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Devil May Care: 12/03/13
Devil May Care by Elizabeth Peters is a stand alone Gothic mystery set in Virginia. It's also one of those books that makes it obvious that Elizabeth Peters was also Barbara Michaels as it rehashes many of the same themes and situations from Ammie, Come Home (Barbara Michaels, 1968). Ellie and her fiance will be watching her aunt's estate (and menagerie of pets) for a couple of weeks. The fiance is essentially looking for a trophy wife — something made crystal clear from the opening chapter from his point of view. Ellie, though, isn't as easy prey as he thinks and these two weeks will be enlightening for her. Along the way Ellie picks up a used book about the history of the area and its founding families. It seems to stir up the local ghosts and Ellie is visited by a variety of them. In the Georgetown books, the hauntings and possessions are brought on from tension between the sexes. Modern day people falling into the same gender roles as their predecessors makes them vulnerable to reliving the bad experiences of the past. Here, the hauntings are less tied to some age old battle of the sexes. Instead it's a prank awaking an unexpected evil. Five stars Comments (0) |