Will "There Was a Time" cause a rift between Taylor Caldwell and her everloving public? Will that public … mind that she has slapped their wrists in this semi-autobiographical novel about a young writer who forsakes thunderous chronicles of villainous financiers to write from his heart? The answer to these questions must be a resounding no….

Miss Caldwell's desertion of the titans who stomp through her previous output has in no wise affected her approach or her prose—which still throbs with passion, sags with adjectives and overflows into royal-purple rapture. As of old, her characters, wading ankle-deep in malevolence, are locked in unequal contest with compound, overpowering emotions. To be sure, sex has taken a holiday here: her Frank Clair, although shamefully cavalier with his muse, is faithful in his fashion to the girl who took his beauty-starved heart when he was a lad. But anyone who thinks...