Bowing to the changing times, Hibbert wrote "The Demon Lover", a 1982 "Victoria Holt" novel, in a style that borrowed several elements from the plot of "Sweet Savage Love": forced seduction of a naive girl by a powerful man ending in marriage, set against a background of turmoil in war time. Critics congratulated the move: "Her latest, 'The Demon Lover', is a straight romance with sexual passion, which is currently 'in'. It has no suspense: the thrilling twists and turns of plot that marked her Gothic novels are no more."