My mom had lots of her books. I remember being fascinated with the title of Touch Not the Cat when I was a kid.

Airs Above the Ground, Madam, Will you Walk?, Nine Coaches Waiting, This Rough Magic. She almost always had evocative titles. And I did love her romances, even the early ones.

I don't think I actually read any Mary Stewart, but I read others like her -- Dorothy Eden and Victoria Holt especially.

Sort of on topic, too, when I was at a Catholic high school in Philly for a writing thing, I was in one of the English classrooms, and there were copies of Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt, which really surprised me. I'd never heard of a book like that taught in a high school before.

Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, Jane Aiken Hodge, Elizabeth Peters . . . love them all.

Elizabeth Peters (aka Barbara Michaels aka Barbara Mertz) died not too long ago. sigh ....

I didn't know that!! Dammit!

Victoria Holt was also Phillipa Carr, and Jean Plaidy--all three pseuds for Eleanor (Alice Buford) Hibbert. Who knew?

I did! I knew that! ::grins::

I was surprised to find that Dorothy Eden was only even Dorothy Eden apparently.

I feel like there's one author from this genre that I'm overlooking, but I can't think of her name.

I do remember that after this era came the era of the Sprawling Family Epic, a la Evergreen and A Woman of Substance.

Phyllis Whitney! That's who I was forgetting. I read a million of her books, too.

I tried a couple of Whitney's but they were too cliche. Something about an orphan who caused trouble because her parents were "bad".