of all suffers from lifeless writing and the first person omniscient narration of an old Leah reciting her life makes for a plodding dry read and people are rarely shown as interacting and only occassionally being allowed to have dialogues but somehow still inexplicably manages to connect with each other

If you are not turned off by the writing style then you might want to avoid this because of the animal torturing and how Leah
starts getting molested and is later raped by the adolescent Peter and he shoves a stone up her lady parts.


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[T.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was 10 when I read this.
I was ten, and it raped my mind. Eternally. I think I almost imploded when I came upon the part where she gets raped with a stone. It was honestly the most horrible thing my young mind had ever conjured. However, the book itself was darn good, and while a trifle ah...how to put this...nasty, it managed to keep bewildered, ten year old moi going and most cognizant. Quite enjoyable.

[Devi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a prejudice about this book: it will have a Mills and Boon formula. I was in for a surprise.

I was greatly disturbed with the insanity and evil this book has yet I was awed on the "love story" that is between Simon and Leah.

Pamela Hill did not disappoint. And one should not judge a book by its book blurb.

[Aisha Abbas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narration done is with monotonous regularity, reason why the story easily wears you off.