“Hibbert was one of the most prolific and popular romance writers of the 20th century.”
Kay Mussell, Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers

“Jean Plaidy never fails to provide what may be termed ‘a good read’.” and “…a compulsive good read.”
Jean Stubbs, Books and Bookmen on The Captive of Kensington Palace

“…richly peopled with lifelike and colorful characters, the story rolls on and on from one dilemma to the next, not quite to the point of reader exhaustion.”
Kirkus on Beyond the Blue Mountains

“Plaidy has brought this remarkably sinister woman into full focus in this historical thriller. Seldom has a character been brought to life with such clarity.”
Richard Blakesley, Chicago Sunday Tribune on Madame Serpent

“This gaslit, gothic novel with its labyrinthine mansion, its intimations of ghosts, its whispers of scandal and treachery, is a legitimate descendant of Jane Eyre.”
Kirkus on Mistress of Mellyn

“…an unusally readable and likable book. Holt’s touch is so assured, her presentation of late nineteenth-century Cornwall so loving, her heroine so (almost anachronistically) spirited that even a jaded curmudgeon like this reviewer has no objection to reading the old story once more.”
Anthony Boucher, New York Times Book Review

“Murder, intrigue, threats of insanity, family skeletons rattling in closets and ghosts who walk in the moonlight keep the reader credulous and turning pages fast in this absorbing story.”
Genevieve Casey, Chicago Sunday Tribune on Kirkland Revels

“Among the clamour of novels by angry young men, among the probings and circumlocution of psychological novels, the works of Victoria Holt stand out, unpretentious, sunny, astringent, diverting.”
Casey, Best Sellers on The Legend of the Seventh Virgin

“It’s hard to say objectively, just why . . . [this] is so intensely readable and enjoyable. . . . It is Holt’s weakest and slightest plot to date, and equally certainly nothing much happens in the way of either action or character development for long stretches. But somehow the magic . . . is still there.”
Anthony Boucher, New York Times Book Review on Menfreya in the Morning

“…a very competent escape artist.”
Susan Dooley, Washington Post Book World on Landower Legacy

“Hibbert was prolific, probably too much so for her own good. Her last few years witnessed a significant decrease in the complexity and believability of her plots. . . . Her best work was probably her first five or six Victoria Holt novels, when she was setting the standards for the host of authors who imitated her formula, although few could match her in the evocation of terror. . . . Mistress of Mellyn . . . deserves a place among the most important gothic romances of the century, placing Hibbert . . . near the top of her field as heiress to Daphne du Maurier, whose Rebecca remains the premier gothic romance of the 20th century.”
Kay Mussell, Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers