The House of Vandekar

Veteran romance-suspenser Anthony now offers a fast-moving but generally humdrum story of a three-generation English house. The saga begins in 1935 with Alice--a fascinating, fortune-hunting American beauty--marrying the immensely rich, Anglo-Dutch banker Hugo Vandekar. Unfortunately, Alice turns out to be frigid, but they buy Ashdown and proceed to create a feverishly glamourous social/political life and even produce a daughter, Fern, who, unloved by Alice, becomes whiney and mean-spirited, hates her mother, and dotes on her father. During WW II, Alice falls in love with one of the glamorous officers recuperating at Ashdown and, in spite of her frigidity, has an affair with him. She then has a son, Richard, whose paternity will remain in doubt until the end of the book. Meanwhile, Richard adores his mother, and eventually marries a beautiful nymhomaniac, Diana, whose infidelities are supposedly what drive him to become an alcoholic. Diana seduces Fern's husband, and then dies under suspicious circumstances, thereby providing a bit of mystery. Many yearn later, after Alice's death, vindictive Aunt Fern drives Richard and Diana's daughter, Nancy, away from Ashdown, and it is only with the support of A Good Man that Nancy finally solves the puzzle of her mother's death. Not without reminders of Anthony's storytelling talent, but the unconvincing and silly pop-psych motivations here will make this one a disappointment to fans of her earlier--and usually more effective--items.