Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The middle volume of Carsons Gold Seer trilogy. Young, white Leah Westfalls mystical ability to sense when gold is near is both a beneficial and a dangerous trait during this era of the forty-niners. She is traveling through California with a band of friends who are looking to prospect and settle. Knowing her uncle Hiramher only living relative, who knows of her poweris on her trail, Leah is forced to reveal her secret to her friends so that they know the risk of accompanying her. Utilizing Leahs gold sense, this small group begins to stake their claims along the American River when uncle Hiram's men find her. The construct of this historical narrative fails by creating a female protagonist with absurd mystical powers that make her a cash cow (literally). The relationships are muddled, as she has a half-white, half-Cherokee sweetheart, Jefferson Kingfisher, a fact that is hard to reconcile with their prospecting on Indian land. Aside from Jefferson, the Native Americans mostly act as the stereotypical backdrop of decimated Indians. By keeping them largely naked and hidden, Carson diminishes the historical Native American resistance against Western expansion in the Sacramento area, and she adds insult to injury by ultimately making them collaborators in Leahs theft of their land. An authors note describes Carsons research but cannot account for this portrayal. Another indulgence in a Western narrative that undermines both history and its female protagonist instead of enlightening. (Fantasy. 14 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

To protect their settlement, sixteen-year-old Lee (Walk on Earth a Stranger) and love interest Jefferson surrender to Lee's murderous uncle Hiram--who's desperate to exploit her gold-finding abilities. Captive, but with innumerable freedoms compared to the Chinese and Native American people enslaved by her uncle, Lee joins an uprising against him. Carson's alternate Gold Rushera setting is fierce and brutal with complex sociopolitics. (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.