Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)'s Reviews > Stranger at Wildings

I found this book after 45 years and tore through it on a blessedly rainy day and really enjoyed revisiting it. When it came out I was in high school and had no idea that "Madeleine Brent" was actually Peter O'Donnell, whom I would later know as the author of the Modesty Blaise comics and novels. In fact, gentle reader, when I first read the MB novels I was convinced that O'Donnell must actually be a woman, given the detailed descriptions of clothing, meals, furnishings, houses etc. which are standard in romance novels. I think I read this book back then because my closest friend in high school fed exclusively on chicklit of this type. I remembered the first part which deals with the MC as trapeze artist, but none of the rest of it. O'Donnell had been writing MB for about 10 years when this book came out, and you can see the influence in the "battle scene" and MC's detailed observation of the castle.

Set in about 1905, the time period is never actually expressed, but the author makes one huge mistake when the MC puts on her wristwatch--something that would not become common for women until after WW1. At the turn of the century women wore watches on brooches, pinned to their bodice or waist.
This can be considered a "clean romance" as there are only a couple of very chaste kisses and a couple of hugs.