≫ Libro The Pride of the Peacock Eleanor Hibbert Victoria Holt Philippa Carr Jean Plaidy 9780385122818 Books

The Pride of the Peacock Eleanor Hibbert Victoria Holt Philippa Carr Jean Plaidy 9780385122818 Books

Download As PDF : The Pride of the Peacock Eleanor Hibbert Victoria Holt Philippa Carr Jean Plaidy 9780385122818 Books

The Pride of the Peacock Eleanor Hibbert Victoria Holt Philippa Carr Jean Plaidy 9780385122818 Books

"The Pride of the Peacock" was one of the first books that introduced me to Victoria Holt. I had borrowed it from my grandma when I was a child. The author described a place that was strange to me and sounded exotic. I loved her writing and started to look for her other books in the library and now, more recently, at old book stores and sellers to collect these books for myself. It's a shame that they are not printing them anymore.


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The Pride of the Peacock Eleanor Hibbert Victoria Holt Philippa Carr Jean Plaidy 9780385122818 Books Reviews

The ever-talented Victoria Holt takes what could have been a tired plot device - marriage of convenience with secret desire turning to real love - and gives it new life with hidden family secrets, the search for a fabulous lost - and cursed - priceless opal, and the adventure of the rugged Australian Outback.

Jessica Clavering grows up in her staid, rigid, loveless English family but longs for a life of adventure. She finds it in an arranged marriage with the son of her secret friend and they had off to unimaginable adventure...what more could a reader ask for? This is my favorite Holt novel, and I also recommend "Mistress of Mellyn."
Jessica only realizes how little she knows her "family" when she starts a relationship with the forbidden elderly gentleman that reportedly "stole" her family's estate. They become friends, and he puts her in his will. There is one condition she must marry his son, Joss. She and Joss agree, but they decide to keep it "in name only". Her now father-in-law dies, and Jessica and Joss travel to their joint estate and opal mine in Australia. Here, Jessica becomes fonder of Joss and wonders if the "in name only" part of their marriage will last. There is only one problem someone is trying to kill Jessica! Will they succeed?
Not only is this book entertaining to read, but it is also educational. I learned a lot about opals, and I am planning on adding some to my jewelry collection!
A re-read of a story I first read back in the 80's in my teen Victoria Holt phase. Unfortunately it's one of her books that dwells too much on the heroine's childhood and family. The hero doesn't even make an appearance until page 100. The first 1/2 of the book was dedicated to the sad story of the heroine's mother and the history of the famed Green Opal and of opal mining. The heroine (her real name is Opal) has more scenes with the codgy old opal miner than she ever gets with the hero. I got totally bored with opals and the endless conversations about past events. And opals.

With this set up, the hero would have to be something really special to redeem this book. Unfortunately he just ... wasn't. He's proud all right, feels rejected by the heroine who insists on a marriage-in-name-only, but his flirting with the OW for spite is just childish. He actually gifts her a valuable opal under the heroine's nose. The Green Opal turns out to be missing, but the whole opal-opal-who's-got-the-opal mystery was a bore. VH throws in a murder of course, but it occurs too late in the book to really spice things up. And the murderer turns out to be a crazy bat, driven crazy by the Green Opal. Natch.

I did not feel any passion in the romance. There wasn't even any passionate kissing. And the ILY's at the end were hard to believe. So overall it's a dud for me. And I'm avoiding opals from now on.
Like many women, I grew up reading Victoria Holt ( The Mistress of Mellyn, The Mask of the Enchantress, Lord of the Far Island, etc.) and I was excited to see that that Sourcebooks Casablanca was making them available again on E-Book.

The story is this young Jessica Clavering learns the true story of her family and birth when the mysterious old opal miner who bought the family manse befriends her. Ben is a great character, full of stories and mischief. When he learns he is dying, he sends for his son, Joss Madden and arranges a marriage between the pair. Jessica agrees to the marriage as a way out of her family life, and they set out for Australia's opal fields and a home called Peacocks. Once there, Jessica finds herself beset by danger....physical and emotional. Will she find out what happened to the magnificent opal called The Green Flash at Sunset? Will she discover who and what is threatening her? And is her new husband a thief and a murderer? In a world where only the strong survive, and morality is defined by necessity, who can she trust?

The first half of the book is filled with lively detail, and Jessica's relationship with Ben unfolds in a believable, and interesting fashion. Ben's stories of the Australian Outback, opal mining, and his long life are fun and its easy to see why Jessica is so charmed by him. He brings a strong defiant streak to her stuffy Victorian world, and helps her to break free from her mournful, bitter family. She discovers that she is the product of a love story, her mother is really her grandmother, and her father supposedly deserted her mother on the eve of their wedding. Heady stuff.

Ben's engineering of a wedding between Jessica and his natural son, Joss, also seems a logical next step. Jessica longs to go to Australia and Joss is Ben's heir...if he marries Jessica and takes her back to Australia with him. Joss is one of the "peacock's" of the title. Proud, aloof, handsome, and headstrong, he is the perfect Holt hottie. Jessica is so turned off by the stories Ben tells her about Joss, that she is determined their marriage be "in name only", which makes Joss even more aloof and prideful.

The descriptions of a mining town in Australia, and the home called "Peacocks" are fascinating...as are the inner-workings of an opal mining company. Holt really makes the time and place come alive. The obsessive search for and possession of opals, in particular one called The Green Flash at Sunset is the current running throughout the book, and from it springs the mystery and danger Jessica finds herself in. She is both attracted to and deeply suspicious of Joss, and almost loses her life as a result.

What seems to be missing is a real relationship between Joss and Jessica. Lots of sparring, lots of suspicion, lots of misunderstandings....all pretty standard fare. Jessica's sudden understanding of her love for Joss seems abrupt, as does his love for her. It may be a result of this book having been written in the 1970's, as well as the author's more delicate handling of sex, but the whole affair seemed to lack chemistry.

I plan on re-reading other Holt novels, as well as those by Phillipa Carr,(another pseudonym for the author, Eleanor Hibbert) . Like Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt is a part of cherished memories of learning about love through books while I was too young to learn about it in real life. She will always hold a special place in my "library of the heart" as a result.
it was ok It was a gift for a friend who has not read it yet
she will when she has time
Just what I expected!
I started reading Victoria Holt novels 35 years ago. I have just now started reading them over again and since I read some of them from the library I decided I wanted to have my own complete set. I love her novels, there is no one else that could write in the style that she does.
"The Pride of the Peacock" was one of the first books that introduced me to Victoria Holt. I had borrowed it from my grandma when I was a child. The author described a place that was strange to me and sounded exotic. I loved her writing and started to look for her other books in the library and now, more recently, at old book stores and sellers to collect these books for myself. It's a shame that they are not printing them anymore.