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Audiobook edition · 6 h 10 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a young woman's future becomes the prize her jealous rivals want to steal?
In Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, the Fatal Birthday, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller places a young woman under the pressure of envy and betrayal. Dainty faces rivals whose schemes threaten her future. The appeal is direct and heartfelt: a good heroine must face people who want to take what matters to her.
This is old-fashioned romance built around strong feelings, clear villains and hard tests of love. Miller's fiction centers on love, family and the trials of young heroines. Here, the title adds a troubling question: how can a birthday, a day meant for celebration, become a threat? That contrast gives the romance its uneasy promise.
What you’ll discover
- A heroine under pressure Follow Dainty as jealousy and betrayal put her goodness to the test.
- Rivals with cruel intentions Meet the opposing force of envy, where wanting another's future becomes a reason to scheme.
- Love put to trial Enter a romance where tender feelings face the hard pressure of other people's designs.
- A troubling birthday Let the title's contrast between celebration and danger draw you toward Dainty's story.
- Feeling without disguise Enjoy a plain emotional style that makes its loyalties and conflicts clear.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy old-fashioned romance, brave heroines, mountain scenery, scheming rivals, and chapters that end on a cliff.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Note Pinned to a Pillow
- Aunt Judith Chooses Her Favorites
- The Cough in the Next Room
- A Sudden Engagement and a Viper
- A Strange Will and Stolen Letters
- The Gypsy Tent and a Jilted Lover
- Mammy, the Ghost Alarm, and a Vanished Bride
- Jealousy and Money Drive the Villains
- Honor, Faith, and Faithful Servants
- Omens, Verses, and the Melodrama Voice
Who’s who
- Dainty ChaseA gentle, golden-haired eighteen-year-old from Richmond who wants to love honestly and look after her mother, and who is hated for her beauty.
- Lovelace EllsworthThe wealthy young master of Ellsworth, called Love, who prizes honor and truth and wants to marry Dainty before his twenty-sixth birthday.
- Olive PeytonDainty's dark, proud cousin, a schoolteacher who wants to become the mistress of Ellsworth and will try any scheme to get there.
- Ela CrayeDainty's other cousin, who dropped a poor lover for ambition and wants a rich husband or a rich aunt's fortune.
- Mrs. Judith EllsworthLove's stepmother, a strong-willed woman who wants her favorite nieces to inherit and cannot stand being thwarted.
- MammyVirginny, the old Black nurse who raised Love and his father, and who guards Dainty through the dark nights.
- Doctor PlattA blunt, kind old physician who speaks the truth to anyone and wants to protect Dainty and help Love.
- Sheila KellyThe coarse Irish maid at Ellsworth, who resents Dainty and takes part in the plots against her.
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- Large print hardcover
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Daintys grausame Rivalinnen oder Der verhängnisvolle Geburtstag
A shy Richmond graduate joins a rich heir at a mountain estate, facing two jealous cousins and a supposed ghost.
Medium level2–5 hours to readDeutsch
Learn a language with medium classicsSpanischFranzösischDeutschItalienischJapanischPortugiesischEnglischHow we measure levels
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In short
What would you do if the cousins who share your home slipped away in the night, just so you could not travel with them? That is how Dainty Chase's summer begins.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Note Pinned to a Pillow
Olive Peyton and Ela Craye are schoolteachers in Richmond, and they board with Dainty's widowed mother. Their aunt, Judith Ellsworth, invites all three nieces to her West Virginia home. The older cousins hope to win her stepson, Lovelace Ellsworth, who has just come home from Europe. They also see that Dainty, with her golden curls and violet-blue eyes, would beat them both.
So they scheme. They keep back the board money they owe, hoping Mrs. Chase cannot afford a new dress for her daughter. Then, on the night before the journey, they slip off alone and leave a note saying the plans have changed.
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Cite this edition
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs. Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, the Fatal Birthday. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/daintys-cruel-rivals-or-the-fatal-birthday.
Miller, A. M., Mrs. (2026). Dainty's cruel rivals; or, the fatal birthday. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daintys-cruel-rivals-or-the-fatal-birthday
Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs. Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, the Fatal Birthday. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daintys-cruel-rivals-or-the-fatal-birthday.
@book{miller2026daintys,
author = {Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.},
title = {Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, the Fatal Birthday},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daintys-cruel-rivals-or-the-fatal-birthday}
}
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What is Dainty's Cruel Rivals about?
It follows Dainty Chase, a poor Richmond girl, who visits a rich aunt in West Virginia and falls in love with the heir, Lovelace Ellsworth. Her jealous cousins and aunt try to stop the marriage.
Who are Dainty's cruel rivals?
They are her cousins Olive Peyton and Ela Craye, who want to marry the heir themselves, with help from their aunt, Mrs. Judith Ellsworth, who plans to keep his inheritance if he misses his birthday wedding.
What is the fatal birthday in the title?
It is the first of August, Lovelace Ellsworth's twenty-sixth birthday. His father's will says he must marry by then or lose his fortune to his stepmother, so the wedding date drives the whole plot.
The author
Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
1850–1937 · American dime novelist
Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller was the pen name of Mittie Frances Clarke Point Miller, an American novelist born in 1850. She lived in the United States and died in 1937. She wrote dime novels in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Slighted Love and Little Golden’s Daughter.
More by Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
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