Sunlight on a Broken Column

After the sudden loss of their parents and their fortune in 1892, two sisters follow different paths, but eventually both end up in New York, trying to deal with the consequences of one sister's impulsive marriage to a reclusive writer

Another of Rae's light chillers (The Hidden Cove, 1995, etc.) set in a turn-of-the-century Manhattan of gilded turrets and grimy tenements: a tale of both staid and messy romances featuring ladies naughty and nice--and a doomed man with a sad secret. In 1892, it seemed to 17-year-old Caroline that everyone was moving uptown, and so when Papa became rich, the Slade family of two boys and two girls followed the migration, moving into a grand mansion in the East 60s. What Caroline won't know, however, until after the accidental deaths, in that same year, of her parents and a brother, is that the neighboring twin mansion--where she had made the acquaintance of elderly Henrietta Prentice--harbors secrets that eerily connect it to the Slade family. Now, Caroline, beautiful social butterfly Laurel, and brother Brad find themselves penniless as well as orphaned. It is Miss Prentice who insists Caroline and Brad live temporarily in her home, while Laurel is off on a hopeful whirl among the wealthy. With Miss Prentice is her great-nephew Leland, a seemingly pleasant, attractive novelist. But why does Miss Prentice tell Caroline he must never marry? What explains his abrupt changes of moods, and his sudden departures both from Manhattan and from Miss Prentice's home in Newport? Brad and Caroline eventually settle happily into careers and marriages, but Laurel, now a social outcast, thanks to vicious rumors, sees a haven in wealthy Leland--with disastrous results. Before the (inevitable) cleansing fire, there are flights and terrors, and, at the close, revelations concerning Leland's deadly malaise. The author is a sure hand with gothic tremors (``Terror such as I had never known gripped me'') and the taboos of the Gilded Age, though some may be bothered by the depiction of Leland's illness. Still, Rae is as firmly in her Manhattan-past niche as Stephen Birmingham. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Once again tragedy tests the mettle of Rae's upper-class New Yorkers. When their parents die in an accident in 1892, the three remaining Slade children are left in financial distress. So Brad continues reading law, plain Caroline trains to be a teacher, and beautiful Laurel makes plans to marry money. When misunderstood events cause Laurel to be parted from her true love and shunned by her social circle, she turns to Leland Prentice, great-nephew of the elderly neighbor Caroline has befriended, not knowing about his mysterious spells and orders not to marry. While Caroline and Brad each work, marry, and start families, Laurel continues her free-wheeling and free-loading ways, as tragedy strikes again and secrets become revealed. Rae (Flight from Fifth Avenue, LJ 2/1/95) again captures the mores of class, time, and place. The quotients of romance and suspense are somewhat lower here than in her previous novels, but this is still recommended.?Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Arlington, Va.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.