Well, it's been almost five years since I borrowed a copy of The Quicksilver Pool through interlibrary loan. Last month I bought a book club edition of the book. It was originally published in 1955. This BCE includes a copy of the two-page endpaper color illustration of a scene from chapter 11. I also like the dust jacket. ( )

I haven't reread my old paperback copy of The Quicksilver Pool in decades and hadn't remembered much except for the pool itself. This book is more of a historical novel than romantic suspense. It opens near the end of 1862 and follows through part of the summer of 1863. The setting is Staten Island. Our heroine is Lora Blair Tyler, the daughter of a doctor who lived in Pineville and treated the wounded from both sides. Because the novel says the Blairs lived in a border state, I'm guessing Ms. Whitney meant Pineville, Kentucky.

Lora has married a widowed and wounded union lieutenant, Wade Tyler. Wade's widowed mother, Amanda Cowles Tyler, apparently worships at the altar of her late father, wealthy banker Jason Cowles. She has always wanted Wade to follow in her father's footsteps. Wade wants to be a writer. The elder Mrs. Tyler is a domestic tyrant. Wade's first wife, the gentle and pretty Virginia, was afraid of her. Their young son, Jemmy, used to try to protect his mother.

It's a marriage of convenience with no pretense of love on either side. Wade has a rather unhealthy obsession about his lost Virginia. Lora is better at dealing with the death of Martin, the man she was going to marry. Amanda likes to beat Lora over the head with Virginia's halo. She certainly doesn't think that Lora is a proper social match for Jason Cowles' grandson. The servants take their cue from Amanda. Wade wants peace and pretty much asks Lora to put up with his mother. Worse, Amanda is the type to have an accident or take to her bed when she can't have her way. Lora's only friend in the household is her stepson.

As the book progresses, we learn more about Virginia, her sister, Morgan (who also wanted Wade), and Amanda's own marriage. There's some question about whether Virginia's death was an accident. Lora isn't meek. I liked the way she handled her mother-in-law, especially after a few months. (A scene between Amanda and Jemmy that takes place after Lora gave the old shrew some food for thought made me chuckle and read it again.)

The Civil War and anti-war sentiment is a major subplot, cumulating in the 1863 New York City Draft Riots. The Tylers and their nice neighbors, the Lords, do not share the rioters' hatred of persons of African descent. Morgan, on the other hand, still treats the freed slave who works for her, Rebecca, as if she's still her property.

Will Lora and Wade come to love each other, or will Lora fall for Mrs. Lord's brother instead? I recommend this book to historical romance fans who like more than just romance in their reading. ( )

From 1955 Ace Books edition cover: The great Tyler mansion on Staten island became a house of menace and hidden danger for Lora Blair from the moment she arrived there as the new bride of Wade Tyler.

Years before, Wade's first wife Virginia had died there under mysterious circumstances. No one dared speak openly of her death to Lora, and every day Lora faced increasing hostility from everyone at the Tyler house.

With mounting horror Lora soon realized that some unseen, unknown person was maneurvering her to the edge of what could be a fatal "accident." Was the same death being prepared for her?

Once again Phyllis A. Whitney has written a gripping romantic mystery that will delight readers of Thunder Heights and The Trembling Hills and win her many new ones.

From flyleaf: A forbidding old mansion that housed a dread secret from the past. A courageous new bride who risked peril at every point, from every person, to uncover this secret. For to fail was to lose more than her marriage--her very life was at stake. A chilling, brooding atmosphere of suspense and tension on every page of The Quicksilver Pool, an exciting romantic mystery "told with conviction and dramatic force." --The Writer