The Sea Tower

In the first place, this is very good reading, holds the interest from first to last, and has that sense of impending horror that is characteristic of certain of Walpole's novels (The Man With The Red Hair, etc.). If Rebecca had not caught the imagination of the public, The Sea Tower, might have struck just that note. As it is, one cannot but sense a reaching out for the same market; one feels that it is vaguely imitative, an echo without quite the freshness of the other. The story is a mother-in-law -- daughter-in-law situation, a growing hatred, as the mother's possessiveness finds frustration. The final break comes somewhat as an anticlimax. In plot, the story recalls Anne Parrish's Mr. Despondency's Daughter, though Walpole has handled his material with surer touch, greater mastery.