ALEXA

The fortunes of the turn-of-the-century Lorirner clan chronicled in The Lorimer Line (1977) were so tangled that a good deal of this sequel is blocked out with patient explanations to those in the dark about family secrets. And all that recapitulation blankets the high spirits that were so evident in the first Lorimer saga. Alexa is the illegitimate daughter of the late banker John Junius Lorimer, a fact which she doesn't learn until she plans to marry Matthew, who's actually her nephew. And her adored guardian Margaret is really her older half-sister. While opera diva Alexa scampers all over the world, Margaret (who became a doctor in The Lorimer Line) travels too, but the family scandals travel with her: missionary brother Ralph in Jamaica is revealed to be a shady dealer; Margaret's old love surfaces in San Francisco, only to be lost again; and a legacy of jewels seems to be casting a bad spell on Alexa, who can't marry Matthew and bears a child by a vietim of the San Francisco earthquake. After twig upon twig of family-tree surgery, Alexa finally weds Lord Glanville, whom she now loves after years of mere affection. Talky and busy, but strangely thin.