Scarlet Angel

by Elizabeth Palmer

After marrying wealthy George Marchant for his money, unscrupulous, vicious Camilla Vane will stop at nothing to control the family legacy, but she had never counted on her own dark, secret past being revealed. Reprint.

376 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Backcover says:
British native Elizabeth Palmer has received critical acclaim for her work, both in the U. K. and North America. Her writing style is often favorably compared to that of other great authors --- Fay Weldon, Joanna Trollope and Mary Wesley.

Reviews

[Mamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Marchant family has a somewhat antiquated way of deciding ownership of property. When George brings a wife into the ancestral home, his Mother, and two brothers have a lot to deal with. George was a smart cookie (other than falling in love with an amoral woman).

[Michelle]

Scarlet Angel
Elizabeth Palmer
Fiction
369 pages
copyright: 1993
isbn: 1-55166-456-9

Merchants, one of England's finest country homes, has a new mistress. And life will never be the same.

Camilla Vane agreed to marry weatlhy George Merchant for one reason and one reason only--his money. But now her very presence at Merchants is upsetting the family's carefully constucted balancing acts, reveling many long-buried secrets. Dangerous adn unscupalous, she leaves a path of destruction in her wake as she plots to control the family legacy. Within a year, one family member has attempted sucide, one marriage has ended and one son is dead.

But Camilla Vane is a woman with a past, and a woman with a past is a woman who can be blackmailed...She just hasn't counted on the one person who will stop at nothing to save Merchants.

[NatalyaVqs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel, while lacking the pizzaz (or a sense of excitement) that would have made it a great book, was nevertheless a quality read. The author's style is distinct in that it gives a cunning insight into a most character's heads and makes it a powerful situational play. There are some insightful quotes to come out of it, such as "Given his own amorality, he could quite easily have come to terms with her criminal tendencies, but he could never, being the snob that he was, ever have overlooked her roots." Pretty good verdict, huh? I loved all the mother's struggling faced with amorality of her son, all the self doubt as to "what made him so?" - great unanswerable questions...