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by Mary Webb
Published in 1922, at a time when Mary Webb had been suffering from ill health and from stresses in her personal life, Seven for a secret was initially the least well received of her novels. In Gillian Lovekin, Mary Webb created a vivid and passionate heroine, who
was neither tall nor short, neither stout nor very slender; she was not dark nor fair, not pretty nor ugly. She had ugly things about her, such as the scar which seamed one side of her forehead, and gave that profile an intent, relentless look … But her mouth was sensitive and sweet, and could be yielding sometimes, and her eyes had so much delight in all they looked upon, and saw so much incipient splendour in common things, that they charmed you and led you in a spell and would not let you think her plain or dull.While Gillian's egotism leads to disaster, the story is not so much one of personal tragedy as of the conflict between light and darkness. Finally, Gillian is able to declare: "The powers of darkness have lost their hold, and I'm not a child of sin any more."
A sample chapter of Seven for a secret is available on this website.
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Page created 22 January 2003 and last
updated 23 January 2003
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