Paperback 668: Fiona / Catherine Gaskin (Fontana 2958)

Paperback 668: Fontana 2958 (1st ptg, 1972)

Title: Fiona
Author: Catherine Gaskin
Cover artist: Uncredited [Renato Fratini]

Yours for: Not For Sale (gift to the collection from Laurie Gagne)


Best things about this cover:

• The drugs they gave her for her root canal were really, really good.
• Are you there God, it's me, sexy drugged-out plantation lady.
• If you can figure out what the hell is happening in the background with the people and the running and what not, you have better eyes and interpretive skills than I do.

Best things about this back cover:

• This novel should've been called "Dangerous Currents." That, or "Plantation Fantasies To Masturbate By."
• It's pretty impressive how this description manages to make "emancipation" seem like a species of orgasm.
• Woman's Journal—the journal read by just one woman.

Page 123~

"Before he was ill—before Maria and that rotten weed she gave him to smoke—that, and the rum—he was a clever manager."

Plantation romances are not really my cup of tea, but I am suddenly interested in Maria and her rotten weed.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 7

Title: Death in a White Tie (Fontana Books, 1960)
Author: Ngaio Marsh
Cover artist: John L. Baker (or is that the book owner's signature in the bottom left corner?)

Yours for: make an offer

• New Zealand in the House!
• Uh, that tie is not white.
• Henry was busy entertaining no one with his drunken soft shoe routine when the Rolls Royce came creeping around the corner.
• I contend that there is no way Henry can see that car, despite the fact that he *appears* to be looking at it.
• I would say that Henry looks like he's sliding across a newly waxed floor, but in fact he appears to be levitating.

• Whoa! That is not the author pic I'd use to sell pulp fiction. She looks like she's dreamily recalling the Good Old Days (i.e. the reign of Queen Victoria).
• LOVE the apostrophe-as-abbreviation marker on 'PHONE. Marsh was always so street, always hip to the lingo of kids those days, etc.

Page 123~

"The ball was a great success, I believe."
"Yes. Lady Carrados was born under a star of hospitality. It is always a source of wonderment to me why one ball should be a great success and another offering the same band, caterer and guests an equally great failure."

It is always a source of wonderment to me that anyone ever found aristocrats inherently interesting.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]