JOHNSTON, Velda 1911(?)-1997

(Veronica Jason)

PERSONAL: Born 1911 (one source lists 1912); died 1997. Education: Attended schools in California.

CAREER: Romance writer.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Along a Dark Path, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1967.

House above Hollywood, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1968.

A Howling in the Woods, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1968.

I Came to the Castle, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1969, published as Castle Perilous, Hale (London, England), 1971.

The Light in the Swamp, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1970.

The Phantom Cottage, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1970.

The Face in the Shadows, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1971.

The People on the Hill, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1971, published as Circle of Evil, Hale (London, England), 1972.

The Mourning Trees, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1972.

The Late Mrs. Fonsell, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1972.

The White Pavilion, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1973.

Masquerade in Venice, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1973.

I Came to the Highlands, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1974.

The House on the Left Bank, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1975.

A Room with Dark Mirrors, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1975.

Deveron Hall, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1976.

The Frenchman, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1976.

The Etruscan Smile, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1977.

The Hour before Midnight, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1978.

(Under pseudonym Veronica Jason) Never Call It Love, 1978.

The Silver Dolphin, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1979.

The People from the Sea, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1979.

A Presence in an Empty Room, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1980.

The Stone Maiden, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1980.

The Fateful Summer, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1981.

(Under pseudonym Veronica Jason) So Wild a Heart, New American Library (New York, NY), 1981.

(Under pseudonym Veronica Jason) Wild Winds of Love, 1981.

The Other Karen, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1983.

Voices in the Night, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1984.

Shadow behind the Curtain Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1985.

The Crystal Cat, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1985.

Fatal Affair, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1986.

The House on Bostwick Square, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1987.

The Girl on the Beach, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1987.

The Man at Windermere, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1988.

Flight to Yesterday, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1990.

The Underground Stream, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1991.

House of Illusion, Five Star (Waterville, ME), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Velda Johnston, who died in 1997, wrote romantic suspense novels that contain elements of detection and center around narrator-protagonists who are self-sufficient, intelligent women in their early or middle twenties and who themselves discover the solutions to their mysteries. Although Johnston used such staple ingredients of the gothic as the marriage of convenience that becomes a passionate love match (as in The Late Mrs. Fonsell and House above Hollywood), her books include psychological examinations by her self-aware heroines.

Although Sag Harbor, Long Island, where Johnston maintained a home, appears frequently, Johnston's novels vary widely in setting, ranging in both time and place. House above Hollywood takes its protagonist into the opulent home of a former silent-film star who is surrounded by apparently threatening figures, and The White Pavilion uses Dolor Island, Florida, for its tale of modern drug-running, an occupation that is paralleled with historical illegal importation of slaves for which the island had been a way-station. A tone of evil and impending doom pervades the island and the house, where the protagonist has come to visit her cruel, malicious aunt.

In several novels, notably Voices in the Night and Flight to Yesterday, young women investigate mysteries from their own or their families' pasts in order to set their present lives in order. Novels set entirely in the past tend to be period pieces rather than true historical novels. Thus The Late Mrs. Fonsell, set in Sag Harbor in the 1870s, is primarily a story of family intrigue, although some attention is given to economic changes occurring during the period. Similarly, Masquerade in Venice, set in the 1880s, contains descriptive passages with much local color, but is basically a tale of greed and deception, again based on family relationships. Historical setting is more crucial to The Man at Windermere, set in Yorkshire, England in 1857; the author's observations of appalling conditions in the mines, including the brutal treatment of children and rank injustice toward women, motivate a crucial instigating action by the protagonist.

At times, Johnston employed a time-travel device in her stories, such as in The Underground Stream, in which a woman, Gail Loring, recovering from an emotional breakdown brought on by a failed relationship, rents a house with a mysterious past in Hampton Harbor. There she finds herself drawn back in time to the year 1840, when one of her ancestors, Samuel Fitzwilliam, was accused of being a murderer. Gail relives parts of Samuel's wife's life, including the long-dead woman's love affair with a sea captain. The story alternates between past and present, with the 1840s love affair paralleling Gail's relationship with a real estate agent from the present. "The vicissitudes of a time and place are skillfully evoked in this eerie and often dreamlike novel," according to a Publishers Weekly writer.

A true historical novel in which time and place are integrated into plot is The House on the Left Bank. Set in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, the siege of Paris, and the Commune, this novel traces external events, shows their impact on the protagonist, and relates those events to motivations for murder. The protagonist, typically for Johnston's central female characters, insists she wants "to be a person as well as a woman" and she deeply needs "to have control of my own life … to be able to choose."

Although Johnston's protagonists usually tell their own stories, The Man at Windermere is told in the third-person, although the point of view is limited to the protagonist. More atypical for Johnston is The Stone Maiden, presented in an omniscient third-person method, containing flashbacks and using the points of view of three central characters. Although detective elements are important in most of the novels, The Silver Dolphin is mainly a story of love thwarted by misunderstandings and pride and accidents of timing. Only in the last eighth of this novel do suspense and the solution and apprehension of the criminal become central.

An interesting experiment by the author was A Presence in an Empty Room, which combines the central plot motifs of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca and Edgar Allan Poe's "Ligeia." The basic situation parallels Du Maurier: a plain and insecure young woman suddenly and unexpectedly marries a wealthy man, owner of an unusual home on the Maine coast; his first wife had appeared to be beautiful, accomplished, and good. Like Du Maurier's Rebecca, however, the first wife is gradually revealed to have been faithless and evil. Like Ligeia, she was a powerful personality, and her spirit struggles to conquer her successor's body, briefly succeeding on several occasions. However, Susan, who corresponds to Du Maurier's unnamed narrator and to Poe's Rowena, is one of Johnston's typically resourceful and determined young women, and she seeks out the truth about her predecessor even as she manages to fight off the spiritual onslaught upon her.

Johnston's novels are notable for their portraits of assertive women caught up in intrigues that affect their futures and test their intelligence and courage. These female heroes are equal to the challenges facing them, and, in conquering obstacles, they present to the reader stories filled with suspense and mystery.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, February 15, 1980, Barbara Parker, review of A Presence in an Empty Room, p. 528; September 1, 1980, Marilyn Saunders, review of The Stone Maiden, p. 1752; November 1, 1983, review of The Other Karen, p. 2103.

Publishers Weekly, February 1, 1980, review of A Presence in an Empty Room, p. 104; June 22, 1984, review of Voices in the Night, p. 89; February 15, 1985, review of Shadow behind the Curtain, p. 90; September 20, 1985, Sybil Steinberg, review of The Crystal Cat, p. 105; October 10, 1986, Sybil Steinberg, review of Fatal Affair, p. 78; Marcy 20, 1987, Sybil Steinberg, review of The House on Bostwick Square, p. 71; February 16, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of Flight to Yesterday, p. 70; August 9, 1991, review of The Underground Stream, p. 47.

School Library Journal, November, 1985, Kathryn Dunn, review of The Crystal Cat, p. 105; November, 1986, Diana C. Hirsch, review of Fatal Affair, p. 113.

Wilson Library Bulletin, May, 1983, Jon Breen, review of House above Hollywood, p. 774; May, 1985, Kathleen Maio, review of Shadow behind the Curtain, p. 613.