Charming romance with some delightful characters. Not a modern story, yet while the theme revolving around the basic women's rights issue is old, it is not, sadly, completely irrelevant even to our times. No sex scenes, no full-on gore, heroine is human with foibles and flaws. Mild, not gothic at all. Fun twins, two different sets.

Irene Teasey, following an unpleasant divorce takes herself and her twins to Ireland to investigate a legacy left to her by her great-aunt, another Irene Teasey. This turns out to be an estate outside Dublin, comprising of land, a nice house, cottages with tenants, a trust fund and a horse.

Beset by other Irish relatives (who thought the elder Irene should have left everything to them), her ex-husband objecting to his children being taken to Ireland, and mysterious goings-on at the estate, this is a light enjoyable read.

Although badged as a gothic romance, there's no supernatural goings-on, real or fake.

Yes, the same Anne McCaffrey who created the marvelous world of Pern. The heroine inherits her great-aunt's property in Ireland and sees this as a fortuitous opportunity to separate her children from their father's ploys (after a particularly bitter divorce.) Although written and marketed as a gothic romance, this does transcend the gothic style of the time and I reread the book occasionally.

1975