Miss or Mrs?, the Haunted Hotel, the Guilty River

This collection of shorter Wilkie Collins "novellas" is right up to par with his other writings. The usual well-crafted plots are laid out in his typical, logical style and as always the attention to detail and the character development is top-notch. Collins fans will be delighted with these fast-reading page-turners, since they're shorter than his full-length masterpieces so you get to the satisfying conclusions sooner !!

I suppose I should look embarrassed to be reviewing Victorian sensationalist novels, but. . .I'm not. I love them and I'm not ashamed to admit. I enjoy nearly every British Victorian author I can find--with the notable exception of Dickens (*gag*) and Emily Bronte (who was NOT the best Bronte writer by a long-shot)--and Collins is one of my true favorites. From the supernatural to the just plain mean, from true love to deadly love, from. . .well, from any hackneyed plot device to any other hackneyed plot device, you can find it in Collins, and well written, too! (Of course, one must remember that many of the trite plot devices were not so well-used when he penned them.) These three novellas give an excellent example of the varied nature of his stories. Miss or Mrs? is a story of true love, unrequited love, greed, dark deeds, and clandestine marriage featuring one of the most insipid heroines I've seen yet. And still I enjoyed it. The Haunted Hotel is a truly estimable work of fiction. In it Collins combines the supernatural with a truly interesting mystery and a rather sweet love story subplot. He pits human goodness against human evil with a heroine that is almost as strong and brave as she is good. One must remember the times, though, and not expect her to NOT faint away from time to time. This was my second reading of this novella and I liked it even better this time. It's truly complex and twisty and quite enjoyable. With The Guilty River, Collins leaves the supernatural dangers and shows his readers what can happen to someone suddenly and cripplingly handicapped. . . If that someone is willing to give in to his immoral side, that is. Like the other three, love is a prominent theme, featuring another dangerous triangle of lovers. The Haunted Hotel is by far the best of the three, but the others are still enjoyable enough to those who like Victorian literature. If one is reading them and expecting them to be comparable with modern books--DON'T. Collins, as with all Victorian writers, must be read in the spirit it was written to be fully enjoyed. s