A young lady comes from the north to become a governess during the great American Civil War, a life of madness and magnificence, tender love and monstrous evil.

THE CURSE OF THE LeGRANDS
Leaving a barren future behind her, Hester Snow came to Seven Chimneys to begin a new life. But the moment she crossed its elegant threshold, she felt the ominous chill of evil.

And then she learned of the LeGrand curse. About the ghost of a woman who walked at night. About the mysterious deaths that had plagued the family for generations. About the madness that fell upon the LeGrand women, and the evil inborn in its men. And finally, with creeping horror, she discovered the dread fate that awaited her own innocence....

http://leavesandpages.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/review-the-web-of-days-by-edna-le...
Excerpt of review only; find full review at https://www.librarything.com/work/726837/summary

''The best I can come up with is that it was engaging in that I read it to the end, hoping for some sort of unpredictable plot twist to crank it up a notch. (Sadly, that never happened.)''

''Every once in a while I read a real clunker, which serves to remind me that all vintage books are not really worth saving.''

''The Web of Days was mesmerizing in its awfulness; I read it cover to cover, with increasing queasiness. Like the proverbial train wreck, I just couldn’t look away. In a phrase: Melodramatic Gothic Southern Romance.''

''...writing style itself is rather interesting, in that it is has a very nineteenth century feel to it in the phrasing. If deliberate, this is a good conceit on the part of the author, as the story is written in first person narration by Hester Snow herself, and the voice sounds authentic. There’s a fair bit of bodice-rippingly bad sex in a 1940′s style, in that we never really get a description of the act itself, just the prologue and epilogue; the velvet stage curtain swishes shut at the bedroom door.''

''Debating the fate of this book, I’m tempted to chuck it onto the giveaway pile, but while doing an internet search on the author I see she has several other “bestsellers” of her time which receive a fair bit of discussion: The Southerners, The Queen Bee, and All That Heaven Allows, among others. The Queen Bee was made into a 1955 film starring Joan Crawford, while All that Heaven Allows was made into a 1955 film starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson. (1955 was a good year for Edna Lee, apparently.) Both received a fair bit of popular, if not critical, acclaim, which just goes to show I’m not sure what – maybe that melodrama sells?!''

''I may tackle Edna Lee again in future. It was an interesting experience, and greatly highlighted the excellence of much of my other vintage reading in comparison to The Web of Days‘s deeply schlocky shlockiness.'' leavesandpages (Apr 9, 2013 - 1.5 of 5 stars)