Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Violet Winspear set her 1968 romance Court of the Veils in an oasis plantation in the Sahara. The main character, Roslyn Brant, is suffering amnesia after a plane crash. She had been traveling with her fiancé, Armand, to meet his family, his French grandmother Nanette, brother Trevor who writes operas and cousin Duane who manages the family date and fruit plantation. Armand died in the crash and so did her best friend, Juliet Grey, who was a stewardess on the plane. Nanette invites Roslyn for a visit to recover and give Armand’s family time.

Nanette and Trevor are hospitable, kind and welcome Roslyn. Trevor’s guest, beautiful singer Isobela, has her sights on Duane and does not welcome Roslyn. Duane does not welcome Roslyn, implies several times that Roslyn is not actually who she is and warns her not to deceive Nanette or to claim amnesia and a fake identity. Since Roslyn has no memory she cannot say who she is; people identified her by her blonde hair and the fact she was clutching Armand’s engagement ring when they found her.

Roslyn slowly gets better but her memory is still not there. She develops close friendship with Trevor; Trevor likes her very much but they are just friends, not lovers. Nanette warns Roslyn not to confuse Trevor with Armand, they are very different.

The four young people, Isobela, Roslyn, Trevor and Duane, go to the city for the weekend. Trevor takes Roslyn around the souk and to lunch, they have a lot of fun while Isobela gets Duane to take her for lunch. Trevor and Roslyn see Isobela leaving Duane’s room wearing only a lacy robe; Roslyn is pretty sure they are lovers, at least they are if Isobela has her way. Later the four go out. Duane insists Roslyn dances with him but she’s not much of a dancer. Isobela is a bit nasty about it, elbows Roslyn out of the way and shows off her dancing skills.

She had memory flashes of to going in a lake with her friend Juliet and there is a lake near the hotel. After everyone is in bed she walks there, down the cliff staircase to the shore. Sadly she gains no more memories. Duane is there too. It starts to rain violently while they talk and wash away the cliff stairs. Duane insists they take shelter in the boathouse and the two go to sleep in the punt. They manage to get up the hill at dawn and into the hotel without anyone seeing them.

By this time Roslyn is fully recovered physically and still has little memory but wonders whether she did love Armand; she cannot be sure, she just doesn’t think she would have forgotten love that easily. She decides it’s time to go home to England and hope she recovers her memory there.

A few days later Nanette suffers a heart problem. Roslyn takes care of her, decides to stay until Nanette recovers. Isobela realizes Duane has a connection with Roslyn and that is not in her plans at all. Isobela is determined that Duane should leave the plantation and get a management job in Europe where she can sing. She’s not interested in Nanette, Trevor is only a cog in the wheel of her operatic career and Roslyn is a threat.

Duane talks to Roslyn in the courtyard, mentions the night they were together at Lake Temcina. Isobela overhears and decides it’s time to do something about Roslyn. She invites Roslyn to go for a drive with her out on the desert highway, accuses her of loose behavior, insults her, then loses her scarf out the window and asks Roslyn to get out and pick it up. Isobela drives off, leaving Roslyn stranded at least 30 miles from the plantation in the desert, with no water and a sandstorm on the way. No one knows they went out.

Fortunately for Roslyn Duane drives that way and takes her back. They get caught in the sandstorm, the car heaves around and Roslyn bangs her head. Afterwards she remembers. She is not Roslyn Brant, she was not engaged to Armand, she is Juliet Grant, Roslyn’s friend. She grabbed Roslyn’s hand in the crash and the ring must have come off in her clutch. Duane figured this out weeks before and is not surprised.

Nor is Duane surprised that Isobela left Roslyn to die in the desert. He calls her a neurotic, charming, selfish to the bone and with no knowledge or care for others. He says his mother, Nanette’s daughter, was the same. It was his mother who betrayed him and his father, leaving him not able to trust his heart to women.

Juliet says she had envied the real Roslyn not for Armand, but for gaining Armand’s family. Both girls were orphans, spent years together in an orphanage and Juliet wanted to be part of a family. Duane tells her that she still can be part of theirs, what about Trevor? Juliet says no, she and Trevor are very good friends but that’s all. Duane gets riled up, exclaims he has nothing to lose since Juliet doesn’t like him or want him to touch her, grabs her and kisses her. They he tells her that she can slap his face, but that he loves her. Juliet loves him back.

Happy Ever After

What Doesn’t Work

Mistaken Identity. It’s nearly incompressible today that someone could get misidentified after an airplane crash. Juliet and Roslyn both worked as stewardesses although Roslyn was a passenger on that flight, they resembled each other only slightly. Apparently no one took fingerprints or worried about the fact the girls would have been dressed differently (assuming their clothes were recognizable after the crash). Even in 1969 we’d expect the airline, which employed both girls, would have made an attempt to confirm identity.

Dislike to Love. Every time Juliet/Roslyn interacts with Duane she found him distrustful, almost insulting. She stays wary throughout the story, shows no indication that she loved him. We readers can see Duane is interested in her, but without knowing much about her it’s not completely believable.

Roslyn/Juliet Driving with Isobela Juliet knows the sandstorm was coming and Duane and the servant had warned her to stay home. She has no real reason to go for a drive with Isobela. She would have died had Duane not found her and Isobela likely would have claimed no knowledge how she got lost in the blowing sands.

What Does Work

Low Key Romance The feelings here build slowly. Juliet slowly gains memories and we get glimpses that Duane finds her intriguing even as he insinuates she lies about her amnesia and identity. Keeping her feelings out of display other than a general discomfort with Duane and his insulting hints keeps the tension low.

Point of View We have only Roslyn/Juliet’s point of view. Winspear comments only one time on something that happened in front of Roslyn/Juliet, but that she did not see, and that was when Isobela saw that Duane was interested in her. Limiting the point of view keeps the focus squarely on Roslyn/Juliet and her growing frustration with her memory and her discomfort around Duane.

Characters Despite the quiet plot and lack of strong emotions, Winspear makes the five characters alive to us. We feel we would recognize them.

Nanette is the most cardboard-cutout of them, a former Parisian singer who fell in love with the French planter and went with him to make her life in the Sahara.

Isobela is not complex; she is completely self-centered. Somehow she believes she has enough charisma to entice Duane away from his family home and the plantation he loves. She’s well aware of her sexual appeal and uses it without compunction and she belittles Roslyn/Juliet for her looks, lack of memory, lack of dancing skill, dependence on Nanette’s generosity. Isobela is too full of herself to care a bit about someone else. If we hadn’t known that before we certainly learned it when she inveigled Roslyn/Juliet to get out of the car a long way from home in the desert. That is attempted murder.

Trevor has little page time but enough that we see he’s dedicated to his music, not the plantation and intends to move to Brittany. He’s kind, undemanding. Initially he chases Isobela before he sees through her charm to the ruthless selfishness beneath.

Roslyn/Juliet sees Duane as enigmatic when he is not threatening. She’s not sure why he’s so negative towards her, she’s intrigued by him but stays away because he insinuates she’s lying and a fraud. The basic conflict is that Duane is pretty sure Roslyn is actually Juliet; he cousin told him that his fiancée was full of gaiety and chic and he knows Armand was not likely to fall for the girl who calls herself Roslyn. Juliet knows Duane doesn’t trust her; she herself does not know enough to know whether his suspicions are correct and in fact she never claims to be Roslyn. It bothers her to wear the clothes that Nanette provides, even though many were purchased specifically for Armand’s fiancée. She does not feel engaged and she feels like a fraud, which Duane’s attitude exacerbates.

Roslyn/Juliet herself is quiet. Duane calls her quiet and deep and we see her as essentially kind, friendly in a reserved manner, grateful for Nanette’s kindness, wary of Duane. We end up knowing Duane better than we do Roslyn/Juliet.

Setting Winspear describes the locations in the Sahara vividly and with liking. I could not find a real Lake Temcina or the other locations described. The Gebel d’Oro is a real place in the south of Egypt but I couldn’t find Ajina or the other locations.

Language and Style. I really appreciate the way older writers – way back in the 1960s and 70s – assumed we readers were literate and willing to see unfamiliar words. It’s a treat to see a word that was new to me, chatoyant, meaning like a cat’s eye. Some recent Harlequins write to middle school reading levels.

Overall

Court of the Veils is an early romance that Harlequin reprinted because it was popular. I can see why it was popular; the story is interesting, the characters are well done, setting unusual, plot makes sense. It’s dated in the sense that today such a misidentification would be unlikely and of course, no cell phones and the hotel lacks running water. The story itself is not dated.

3 Stars

Court of the Veils is not on Archive.org as of October 2023 nor is in Ebook format. I got my paperback copy from Thriftbooks. You can find copies on Amazon and likely on eBay and used book sites online.

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