Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Me on Like a River Glorious

Title: Like a Rover Glorious
Author: Rae Carson
Release Date: September 27, 2016
Publisher: Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins imprint)

After a harrowing journey across the country, Leah Westfall and her friends have finally arrived in California and are ready to make their fortunes in the Gold Rush. Lee has a special advantage over the other new arrivals in California—she has the ability to sense gold, a secret known only by her best friend Jefferson and her murdering uncle Hiram. Lee and her friends have the chance to be the most prosperous settlers in California, but Hiram hasn't given up trying to control Lee and her power. Sabotage and kidnapping are the least of what he'll do to make sure Lee is his own. His mine is the deepest and darkest in the territory, and there Lee learns the full extent of her magical gift, the worst of her uncle, and the true strength of her friendships. To save everyone, she vows to destroy her uncle and the empire he is building—even at the cost of her own freedom.

Like a River Glorious is the continuing tale of a young woman looking for a new home, a place that her and her friends can call their own. But the dark things in her past won't let her go.

Lee is a strong young woman. She's determined, she's tough. She's full of compassion. She's desperate for a home of her own, a place to call her own where she can live in peace and relative comfort with those who've made it to California with her. She's looking to feel safe for the first time in ages, which is hard when she knows her uncle is looking for her. Searching for her, wanting to use her witchy gold-finding ability for himself. Caught up in his business, in his desperate search for gold and power, Lee must stay calm and wait if she wants to survive. If she wants to make it out alive and not alone.

This book isn't for the faint of heart. After all the running and hiding Lee did in the previous book, after the hope she had for a future of her own and away from her uncle, it's hard to stomach what Hiram does to Lee in this book. The kidnapping. The emotional abuse, the physical abuse. What he makes Lee witness. The disgust he has for the Native Americans and the Chinese labourers. The horrible living and working conditions they suffer through. This is a book full of sorrow and oppression, of hunger and suffering and hatred. Of the cost of freedom, the desperation for it. Of greed and obsession.

After reading the first book, I was interested in where this would go. If Lee would ever find a new home. If any of the people she met on the wagon train would tough it out in California with her or if they would turn around and leave. If she'd be able to carve out as much a place of her own as possible, as much as the law would allow an unmarried young woman, or if more men would show up looking to control her. And then her uncle showed up. I'm curious as to how the third book will go, knowing it's a trilogy, knowing how this book ended.

(I downloaded an e-galley of this book from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.)

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