So This Is Love

The Scottish Duke of Glengarry has died a suspicious death, leaving behind his widow, Margaret Ramsay, and three children. A man claiming to be the true duke has sued and won the ancestral castle from Margaret, so she is without a home or income. Desperate, she accepts a friend's offer to marry his twin brother Adrian Mackinnon, a California timber baron who wants to wed a real lady. Each is missing information about the other: he is in the dark about her previous marriage and her children; she is unaware that he is still in love with Katherine, his brother's wife. While the setting in untamed northern California in 1857 is arresting, Coffman ( Somewhere Along the Way ) fails to tie up the threads of her plot. There are early hints that Margaret's husband was murdered and that her son's life is in danger, but the matter never comes up again. Men in the lumber camp are dying mysteriously, and a competitor appears to be responsible, but the situation is never resolved satisfactorily. Other elements are hard to swallow: when Adrian's brother asked Katherine to marry him, he was drunk and meant to address the letter to her sister, but he felt it would be cruel to correct his mistake, so he married her. (July)