No mysticism here - the Merlin in question is a German Shepherd.
The book's a mystery/romance set during WWII. After her military father's death, 20-year-old Carlysle, recuperating from an illness, goes to an isolated Cape Cod house to meet her new guardian, another military man, a friend of her late father who's also recently been wounded. Disfigured or not, Radclyffe student Carlyle has a thing for military men, and finds this new guardian quite attractive.
But she's distracted from these feelings by new revelations that her father may have been murdered, rather than killed in the line of duty, as was reported - he was in the course of investigating a suspected smuggling operation.

This book was published in 1971 (I believe - this edition is 1990), but I got the impression that McCaffrey was trying to write as if it were written in the 40's. All of the military characters' "rough language" is portrayed by blanks ("_______"), which is odd, since most publishers in the 60's and 70's definitely did not usually have qualms about publishing explicit language! Really, all the blanks do is make me stop and think hard about all the dirty words that might go in the blank!

Although Carlysle is portrayed as an intelligent college student who plans to work when she graduates, the first things she does when arriving at the house are to clean the kitchen, do the men's laundry, and cook meals, commenting about how the place needs a woman around (this even though she's under medical orders to rest). She also comments on how military officers (even though they may not have been good students) are "more man" than the guys at Harvard.

This is not the sort of attitude that McCaffrey's multitudinous other female characters have tended to display, so I'm guessing she was trying to show the viewpoint of a particular character, in "period." But it was still rather irritating.

( )

Carla, named for and by her Father, is an orphaned Army brat placed under the guardianship of Lt Laird who doesn't realize that his ward is the daughter of his deceased colonel until she steps off the train. ( )

Anne McCaffrey is best known for her Dragonriders series, but she has also written a few historical romances. This is one of them. Carla's father has been killed in the war. And though she is in college, he inexplicably left her in the care of a "guardian." When she and her shepherd, Merlin, travels to meet him, she gets an unexpected surpise - and a mystery to solve. Very good story. ( )

Another interesting take on the gothic novel by Ms. McCaffrey. The book opens with the heroine giving her views on the tribulations of bearing the name James Carlysle Murdock during the early '40's. [As in proving to assorted draft boards that she is undoubtedly female.] We are given a bit of humor, a bit of romance, and a mystery to solve. There's also the dog...

1971