Second Wife, Second Life: The Love Story

This embarrassingly schmaltzy account of late-life romance opens with George Schmieler's chance reading of Holmes's book I've Got to Talk to Somebody, God , which, supposedly, not only averted his suicide but led to a whirlwind courtship and marriage to Holmes. Like him, she was widowed and in her early 70s. Holmes writes of herself as an ardent bride, and of her husband, then still a practicing physician in Pittsburg, as an intellectually stimulating and vital (if aging) Adonis. Far different from the ``life of quiet desperation'' imposed by her first marriage, Holmes's second marriage, lasting 10 years, proved to be a happy one until Schmieler's death from cancer. ``The wedding feast is over,'' she reminisces. ``And the best wine was saved for the last.'' (Apr.)