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+--- Thread: Strangers on the Moor by Sylvia Thorpe (/showthread.php?tid=766)
Strangers on the Moor by Sylvia Thorpe - AliceChell - 07-27-2010
There are many references made to the 60's and 70's gothic novels. But there were a number written in the 50's as well.(Dragonwyck by Anya Seton goes back to the forties--an excellent story)
The book I'm reviewing was published in 1955 by J.S. Thimblethorpe(!).
Its original title was Smuggler's Moon, which I think suits the story better. When I finished reading it and looked for another title by Sylvia Thorpe I found that she wrote many books, but from what I could tell they were all regency romance. This wasn't what I was looking for. I was rather disappointed because Strangers on the Moor is, to me, a very well-written gothic/romantic suspense story. I've read it easily 5 times.
I have this theory that nearly every writer has at least one good gothic tale in them waiting to be written. It's some confused idea I have about the "collective unconscious".
Well, this book must have been Sylvia Thorpe's.
It takes place on the seacoast of England, in Essex, at Mullion Hall, a sinister, decaying old mansion, during the 1800's. There is more of an adventure feel to it than in most gothic stories, probably because it involves smuggling. There are several very chilling characters in it, and a suspenseful, breathtaking finale. The heroine is a well-drawn ingenue and the hero, brooding and devastatingly attractive. I recommend it, obviously, and I give it a 9, because nothing's perfect.