"She Has No Use for Greys in Her Schemes"

THE GAME OF LIFE.
By Effie Adelaide Rowlands (1859-1936).
Ward, Lock & Co.
1910. 128 pages. 6s.
No e-versions available.

About Effie Adelaide Rowlands, Wikipedia says: "She was the author of more than 250 six-penny (dime) novels"; judging from this review, The Game of Life would probably fit in with them:

The game of life reads rather like a game of death when Miss Rowlands' pen describes it.

This authoress well knows the recipe for a story which will grip the attention of lovers of sensational fiction.

A typical Rowlands title

In this new novel she does not scorn such well-tried incidents as the decoying of a heroine, an attempt to poison the youthful heir, a foreign manservant who is a deeply dyed villain, or heroes who are strong of heart and arm.

Incident follows incident in this readable story, and from the page where Maurice Bruton marries Gywnra Mordaunt, beside Lord Guisborough's death-bed, to the happy ending on page 320 [?], we make no complaint of dulness.

Miss Rowland[s] believes in black hearts for villains and white ones for heroes and heroines; she has no use for greys in her schemes. — "Novel Notes," THE BOOKMAN [UK] (March 1911)

Resource:
- BEAR ALLEY has a comprehensive article about Rowlands' career as a romance novelist HERE.

Category: Detective fiction