He promised her.

Before Carol Tillotson died of breast cancer in July, she made her husband agree to promote the book she'd spent the last year of her life polishing and rewriting.

"She made me promise to push her book," said Don Tillotson, 72. "She wants me to find a woman, too. Living alone is no good. But I promised her I'll push the book as hard as I can."

The final chapter of their love story – which began when he and a whip-smart 15-year-old named Carol Douglas met in 1955 – involves this book, a romantic thriller called "The Legend of Round Valley," self-published through iUniverse.

More than that, it involves Tillotson's devotion to his late wife and the world they created together, as well as his determined march through a life that's become more difficult without her.

"Don has had a hard time," said his daughter-in-law, Jennifer, who is married to the youngest Tillotson son, Shaun. "He's beside himself. He doesn't know what to do with himself now."

From the beginning, he called her Douggie. She dropped out of UC Berkeley after they married. He worked as an electronics technician, then a general contractor. She stayed at home raising their four sons.

For many years they lived in El Dorado County, near the rugged foothill communities where five generations of his family have made a go of life in California.

A decade ago, Tillotson built the couple's dream home down a twisting gravel road outside Garden Valley, tucked into the edge of the national forest, northeast of Sacramento.

His second-eldest son, Darren Scott Tillotson, whom the family called Scott, lived just down the road with his wife and daughter.

Carol and Scott were both diagnosed with cancer only weeks apart in early 2008. He died of lymphoma at age 47, three months before cancer claimed her, too. She was 69.

"Things have hit me hard," Tillotson said. "The economy hit me hard. My wife and son dying."

The recession has slammed his finances – he says he hasn't had a construction job in more than a year – and so did his wife and son's illnesses, which depleted his savings.

Publisher iUniverse offers a range of services costing $600 to $4,200, according to its Web site.

Whatever the price, it was worth it to Tillotson. Even so, he worries the bank will foreclose on his house.

"Everything came down at once," he said. "I hate to lose this house. I'm going to try to save it. I'll do what I can."

For now, though, his life is about this book.

Carol Tillotson always wanted to write, and in earlier years, he says, she tinkered with a couple of other novels. The book is set in Northern California's Yolla Bolly wilderness, where the Tillotson family took a 10-day horseback vacation in 1974.

"Beautiful, beautiful country," Tillotson said. "I told her, 'That's a fantastic foundation for a book. You remember every leaf and tree.'

"I was the idea man," he added. "She was the writer. I said, 'Let's get some drug traffickers in there. We'll get these couples going in on vacation.' When she sank her teeth into this, oh, my God, she was like a pit bull. When she was writing, she was in heaven."

Jennifer Tillotson remembers her mother-in-law revising the book during her illness.

"Through the whole time she was in chemo, Carol worked on the book," she said. "She'd go in for chemo, be sick for a day, and then she'd go upstairs to do some writing. … The whole family wanted her to see it finished."

Three weeks before she died, Carol Tillotson received a hardback copy of her book. She made her husband promise to market it.

"It's what I've got left of her," he said. "If it's exposed to the public, I know it will sell. It would be a heck of a tribute if it became a best-seller."

Call The Bee's Anita Creamer, (916) 321-1136.