NORAH

Pamela Hill, author of The Malvie Inheritance (1973) and Whitton's Folly (1975), is making a speciality of dark, doomed 18th-century Gothics with so much incest that everyone ends up related at least two ways. The twist in this one is that there are two demonic heroes, one a woman. Norah Curie is a hard-drinking, hard-riding, foul-mouthed Squire Western in drag. But since she is rebelling against the constraints of an 18th-century woman's role, brutalized as well as brutal, she has her touching side. Norah and cousin Jody seem fated to marry--but Jody is half Gypsy, which disqualifies him. Since he is the rightful heir to Curie, and determined to have his blood inherit if he cannot, Jody rapes and impregnates not only Norah but their daughter (and a stray niece). As a sideline he makes a fortune in the slave trade and prostitution. Much of the action in this eroticized genre novel takes place in bed, but there are various subplots including The Gypsy's Revenge and The Runaway Heir. The oddball heroine holds our interest and Hill has the feel; but this remains melodrama on the moors, where all the heights have wuthered.