Long Lost Journey

As in her first novel, The Taking of Agnes , freelance journalist Potter here creates maverick, memorable characters: heroine Elinor Grace, a dedicated scholar and archeologist, and her lover James Fergusson. Their overwhelming physical attraction makes up for differences in ambition, family background and morality in Potter's fascinating psychological account of Elinor's professional and personal ideals and Fergusson's destruction of them. The year is 1910, and Elinor sets out secretly from Aden on her way to Mareb in Yemen, determined to disprove the biblical connection between the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. Dark, mysterious Scotsman Fergusson volunteers to be her traveling companion, and Elinor is soon obsessed with him--he suits her romantic sensibility perfectly, yet has no scruples. Despite Fergusson's illegal gun-smuggling and his physical and emotional cruelty, Elinor moves in with him at Mareb. Amid a war and other disasters, Fergusson leaves her to the vagaries of prison and malaria, seizing journals, sketches and all credit for her archeological discoveries. Elinor loses hope only when she realizes that Fergusson framed her for his own gun-running. Based on fact, this first-person novel convincingly evokes a time, a place and a torturous romance. (Oct.)