Excellent read for those of us who love history. 1820s-1850s, Pennysylvania, young woman becomes pregnant by rich cad, her father insists she be married & is approached by a young man wanting to borrow money to buy into a steel plant. Total stranger, but the dad agrees if he marries the daughter. She is beautiful & he really wants to be an ironmaster so he does. Long story short, he is wonderful, kind, hard working, honest & patient, she is miserable & bound to make him so also but he wins out. She falls in love with him, albeit after 2 pretty nasty infidelities, & they have a good marriage & prosperous life, although in the end they do come to haunt her. And in the end, he dies. This is the reason I hate trilogies, though I will say she does rather wind this story up, and the next will be just to carry on the story. That is one fault with the book. The other is that the oldest son - the one fathered by the cad - turns out to also be a cad, from little on. I don't believe that happens. But all in all, definitely recommended. ( )