THE DARK FANTASTIC

Strong story values, with regional, period contours, which returns to Indiana, in the decade following the Civil War. The central figure is a woman who was to be destroyed by the forces of evil and the uncanny she had used against another, Judith Amory. Judith, after a casual, chance acquaintance with Richard Tomlinson, forces his hand to get a school-teaching job at Timberley, and becomes a guest at his house. With quiet ruthlessness she proceeds against Abigail, Richard's invalid wife, whose jealousy of Thorne, adopted daughter, is only equalled by her fears of Thorne's withcraft. Abigail's death is deliberately contrived by Judith, who in short order marries Richard and faces the corporate unity of the Tomlinsons, and particularly Richard's protective partisanship of Thorne. Increasingly a victim of hysteria, Judith patterns the tortures of her predecessor, and dies by her own hand. Romantic drama, in sustained portrayal, which will appeal to the many who liked Dragonwyck- Strange Woman, etc.