My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Whistle for the Crows by Dorothy Eden is a 2013 Open Road Media publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Cathleen Lamb arrives at the spooky run down castle in Dublin to record the family history of the O'Riordan family. It appears the family would like it very much if Cathleen would only dig into the facts they want represented and not the entire history of the family since it would seem there are quite a few secrets the family would rather the world not know about.
Aunt Tilly, the acting matriarch of the family is Cathleen's employer, a stern woman with an interest in orphaned children. Her two nephews, Rory and Liam and her niece Kitty all reside in the castle. Cathleen is stunned to learn that the trio is harboring their mother as well, who suffered a stroke and can not communicate.
After having lost her husband and child, Cathleen is hyper-sensitive to children . When she continues to hear a baby's cries she is convinced there is a child being mistreated and she will not stand by and ignore it. So, as she studies the history of the family, she learns that Rory, Kitty, and Liam had a brother who died at an early age. This brother was perhaps involved in a scandal that included two women- one he was allegedly married to and another he has asked to marry him! The rumors are that the girl he married had a child and Aunt Tilly's charity work with orphans may have an ulterior motive. Whatever is going on in that house, someone wants Cathleen out of the picture and she finds herself in serious danger.
Dorothy Eden is one of my favorite Gothic mystery/romance authors of all time. She wrote many books that were well loved in the 1960's and 70's. This book has been reissued by Open Road Integrated Media in digital format. I am glad to know these books, which can be hard to come by are now available to a new audience and I hope you will give them a try.
This book taps into the classic Gothic outline of the gloomy castle, the odd family full of secrets, the damsel in distress, and a love interest who is dark and brooding. In this case the damsel in distress is Cathleen, and she is not one of those silly innocent naïve helpless females. Cathleen has a backbone and stands up to these intimidating people she finds herself surrounded by. While the family attempts to manipulate and frighten her, she continues to work at finding out what is behind the cries of a child she knows she is hearing. One of the classic plot lines is to have the heroine unsure who to trust and in this case Cathleen is sandwiched between Rory and Liam. Both have given her reason to be suspicious of them. The diabolical twist that is revealed is a shocker. Only Dorothy Eden could have thought up such a story line. While this was not the all time best example of Dorothy Eden's work, it was still a very solid story that will give you the creeps at times. The romance was a bit understated and that is usual in the books published in this genre, so even your teenage daughter could read this book since there is no sexual content or graphic violence. Overall I have to give this one an A.