Review: On the Night of the Seventh Moon

On the Night of the Seventh Moon by Victoria Holt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.3 stars 

And I had learned the truth of what happened on the Night of the Seventh Moon; I had taken back those six days of my life; they belonged to me and I had been wantonly deceived. 

This story was full of gaslighting, obliviousness, and trickery. Helena starts off as a young girl going to school in Germany, she gets lost wandering in the woods and gets "rescued" by a man. This begins her journey of never forgetting him, going back home to England, time jumps, going back to Germany, reunions, lies, gaslighting, more time jumps, more back and forth between England and Germany, a wild card old nursemaid, danger, and truths revealed. 

I don't want to ruin the surprises and mystery, so I'm not going to go into detail of the story but there are some spoilers in my previous updates as I tried to figure things out as I read:

30% update 

70% update 

This was good but the ending kind of jumbled together in a hurry and, dare I say, had too happy of a one?? Some Gothic vibes at times and people wilding out with their scheming. 

View all my reviews

70%

 

*Spoilers in updates 

How dare you experiment with me! How dare you give me dreams that are without reality! If I have been abused I want to know it. There is nothing worse than uncertainty. Oh yes, there is. There is this terrible loss. The baby who was to have been my consolation has been taken from me. 

So Helena ended up pregnant and now they are telling her that the baby died during delivery. I Don't believe it! I don't trust these people. Helena's young, I think almost 20yrs old at this point, and I can see how she gets swept along with everyone at times. But I also really wish she'd wake up and get away from these people. 

There's a moment where she's talking to someone and they mention a "wild prince Carl" and the way the story unfolds about him, Helena's count is him, isn't it????? 

She's back in England and then we get some big time jumps and Ilse disappears and stops corresponding with her and the whole time I can't help thinking, YOUR BABY IS ALIVE. 

Oh wow, so the Anthony guy is now a vicar and still interested in Helena and she decides to tell him the whole story, how she was drugged by a doctor who told her she was raped and she imagined her wedding and lost her baby. I was screaming, "NO, girl, do not tell him this" but Anthony took it all like a champ and was like "So?" On one hand, good for nonjudgy Anthony, and the other, how you not seeing this as a red flag, lol. 

It's been nine years now and while Helena is in a bookstore, a German woman named Frau Graben just happens to come in and then offer her a job teaching English to a count's three bastard children. I DO NOT trust this Frau Graben, obviously another set-up. 

Oh my god, Fritz has Got to be her son, right??? 

"It was a mock marriage. It was often done-still is. The girl would not give in to him so the marriage was arranged. The so-called priest who performed the ceremony was no priest at all, but one of the courtiers, so of course the marriage was no true marriage and the girl was tricked. Her scruples were calmed and the honeymoon followed. In these cases when the bridegroom grows tired of the liaison he passes on and the lady realizes the truth. 

She says this right to Helena's face and Helena doesn't even blink!!!! What is happening, wake up, girl!

He seems to have been better since you came. Learning English agrees with him. Or perhaps it's you. He seems to have taken a real fancy to you-and you to him." She gave me that rather sly look of hers. 

I think I was right about Fritz! Frau Graben makes my skin crawl and I can't believe Helena isn't catching on. 

I stared; for there, seated between the Duke and the Princess, was Maximilian. 

It was Prince Carl!!! Ahhhh, I hope this is Helena's wakeup call and she starts taking some action and kicking the gaslighting to the curb and admitting to herself what happened. The whole haunted tower at the castle she is staying at is keeping the Gothic vibe lingering on the edges and hope the ghost doesn't turn out to be her. Eeek.

30%

 

*Spoilers in updates

Was it really true as they tried to convince me that I, a romantic and rather feckless girl, had been betrayed as many had been before and because I could not face this fact, had fabricated a wild story which none but myself could believe 

Uh oh, is this setting up an unreliable narrator? 

I believe that it was then that I convinced myself that one day there would be someone in my life who would be to me as my father was to her. I thought that this deep, unquestioning, unshakable devotion was for everyone to enjoy. Perhaps that was why I was such an easy victim. 

Her mom was of noble blood and he dad was a university student but they meet in the woods and feel in love, defying both families by marrying. Her mom had weak health though and ended up dying when she was young. Her father's two sisters come to help take care of her but they seem a bit old bitties. Even though her parents had such a loving marriage, it sounds a little lonely for her as they focused more on each other. 

He loomed up out of the mist like a hero of the forest on his big white horse. I went towards him. 

She describes herself as headstrong and a touch of wild, she's sixteen going to a school in Germany (well, this is late 1800's but German area) that her mother did and this meeting is similar to how her parent's meet. You can see why she's drawn to the man and moment. Very ominious and Gothic vibes while she's at the hunting lodge with the "wicked baron" but she ends up going back to the school and England after her father dies no worse for wear. Time moves kind of quick in this and she's now nineteen and her dad has died. She also is growing close to neighbor boy named Anthony. 

when the Gleibergs left England I was with them. 

I'm not sure I trust these Gleibergs, supposedly her mother's cousins. I smell a set-up! 

I was the wife of Maximilian, Count Lokenberg 

Of course, On the ninght of the seventh moon, she serediptiously meets her wicked baron. I'm a little thrown though that they're married, I don't believe it, lol. 

I didn't want to go. I wanted to stand there in that ruin and think of it all. How could I remember a dream so vividly? It wasn't possible. I could not bear my misery, because every minute they were convincing me that what had happened had indeed been unreal 

I knew it! So she thinks she ran off with Maximillian, got married, and spent a couple days loving it up at the the hunting lodge. When Maximillian has to go fix some family problems, she goes to stay with her cousins but when she wakes up, they tell her it was all drug induced dream she came up with because she was raped. I'm believing Helena right now and that events happened the way she remembered. 

I don't know, I'm feel enraged on Helena's behalf, this seems like an epic gaslighting situation and I want to knock some heads in her honor.

Reading Update: Page 1

 Happy Saturday!

Reading 

for my 

Halloween Bingo square.

I also made these snake breadsticks, which, I'll let you be the judge if they turned out 😂