An engaging gothic romance by a virtuoso of the genre. Jessica has just arrived at her aunt's Caribbean hotel to wallow in her depression over having no idea where her life is going. Her aunt's friend has a granddaughter that she thinks needs a better influence than her narcissistic and promiscuous mother, so Jessica is browbeaten into moving into the estate and enduring the verbal abuse of both the girl's mother and father. Of course the father and Jessica develop feelings for each other and have to foil the plotting of the mother and her accomplices. ( )

I first read Columbella in 1966 when I was 15. Even more than the murder mystery, I loved the little details, especially the ones about Catherine Drew: her red dress, her ruffled green bikini, her water lily perfume, the columbella shell that was dipped in gold to make a pendant.

Jessica Abbott, the heroine, is a bit of a goody-goody, but wicked Catherine is a fascinating character. She can twist men around her little finger, all except her husband, Kingdon Drew, who is on to her games. Catherine's mother, Maud Hampden, hires Jessica as a tutor/companion to the Drew's teenage daughter, Leila, in a bid to prevent King from sending the girl away to boarding school in the States, to get her away from Catherine's influence. So, King is opposed to Jessica, although she is drawn to him. Jessica also empathizes with Leila, as she herself suffered with a manipulative, charming and devious mother. Tensions keep building in the house on the hill above Charlotte Amalie, until everything comes to a head on the night of Catherine's fateful party.

I wasn't always a big fan of Phyllis Whitney, as I found her heroines sometimes a little too sweet, but Columbella has always been my favourite of her books. I hadn't read it for years, when I decided to acquire a copy again; I'm glad I did. ( )

It was a proud day when I received my first adult library card and Columbella was one of the first two books I checked out with it. I haven't read my old paperback copy in decades, but as I read a library's large print copy, memories came back: the golden columbella necklace, the beautiful wallpaper in Cathy's room at Caprice, the red dress, and the special Calypso song at a party.... I remembered who the killer was, but it didn't matter.

Did this book cast the same spell over me that it did when I was 13? No. I'm no longer ready to believe in a true love that happens as quickly as it does here, but the descriptions are just as beautiful and the characters as interesting. Ms. Whitney had a way of showing how a toxic parent's damage to his or her child could affect that person still. Here we have one woman damaged by her mother and another damaged by her father. While we don't know that either parent meant to damage his/her daughter, there is a teen being deliberately damaged by her mother. Can our heroine save that girl and the father who made the mistake of imagining his dead comrade-in-arm's sister was as fine a person as her brother?

The woman who calls herself 'Columbella' has already run through the money her father left her, yet is still spending money as if it grew on trees. She's even talking about restoring the family mansion. Where's that money going to come from?

Columbella is good old-fashioned romantic suspense. Enjoy. ( )