The Quicksilver Pool
Family secretsFictionFiction in EnglishLarge type booksHistory
4.3
Open LibraryAbout this book
A respectful attitude towards history and a respectable feeling for people marks this story of the winter and summer of 1862-3 on Staten Island. Wade Tyler, recovering from war wounds, brings Lora home as his second wife and reverts to his old submission to his demanding mother. Lora works to win the love of Jemmy, his eight-year old son, works, too, to learn the mystery of Virginia's death and discovers the evil intent of the dead woman's sister, Morgan, who has always wanted Wade. Morgan's insistence that Wade join the Knights of the Golden Circle awakens his interest; Jemmy's yearning for a puppy mixes in with the politics; Lora, when a neighbor woos her, discovers that she is falling in love with Wade; and when the draft riots break out, learns that he has not been deceived by Vallandigham and his Circle's treason, and is working only for the Union. With the burning of Morgan's house and her confession about the truth of her sister's death, Lora finds Wade has finally turned away from his dead love and truly wants her, his living one. A spunky piece, Lora, whose many problems are resolved in believable terms and who is backgrounded by plausible characters, history and place. For that more conservative market out of patience with currently too well fleshed historical novels, this will be welcome.
Themes & subjects
Family secretsFictionFiction in EnglishLarge type booksHistoryDraft Riot, New York, N.Y., 1863
Setting
Staten Island (New York, N.Y.)Civil War, 1861-1865
About the author
Phyllis A. Whitney
3 September 1903 – 8 February 2008
Phyllis Ayame Whitney was born in Yokohama, Japan, the daughter of American parents, and spent her early years in Asia. She began writing early in her teens. In 1918, upon the death of her father, she travelled with her mother to Berkeley, California, and then to San Antonio, Texas. A few years later her mother died, and she moved to Chicago to live with her aunt. After graduating from high school, she began to write seriously, and began to sell her stories to newspapers and pulp magazines while supporting herself by working for The Chicago Public Library and bookstores in Chicago. She married her first husband in 1934. During the 1940s she was a children's book editor for both the Chicago S…
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