Evelyn Berckman Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Evelyn Berckman
Author Evelyn Berckman was born October 18, 1900 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Berckman was the daughter of a woolen goods merchant named Aaron and wife Hannah, who emigrated to America in the year 1891. They lived in Germantown from 1900 until 1936, a suburb about seven miles from downtown Philadelphia.

She attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and was a contemporary of Aaron Copland among others. She spent the 1930s in New York City, and lived on East 60th Street on the Upper East Side. Evelyn taught piano.

For quite a few years, she was a composer and pianist, writing plays and (mostly historical) non-fiction along with her novels. Evelyn suffered from a temporary paralysis that was brought on by long practice sessions at her piano.

Compositions she wrote were performed by the likes of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Pro Arte Quartet, among others.

She made many visits to London, staying for differing lengths of time in different Mayfair hotels as she wrote, building a second career in an effort to avoid the threat of poverty. Upon moving to London in the year 1960, she settled in the Kensington area and lived at different addresses until she died.

Research for books brought her into contact with Rupert Gunnis, an art historian, to whom she dedicated a novel called “The Heir Starvelings”. It was an apparently true story she based off of anecdotal information that came from Gunnis.

“The Beckoning Dream” was made for television and called “Worse Than Murder” and starred Constance Ford and Boris Karloff.

Her debut novel, called “Beckoning Dream”, was released in the year 1955.

She wrote post-war detective fiction, naval history, and horror, with a gift for engaging titles and a series of independent young ladies. For example, her novel “The Evil of Time”, features an archaeologist involved in restoring and tracing works of art hidden and stolen by the Nazis. It might be slightly marred by some occasional fluffy love scenes, but is presented with competence and an obvious knowledge of and a love for the subject.

Evelyn Berckman died of heart disease on September 18, 1978 at the age of 77. The Mugar Memorial Library of Boston University houses some of Berckman’s manuscripts.

“Beckoning Dream” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1955. Connie Walworth, who is a young widow of no income and extravagant tastes, thought that her husband’s family owed her a living. They believed otherwise and let her sponge or beg.

Connie gets an idea after she sees a diary that Archibald Gedney kept while he died in an expensive nursing home. The diary revealed that Archibald was troubled by a haunting and recurring dream.

Archibald carried a subconscious load of guilt about something, Connie thought. So she began prying into the family affairs of the Gedney family and found they all inherited money through the sudden death of their stepmom years ago. Could this death have been a diabolical and unsuspected murder for profit?

Evelyn takes the story in some unexpected directions with different twists and turns and her writing is crisp and clear.

“The Evil of Time” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1955. Wonderful Keith Elgin came to The Castle to look for buried treasure. She was certain that she alone could unearth the stolen art hoard. The Cellini Cup, the Rembrandt painting, and everything else that Colonel John Ridge and his men had attempted and failed to locate.

She would show the Colonel, with all his haughty superiority and that handsome arrogance. While she wandered through the moldering and drafty castle halls, feeling like hidden eyes are on her, Keith started to wonder if she had been too smug.

Maybe she should have heeded the warnings from the Colonel of danger because when The Castle’s stalkers closed in on her it was Colonel Ridge she wanted to shout for. Had pride made her wait too long to admit what she always knew in her heart? Could even John Ridge rescue Keith from the unleashed fury of the treasure’s secret guardians?

Fans found this to be a highly enjoyable Gothic suspense novel and find that more people need to know about Evelyn Berckman.

“Finger to Her Lips” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1971. A duchess in disguise.

It is only a short time before, Sybilla-Marie became the toast of all of Europe, as she was one ravishing beauty whose delicate skin, golden hair, and perfect body inspired poets and bewitched kings. Now the young Duchess finds herself a hunted fugitive in her very own castle. The love her aristocratic husband had for her became tainted by jealousy.

Sybilla knew that both he and his sinister adviser that was his dark inspiration had sworn to ruin Sybilla and her defenseless young son who they held hostage.

Disguised as the lowest of servants and exposed to the scorn of some of the other women and casual lusts of different men, Sybilla-Marie staked her very honor and life on a desperate gamble against evil.

Readers found this to be an excellent story, with some fantastic character development.

“The Victorian Album” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1973. There are people among us that are endowed with the gift, which is not yet understood, of contact to some degree with powers that go beyond the physical world.

Stylish Lorna Teasdale’s awareness of possessing this gift has pervaded into her life, but she consciously resisted and suppressed it to try to be a normal and ordinary person. Just how meager her resistances are, Lorna quickly finds out after she and Christabel, her niece, rent a flat in Clapham, a London suburb.

Even while she steps across the threshold she starts to feel the first stirrings of her otherness come to life, slowly gathering up the force to overwhelm her.

This novel contains some unexpected twists and succeeds at being thought-provoking and entertaining. When the story lines of present and past begin converging, the tension ratchets up considerably.