All Desires Known

In order to maintain their position in the Dublin social scene, Honorable Lucinda and Dr. Michael Raven have spent far more than a young doctor could make--at least in Victorian Ireland. In this enjoyable period romance, one of Lucinda's old beaus suggests that his notorious money-lending uncle Ebenezer O'Dea may be able to help. The old invalid offers the Ravens a chance of a lifetime--to create a private hospital from a home on the aptly named Mount Venus. The condition for the grant is that O'Dea's private nurse, Diana Powers, must be chief nurse. But Powers is Michael's former love and the project architect, Philip de Renzi, is another of Lucinda's youthful loves. To the caldron add the suspicious Dr. and Mrs. Walshe, Uncle Ebenezer's spy, Birdie Kelly, and one shocking revelation--and soon everything comes to a full boil. Macdonald (a pseudonym under which M. R. O'Donnell has written A Woman Possessed and other novels) combines strong characters and brisk narrative full of trenchant observations about life, love and the eternal communication problems between the sexes. (Jan.)