Opening this book, I joined Sylvie Pelletier on her journey as she narrates high up in the Colorado mountain community in which her father has landed them. Her French family came seeking a better life, and we are landed smack in the middle of Sylvie's realization that this might have been a huge mistake. Soon she is looking for other options for herself, all of which are limited by her gender and the time in which she lives: the early 1900s.

The topics covered by Sylvie's story are many, and it is long. She is 15-years old at its beginning and so we go through a number of twists and turns as we attend her. For me the story was compelling, but Sylvie was not as believable as I wanted her to be (that is to say, she was not as likeable as I prefer). . . but then. . .I've met many people in my life with the self-same flaw. That, in itself, drives the nail in it. A worthy read. Reminds me rather, at the end, of Stegner's Joe Hill.

A Sincere Thank You to Kate Manning, Scribner and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review.

I couldn’t imagine what marble-mining in the early 1900s Colorado would be like without the help of Kate Manning’s newest novel, Gilded Mountain.
This is just one of the things I love about infusing my reading life with historical fiction.

In this quasi-coming-of-age novel, our young protagonist Sylvia Pelletier recounts the story of her family’s move to the snow-bound mountain where her father is employed as a marble miner, her time working for the company’s owners as the “Countess” Inge’s secretary, working as a fearless newspaper reporter, and a union rabble rouser fighting to secure labor rights for workers like her father.

It’s an illuminating tale of what life was like for so many families during the early 20th century, trying to secure a way of life in a desolate, cold country. As a historical fiction novel, I learned a lot about the immigrant experience, the appalling work conditions for early companies & the necessity for labor union creation, and Colorado’s history.

Unfortunately, it missed the mark for me for a couple of reasons. The storytelling felt a bit off & the suspense was missing making this reading experience feel like an uphill challenge. Also, Sylvie’s love interests felt unrealistic and fleeting. There was so much jam-packed within the plot, that it was difficult to form emotive feelings towards the characters.

If you’re a fan of early 20th century American historical fiction & want to learn more about early Colorado history, be sure to add this to your TBR.
Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Set in an early 20th century Colorado mining town, this is a story of worker vs exploiter, good vs evil, rich vs poor. It has all the makings of an epic tale of the West and a young woman’s coming-of-age. There is rich detail in descriptions of the setting and the times. Sylvie, the bright young protagonist of the story introduces us to the horrible living conditions of her family and the dazzling life of the marble quarry owners living in the castle on the hill. Sylvie experiences and observes it all – from labor issues to women’s independence, from honesty to lies and greed. Along the way, Sylvie experiences some ‘love’ interests. She doesn’t always think that clearly or even make the best of decisions. The book is well-written and well-researched. It covers a plethora of issues and important problems that we continue to grapple with. But I felt Sylvie, perhaps because of her youth and naivete, just wasn’t a sufficiently strong, well-developed character and that interfered with the overall success of the book. Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for an advanced readers copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Gilded Mountain is a masterpiece of historical fiction, bringing alive the very early labor movement in the United Staes even featuring a cameo appearance by Mother Jones. Sylvie Pelletier, child of French Canadien immigrants, travels with her mother and siblings from Vermont, to a company town in Colorado. Her father works for Padgett Fuel and Stone Company as a quarryman. It is 1907. Why have they traveled to this remote collection of rough cabins, eight miles up a treacherous, icy mountain road from "the prettified coal town of Ruby", then on past the town of Moonstone, with a store, a church and a jail to Cabin 6?

Manning brings alive the grim reality of life in a company town. Workers are often paid in scrip. They receive no pay for the many hours they are required to work to keep the road clear or for any time they are expected to work beyond their shift. The work is hard and they have barely enough to pay rent and buy food. This is a marble mine with virtually no safety protocols. Moving slabs of marble is dangerous work and accidents, including deadly ones are common. There is talk of a union. Sylvie's father is one of the people at the center of the talk, having left Vermont at gunpoint because of his labor organizing activities. His current tendency to talk up unions is unsettling to his wife and unacceptable to his employer. He could lose his job at the whim of the manager and their home along with it.

Sylvie and her older brother attend school. Their toddler brother is home with their mother. Sylvie is a talented student. She wins an essay contest with the local newspaper selecting a daring topic., The Moonstone City Record's female editor is college educated, fiercely independent and progressive. Obviously, she, too is unacceptable to the Padgetts as she increasingly writes critical articles about their employment practices and mine safety. Miss Redmond hires Sylvie to work for her setting type. Eventually she lets Sylvie report on family news and accidents at the mine.

Because she is bilingual in French and English, Sylvie is invited to apply for a position with the mine owners' wife as a secretary for the summer. "Duke" Padgett is obscenely wealthy, with holdings far beyond this mine.. He's from Richmond Virginia and his wife (the "Countess") is from Belgium, where they met in King Leopold's Court. They summer near Moonstone, living in the lavish home they built, Elkhorn Mansion, entertaining visitors from all over. Guests are treated to balls dinners including oysters from the East and other costly delicacies. Duke's son Jasper, attends Harvard but he is also in Moonstone for the summer. Two of Duke's former slaves, John and Easter Grady work there as cook and driver. The Grady's son Caleb is there for the summer and serves as a chef on the Padgetts' private railroad car. Their other son, Marcus, is in a different part of Colorado where he hopes to participate in building a town for "Negroes." Jasper is very close to the Gradys, as Easter took care of him when his mother died.

Sylvie experiences the harsh reality of her father's work and the risks he takes when he encourages his fellow workers to consider fairer treatment. She sees what her mother must do in their meager surroundings to care for her family and help provide for them. She witnesses a variety of immigrant families' adjustment to the harsh conditions of Colorado Mountain winters with no pay because the mine is shut down for the season. She is subjected to harsh comments about the newspaper and her role there. She's spent eight weeks with a front row seat to people living at a level of luxury she could not have imagined. During that time, she connected personally with the Countess, who made something of a pet of her. She connected personally with Jasper almost as a friend. Later, Sylvie meets Mother Jones and the organizer sent by the national union. She's there, when they speak to her father and his coworkers and she's there for the backlash. Pinkerton men arrive, vicious and heartless. She witnesses the challenges faced by the Gradys in seeking how to make their way independently. Ultimately, all of these people interact with Sylvie in life-changing ways that make for an amazing story of the people of turn of the century Colorado.

So, this is the story of one smart, attractive and courageous girl's life. We learn how a variety of opportunities, challenges and a range of people from different classes, countries and backgrounds shape who she is. She takes risks. She makes choices that a situationally moral but would put her in jail if she were discovered. She sometimes follows her heart and loses her way. The characters are fabulous, the story fascinating and fun, dark and sad, exciting, quiet and surprising. Definitely a could not put it down and stayed up too late several nights to read on kind of book.

<b><blockquote>There in the sharp teeth of the Gilded Mountains, where the snow and murderous cold conspire to ruin a woman, I lost the chance to become a delicate sort of lady.... Instead, I got myself arrested as a radical and acquired a fine vocabulary.... And I'm not sorry, for it was all of my education in those two years, about right and wrong.</b></blockquote>
Kate Manning's <i>Gilded Mountain</i> is set in early 1900s Colorado as Sylvie Pelletier leaves her family's mountain cabin to work for the affluent Padgetts, who own the marble-mining company that employs Sylvie's father and many other men in the small town of Moonstone.

Sylvie is quickly shocked by the excesses she sees--and by the sometimes stark disconnect between what the family members say and what they do.

However, she is also captivated by the family's wealth and comfort--and by extension, her own. She feels guilty at her deep fascination with various fancy foods and dress. She also finds herself taken with Jace, the treasured son of the Padgett family, who is himself torn between family duty, secrets, and doing "one right thing," a way of navigating the world that Sylvie has learned from her mother. Yet at the same time she becomes fascinated by George--the rough union organizer who flits in and out of town--and the trouble that seems to follow him.

<b><blockquote>Some lies we tell to make them true, like wishes. <i>All is well.</i> Then there are the lies laid carefully on top of lies, sediment hardening to stone, covering shame and secrets.</b></blockquote>
The Padgetts' abominable treatment of their workers draws the attention of union organizers, a brutally honest newspaper editor, and Sylvie herself. With her own family's livelihood--and the local industry--in the Padgetts' hands, tensions threaten to explode the community.

<b><blockquote>Strikes are all the same. Same songs. Same reasons. Same hope and rage. In those years it was struggle and strife all over the mountains.</b></blockquote>
I was taken with the details of mining-company life and the contrast against the lush life of excess in the Padgett mansion. Sylvie's torn feelings and warring sense of duty and desire for youthful joy and carefree moments felt real and brought me into the story. The tough newspaper owner K.T. was a great character and mentor for Sylvie, and I loved the accounts of reporting and printing on a printing press as well as the conflicts and resilience of reporting contentious occurrences.

Later in the story, events surrounding marble mining and workers' conditions (strike, resistance, destruction, scabs, complicated negotiations, and broken promises) and in Sylvie's life (mixed emotions, attraction, confusion, lies, and secrets) make for jumbled-feeling pacing, and the end of the book involves a significant amount of summary as later events are recounted and as issues such as money, secrets, and retribution are resolved.

I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of Scribner and NetGalley.

I love a Western-set story. If you also like stories like this, you might enjoy the books on the Greedy Reading List <a href="https://www.bossybookworm.com/post/six-great-historical-fiction-stories-set-in-the-american-west-1/">Six Great Historical Fiction Stories Set in the American West.</a></b>

Sylvie Pelletier was born in Vermont of parents who were from French Quebec. She and her mother and baby brother have trekked the dangerous trail out west to join Sylvie’s father in Moonstone, Colorado in the early 1900’s. Her father lost his job in New England due to his attempts to unionize workers and left when the distant mines offered employment. Sylvie and her mother find the conditions at the mine’s employees camp dismal, but they try to make the best of it.

When the mine owner’s wife needs a French speaking secretary, Sylvie volunteers. Her employment means she now lives in comfort, eats healthy and is warm. Inge is her employer and she treats Sylvie almost like a friend. Jasper, her step-son, is charming and pleasant. He acts as though he and Sylvie share secrets, giving her nods and looks. Sylvie can’t help but fall for him.

As conditions at the mine deteriorate, the men are expected to work for less. Attempts to form a union, spearheaded by a national union organizer, are not welcome. Sylvie sees some possibilities in Inge’s plans to make improvements and in Jasper’s sympathetic words, but at the same time, she knows how much the workers and their families are suffering.

Manning tells of America’s early struggles of workers to get fair treatment. She puts Sylvie in the midst of the affluent and gives her a taste of the other side. Mother Jones, a real historic figure, is included in the attempts to urge workers to unionize. Readers will not be surprised by the disparity of the lives of the workers and the owners. Manning focuses on the historical efforts of workers to be treated fairly and she also calls attention to the treatment of free Blacks. There is a Black family, the Gradys, who have served the mine owner for years. They demonstrate dignity and kindness, despite their situation. Based on real struggles, this fictional account shines because of the tenacity of Sylvie, the Gradys and others who fight oppression at the hands of the rich and powerful.

I think it was the time that I was reading it and couldn't get into it. I may try to read again at some point with a different mindset.

Whenever I read a good work of historical fiction, it is lush and atmospheric. You feel transported, and while you certainly root for the characters, you also think and reflect upon your own condition. How can we learn from the past? How can such lessons resonate into the future?

That is precisely what Manning's "Gilded Mountain" did for me, a gorgeous paean to the workers who formed an intrinsic backbone to this country in the face of injustice and discrimination. The settings might have been altered, but the messages are the same today. People matter, and this simple message seeps more into our sinew and bone when we learn it the hard way.

Sylvie Pelletier is a gorgeous character, one who really made this journey worthwhile. She is not perfect. She is trying to do the right thing - sometimes for the wrong reason - and she is surrounded by a motley cast of characters that is also in that same boat. How do we revere the dignity of work? How we help others without stooping so low that we magnify the us-versus-them mentality? There is a lot going on here.

Sylvie's voice was rich and engaging, a delightful amalgam of her own childhood (since she's a teenager when narrating it) and the decades of reflection that adulthood has brought. I like an alternating-POV narrative as much as the next person, but I felt that such singular focus on Sylvie was very refreshing. Her voice made this book, and it's hard to imagine it without that, vibrant as the supporting cast was.

There is a sacred intersectionality here as well: one individual learning about the three-pronged monster of racism, classism, and gender discrimination, all coming to a head in an early 20th-century Colorado mining town. I also loved the reverence of journalism and the interesting commentary on first love. How does it help us? How does it shape us further? Sylvie grew during this novel, and we can only hope that we do as well.

Many thanks for the wonderful ARC and for this engaging experience! I absolutely cherished it.

So, I enjoyed the story and it was tough reading about what miners go through, BUT Sylvie was kind of boring, and literally fell in love with anyone that looked at her. I thought the writing was great, but the book could've been a tad shorter. I probably could've read a whole book about Sylvie's dad and his work.

This was a great historical fiction book with a really unique setting. It managed to maintain a good balance of intrigue and drama while still seeming realistic and I really became invested in the main characters.

3.5 I'm rounding up. A fascinating story about mine workers and the horrible conditions they worked in, the families that suffered along with them, and the beginning of unions.

It's a dark story about Sylvia and her family. She arrives to a cold, thin-aired mountain town in Colorado. Her dad has already been here for years and now, the whole family has arrived. The first winter is brutal. "Dead Hours" of shoveling snow off the tracks unpaid and the family freezing and spending their wage at the "company story." No running water, electricty or bathrooms in the houses, the families barely stay warm enough to survived.

The story is interesting from Sylvia's POV. At first, she's young and attends school, walking thorugh drifts of snow. Then she is a teen and working, first in the town and then at the big house. She's privy to information that many other aren't. She's taught to listen, ask questions, and report the truth.

But she slowly watches her father wither. She hears and sees other workers injured. They suffer another winter with unpaid "dead hours" when the whole family must spend hours out shoveling snow off the train tracks for no pay. It isn't until there is a huge tragedy and so many betrayals that Sylvia must decide who she is and what marke she wantst to make on the world. It was interesting to think of the first starts to union and the rights to workers. Interesting to read about the beginning and all the trails they endured. This was a little long but the characters were well developed and kept me reading, wanting to know how it would all turn out for them.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

An historical fiction, set around a marble quarry mining town in the mountains of Colorado in the early 1900s. Sylvie Pelletier is our narrator who tells the story of her life that was formed in that town of Moonstone. With her schooling finished there, she soon takes on a job working for a woman printer of the local newspaper. Then was offered a summer job working as a social secretary for the wife of the mine owner.

Quickly Sylvie finds herself conflicted with being attracted to the mine owner’s son and the labor union organizer leader. This is far from a romance, as many social issues are addressed, but not overtly. I found it a fascinating and well told tale.

My sincerest thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Working in the marble mines in the early 20th century was grueling. Gilded Mountain tells of the harsh times from the perspective of a miner’s daughter, and her drive to survive and fight for the workers.

Brilliant writing here draws the reader in. We hear about both sides of the argument; one that tells facts and one that tells what the “company”wants told. It goes beyond simply a story of those that have and those that don’t ,with a sense of what’s right that fuels our 17-year old heroine, Sylvie, as she comes of age in these dark and unsettling times. I couldn’t help but draw a comparison and parallel to current day issues — facts versus narrative. In these early times, investors relied on getting the vital investment information from sources outside the company. The masking of those facts by the company range a familiar bell, and the social criticism is done most subtle and masterful.

Easily makes my Favorites of 2022 list!

This book would be perfect for Kristin Hannah fans. A story about a woman in early 1900s Colorado- Sylvia is a force to be reckoned with. I didn’t always love the direction the book took, and it was a slower beginning.

10/27 Update: The chapters are long and even though story is interesting I can’t get myself to continue reading.

Enjoying the atmospheric setting. Actually still reading this book.
Will update review once I’m done

Gilded Mountain is so good!

Gilded Mountain takes a pointed look at race, class, and gender in the early 1900's, but I think so much of this is relevant today too. The pacing of the story felt a little slow in the beginning, but once the pace picked up, I couldn't put it down.

I would describe this book as similar in writing to Grapes of Wrath or The Four Winds. It is descriptive and raw. There are so many hardships for the characters to endure. The story is set in Colorado and doesn't describe the dust bowl, and is set a little earlier, but the feel is very similar.

I loved the way the book was written in first person, with the narrator looking back at past events and offering foreshadowing and commentary. This part felt a little like Jane Eyre.

The second half of the book had a lot more action than those three other books I mentioned. The pace was moving and it was exciting.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this free ARC.

If you haven’t read Kate Mannings’s amazing, incredible novel, My Notorious Life, go get it now. Don’t hesitate, just grab a copy and settle in for a fabulous read! Since I liked that book so much, I was excited to read Gilded Mountain.

Gilded Mountain is incredibly rich with detail, you feel as though you are right there alongside Sylvie. I can’t imagine the level of research done by Kate to be able to immerse the reader in this world. Well, done!

Synopsis:

In a voice spiked with sly humor, Sylvie Pelletier recounts leaving her family’s snowbound mountain cabin to work in a manor house for the Padgetts, owners of the marble-mining company that employs her father and dominates the town. Sharp-eyed Sylvie is awed by the luxury around her; fascinated by her employer, the charming “Countess” Inge, and confused by the erratic affections of Jasper, the bookish heir to the family fortune. Her fairy-tale ideas of romance take a dark turn when she realizes the Padgetts’ lofty philosophical talk is at odds with the unfair labor practices that have enriched them. Their servants, the Gradys, formerly enslaved people, have long known this to be true and are making plans to form a utopian community on the Colorado prairie.

Outside the manor walls, the town of Moonstone is roiling with discontent. A handsome union organizer, along with labor leader Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, is stirring up the quarry workers. The editor of the local newspaper—a bold woman who takes Sylvie on as an apprentice—is publishing unflattering accounts of the Padgett Company. Sylvie navigates vastly different worlds and struggles to find her way amid conflicting loyalties. When the harsh winter brings tragedy, Sylvie must choose between silence and revenge.

Drawn from true stories of Colorado history, Gilded Mountain is a tale of a bygone American West seized by robber barons and settled by immigrants, and is a story infused with longing—for self-expression and equality, freedom and adventure.

Out now! You can win a copy of this over at Goodreads where they are running a giveaway!

Gilded Mountain is a gorgeous, tragic story of a Colorado mining settlement in the 19th century. We meet the Pelletier family on their ascent up the mountains to join the patriarch, where he has been working at the mine. When we find Sylvie, our narrator, 's father, he has already been in the midst of some labor struggles against the company that owns the mines. We meet Mary "Mother Jones" in Moonstone, fighting for the rights of the mine workers. Gilded Mountain is a richly drawn tale of the plight of workers in America and their land-owning counterparts.

I'm choosing not to post about this one because I can't tell if it's me or the book. I made it to 48% and still hadn't connected to the story or the main character. I'm a big fan of the westward expansion plot but it just didn't do anything. I buddy read this with a friend and she felt the same as me. We're all for a slow build but this one just didn't do anything.

This historical fiction novel is equal parts heartbreaking and mesmerizing. I was fascinated by the way the mining town, and life in the early 1900s came to life page after page. I found the plot and character descriptions to be compelling as well as endearing. I cannot recommend this enough because it is sure to be enjoyed and remembered.