Abandoned by Booklikes

I read this for "Gothic square". "On the Night of the Seventh Moon" by Victoria Holt.

So I just realized after finishing this book that I really can't write a very in-depth review, because if I do I'll be spoiling the entire book. So I'm going to try to keep this to just general things and then you can make a decision if you want to read this for Halloween book bingo.

On the night of the seventh moon is told from the first person point of view of a young girl named Helena. Helena is raised in a loving household, the only fly in the ointment so to speak is the fact that her parents are both desperately in love with each other and that doesn't leave a lot of love left over for her when they are in the same room together.

Helena's mother is from a Germanic country. The book doesn't really come out and say where she's from exactly and I couldn't guess and I was honestly not really in the mood to go do some digging about this. Helena's father is English and though many around them don't think the marriage is going to work, it does.

The only thing that Helena's mother really wanted was for her daughter to be sent away to learn Germany and French and other things and Helena is eventually sent to a boarding school that's near a town that her mother knows. So we find out pretty early on that Helena is sent away from home for four years and is being raised and taught by nuns.

Everything kind of goes sideways for Helena when she gets lost in a forest when mist suddenly forms. Helena meets some mysterious man and she calls him Siegfried. He takes her back to his lodge (as one does) and then goes about trying to seduce her. Long story short, everyone around can tell that Siegfried is up to no good, but Helena feels so excited by things. Blech. This little adventure ends up with her almost being raped (she bolts the door and is later awoken by the doorknob turning) but in the light of day is disappointed. 

Smack upside the head for Helena.

Cue Helena having to go home after her mother passes away and then her father does as well. Being forced to go home to her dreary little village and not be able to see her Siegfried again it's just making her sad. I on the other hand think that if she had any sense she would realize that Siegfried was not a cool dude and she should just move on but then we wouldn't have a story here if that's what the author chose to do what do we?

Fast forward to some relatives of Helena's mother showing up and when she's given the opportunity to return with them to be at a nearby Village that is close to her old school she jumps on it because of course all she's thinking of is seeing her Siegfried again.

And see him again she does. I'm not going to talk much after that because that's where the mystery lies and the entire rest of the book is Helena unraveling who's being truthful and who is lying to her. I do have to say that even when she does find out what's been going on I think that she took things way too laid-back for for what I would have probably have done. And I honestly wish that Holt had just decided to end the book in a different way because I never did warm up to Siegfried.

I have to say that I thought that the writing that Holt did in this one was very good. I love the descriptions of the town's and other locations that appear in this story. Holt really made me feel like I was Helena in a couple scenes as she becomes more and more thrilled with her surroundings. Everything sounds positively Gothic at times which was nice to read on an overcast day. 

The ending just turned into a mess though. Once again won't spoil for others, but it just didn't make a lot of sense at all. Then Holt does an epilogue that shows what happened to everyone and I ended up just feeling dissatisfied.