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THE DARK TWIN by Marion Campbell

THE DARK TWIN

By

Pub Date: Sept. 27th, 1974
Publisher: Saturday Review Press/Dutton

This takes place in Bronze Age Scotland (if that's where you want to be) and the author's note indicates that part of the material surfaced from some other subliminal world during a time when she was deeply troubled. Anyway, girt with feasts and rituals, spells and portents, it's the story of Drost, ""son of no man,"" actually the Dark Twin of Ailill who is the future king once his father dies, as he does. Ailill and Drost are both trained by the priests; later on Ailill falls ill and accuses Drost of attempting to harm him (Drost is shocked) but finally he's enthroned while Drost succumbs to a drift of strange dreams. . . . The author has written juvenile books and perhaps this one has mistaken its calling; the nearest audience we can approximate is a kind of Celtic Gothic.