WOMAN BEWARE WOMAN and WILD NIGHTS ...

WOMAN BEWARE WOMAN and WILD NIGHTS by Emma Tennant (Faber and Faber: $9; 314 pp., paperback original). A haunting tale of revenge and murder on the south coast of Ireland, “Woman Beware Woman” is told from the point of view of Minnie, a dowdy spinster who might permanently fade into the woodwork if she didn’t keep breaking teacups and spilling things. A mysterious death brings her back to Cliff Hold, the sumptuous home of a great writer, where she was loved and rejected a decade earlier. As the complicated tragedy unfolds, Tennant deftly peels back the layers of gentility to reveal the passions and resentments that lurk beneath the very social milieu of Cliff Hold. The less satisfying “Wild Nights” also deals with questions of divided loyalties and affection, but Tennant’s attempt to capture the flow of a young girl’s thoughts as she watches her adult relatives struggle for power makes for difficult reading.