Dainty's Cruel Rivals.

Old-fashioned romance thrived on peril, and few things sharpened it like a heroine surrounded by rivals who wished her ill. Dainty's Cruel Rivals announces exactly that kind of story, a melodrama of love beset by jealousy and scheming.

What it's about

The title tells us much of what the genre promises: a heroine, Dainty, and the cruel rivals who stand between her and her happiness. Fiction of this popular, sensational tradition tends to follow a young woman through trials of the heart, threatened by envious rivals, false friends and the machinations of those who covet what she has. We leave the twists for the reader to uncover, and take the title at its evocative word: this is a tale of romance under siege.

Themes

Jealousy and rivalry sit at the centre, along with the vulnerability and eventual triumph of a wronged heroine. Melodrama of this sort trades in strong feeling and clear moral lines, in the contrast between innocence and cunning, and in the satisfying prospect of virtue rewarded and schemers undone. Love tested by adversity is its engine and its promise.

Why it still matters

The sensational romances of an earlier day were enormously popular, and they preserve the flavour of a whole tradition of storytelling built for pleasure and suspense. Read now, they carry a period charm and an insight into what once thrilled a mass audience. For the reader who enjoys old-fashioned melodrama on its own terms, they remain good company.

Who it's for

For readers who relish period romance and melodrama, stories of jealousy, intrigue and a heroine who must outlast her enemies. An enjoyable find for lovers of old-fashioned sensation fiction.