Gilded Mountain

An Amazon Best Book of November 2022: At the turn of the twentieth century, the Pelletiers, a French-Canadian family, move to Colorado, where a job at a marble quarry promises not just employment but housing. The work is grueling and before long, the father is once again trying to unionize his fellow workers—much to the chagrin of the company foreman. The novel is told by 17-year-old Sylvie Pelletier, a smart, feisty, and determined woman employed by a local newspaper that exposes the harsh working conditions of the workers while the quarry’s owners live in wealthy opulence. The catch? Sylvie falls for the owner’s son and before long she’s immersed in the robber baron world, caught between the man she loves, her family, and the workers struggling to make ends meet. Filled with pluck and the union beliefs of her father, Sylvie is a character you root for—one that believes justice is on her side and will fight to make it so. Gilded Mountain is utterly transporting, a novel that will sweep you off your feet with the promise of adventure, equality, freedom, and, yes, love. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor Praise for Gilded Mountain "Manning’s prose is so evocative... The social issues of the novel’s time period, including the wealth gap, women’s rights and freedom of the press, artfully mirror those in 21st-century America." —Carol Memmott, The Washington Post "Kate Manning’s fat, immersive novel transfixed me... Manning builds her characters’ challenges with such empathy, I didn’t even realize I was getting a crash course in the history of labor relations... There are views to admire, mysteries to be solved and love stories to escape into... awe-inspiring." —Elizabeth Egan, The New York Times "Looking for a big historical novel to read by the fire? Manning’s novel will scratch your itch... a stellar read from an acclaimed author." —Bethanne Patrick, The Los Angeles Times "An expansive novel of passions: love, beauty, suffering; struggles for labor rights, women's equality and the rights of formerly enslaved people... it contains romance, historical fiction and inspired, high-minded thinking on important issues, [with] lovely writing about the natural world... a painfully beautiful novel of big ideals, heartbreaks and tragedies, sewn together by an admirable and unforgettable heroine." — Shelf Awareness "Stellar... Manning shines at giving the era’s class, racial, and economic tensions a human face. This is one to savor." — Publishers Weekly, * starred review* "Manning’s bildungsroman not only provides a clear portrait of her young heroine; it captures the intensity of an unsettled time and place in American history.” — Kirkus " The gold at the center of Kate Manning’s remarkably panoramic and meticulously researched new novel is one indomitable Sylvie Pelletier—an adventurer, a romantic, a crackerjack observer of worlds and hearts. Gilded Mountain is that rare thing: a historical page-turner that nimbly moves from gritty mining shafts to elegant drawing rooms of an earlier America with all its seething and striving, and where—then, as now—fates are decided by a stroke of luck or unluck, kindness and corruption, and reinvention." — Carol Edgarian, author of Vera "Kate Manning is a master storyteller. Gilded Mountain is so immersive, so richly imagined, that reading it feels akin to time travel. Manning writes historical sagas like no one else; the dreamers, strivers, and opportunists who populate this tale possess a uniquely American desire to reinvent themselves, whatever it takes. An epic story of love, hope and perseverance." —#1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline " Here is adventure of the first order, as young Sylvie Pelletier finds herself thrust into a seething union dispute in a marble-quarrying town. There’s violence in the wintry air, but also romance, as two charismatic men vie for Sylvie’s attention. Dread and love entwine, as the forces and people that transformed the 20th century converge on the town, all this rendered by Ms. Manning in prose as clean and sharp as the stone saws on the mountain. I raced through it. Sylvie is dynamite and Gilded Mountain is brilliant." — #1 New York Times bestselling author Erik Larson "The best historical novels sing because, through them, we feel the reverberations of the past in the present day. Hard work, love, sorrow, revenge, joy — Gilded Mountain hums with all of this and more." —Mary Beth Keane , New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes Kate Manning is the author of the critically acclaimed novels My Notorious Life, Whitegirl , and Gilded Mountain. A former documentary television producer and winner of two Emmy Awards, she has written for The New York Times , The Washington Post , the Los Angeles Times Book Review , Time , Glamour , and The Guardian , among other publications. She has taught creative writing at Bard High School Early College in Manhattan, and lives with her family in New York City. Read more