DAUGHTER OF SATAN

Reissued from 1952, one of Miss Plaidy's seaworthy historicals -- not much period depth or ballast, but it travels. This time the feisty heroine journeys from 17th-century England to Plymouth Plantation, bobbing through the hardships of the poor, witch-hunt persecutions, and the workaday trials of passion unfulfilled. Tamar, whose young servant mother conceived during a witches' Sabbat, was convinced from childhood that she was the Devil's child. So were others -- but she is rescued by her repentant, most earthly sire, a local squire, and raised if not to the purple at least to learning and fine linen. Sultry Tamar is pursued by lusty Battle who invades her chamber and heart. But the love-hate standoff persists until Battle is presumably lost at sea whereupon Tamar marries a severely good Puritan. However Battle returns, Tamar's husband conveniently leaps overboard en route to the New World, and the two eventually wed. Alas, Tamar's ""witch"" past bring about a tragic close. Pity.