Morning's Gate

From Library Journal Although not technically a sequel to the author's Louisa Elliott ( LJ 7/89), later generations of that novel's family are featured in this one. In the late 1980s, Zoe Clifford goes to York searching for information about her great grandmother's family and encounters a cousin, Stephen Elliott. Drawn together romantically, the two share a compulsion to sort out the puzzles emerging from records, letters, and a diary. Illegitimacy and incest are among the troubling aspects. The blanks are filled in for the reader with flashbacks to World War I England, Australia, and European battlefields. In researching this novel, Roberts has utilized an Australian soldier's diary and personal reminiscences. The result is not uniformly successful. Some episodes and individuals are well drawn, with the better parts centering around Zoe. The incestuous relationship comes across as mawkish while the idea of a long-dead Elliott guiding Zoe and Stephen seems contrived. Consider where the earlier novel circulated well. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/91.