This is an excellent look at mineral extraction and especially coal, following a firm based in America but with outposts extracting bauxite, gold and more from South American or Caribbean countries. Francine Boyers starts off in Central Park leading the single girl's New York lifestyle, but soon gets sucked in to the corporate world of OHARA, a major coal miner which is heavily resisting being made to cut back on pollution and carbon emissions.

I have never seen or heard the phrase:
"Birds are renewable."
This comes from the mouth of an environmentalist on the board, after he has been asked about wind turbines killing eagles.
If the author has heard this, and it came from someone promoting wind energy, it was someone who only wanted to build green power for the grants. Every environmentalist and naturalist I have read or heard has major concerns over birds being killed. In particular, apex predators are at risk and only reproduce slowly, taking years to mature and raising one clutch a year. No nature lover would dismiss this issue.

Other than that enlightening look, we learn plenty from visiting Guyana and Suriname, hopping with bush pilots, scaring off gold stealers, and sipping rum and eating beef curry with the locals. Francine grew up in a mining community in West Virginia and genuinely cares about people's safety, which is the reason why we can permit ourselves to take her to our hearts. She learns a great deal about boardrooms, stock reports and improving profit, as well as dealing with issues raised by a workforce in a foreign country, where the state might be corruptly run and foreign competitors jostle to extract raw materials. I am pleased that Francine picks a female lawyer and promotes her within the firm.

What don't I find realistic? I believe the author is being too kind in his reporting of a 99% male environment. I would be surprised if Francine never felt at risk anywhere. She doesn't have a date that she doesn't enjoy, and if she does anything for fun in New York, we don't hear about it; just work. This is telling from the male viewpoint even though our hero is a woman.

Regarding the title, as I am not American I didn't know which was the mountain state; I believe plenty of states have mountains, notably Alaska.

Plenty to chew on in this dense but excellently explained story of high finance and deep delving.
I read an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

I found this to be an engaging, informative book which will give you many insights into the mining business and its relation to big finance. There were many aspects of this that I didn’t know about and now feel a bit better informed. The story was fast paced and enjoyable. The characters seemed realistic and Francine’s coming-into-her-own in a man’s world was delightful. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for a copy of #francine to read and honestly review.

this was a really good read, the characters were great and I really enjoyed reading this book. The author was able to create a great story.