VH throws in a murder of course, but it occurs too late in the book to really spice things up. The Green Opal turns out to be missing, but the whole opal-opal-who's-got-the-opal mystery was a bore. He actually gifts her a valuable opal under the heroine's nose. He's proud all right, feels rejected by the heroine who insists on a marriage-in-name-only, but his flirting with the OW for spite is just childish. With this set up, the hero would have to be something really special to redeem this book. I got totally bored with opals and the endless conversations about past events. The heroine (her real name is Opal) has more scenes with the codgy old opal miner than she ever gets with the hero. The first 1/2 of the book was dedicated to the sad story of the heroine's mother and the history of the famed Green Opal and of opal mining. The hero doesn't even make an appearance until page 100. Unfortunately it's one of her books that dwells too much on the heroine's childhood and family. A re-read of a story I first read back in the 80's in my teen Victoria Holt phase.
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