HECATE

Hecate ($24.95; Oct.; 142 pp.; 8101-6038-2): An overheated but compelling novel (the first of companion volumes originally published in 1928: see below) recounts the troubled love life of a French movie star (her surname translates as ``spit'') who falls in love with a beautiful young man, loses him, then finds him again many years later, in thrall to an amorous noblewoman eager to expand her lustful horizons. The passive Pierre is no match for his lovers, but Jouve (The Desert World, 1996, etc.) sensibly ignores him to focus most effectively on the harrowing battles of wills and wits between two powerfully ego-driven females, only one of whom will survive them.