Nevada Gold

If you have never read a Barb Baldwin book, you do not know what you are missing. If you have, Nevada Gold, her latest is perhaps the best of Ms. Baldwin’s this reviewer has read.

Cigarette smoking, tough as nails Ellie is a modern day writer, who is sent by her editor to Peavine, Nevada to do an article on ghost towns. Not her ideal kind of assignment and to add insult to injury, she ends up abandoned in Peavine with no phone, no car and no one to help her. After all, it is a ghost town. Well, actually she does find someone to talk to. Two someones…Lucky and Zeke…two miners who seem to appear out of nowhere. What Ellie doesn’t know is that Lucky and Zeke are ghosts who, because of a mistake made back in 1870, haven’t been able to move beyond the mine tunnel they died in. The problem is, it wasn’t just a mistake or an accident, only Lucky and Zeke aren’t exactly sure what happened. All they really know is that their employer, Jesse Cole, died on July 4, 1870 and it’s up to them to keep it from happening.

At first Ellie is less than pleased to find herself in the Peavine of 1870. No pre-rolled cigarettes, no coffeemaker, no jeans, nothing to redeem the town until she meets Jesse Cole. What Zeke and Lucky noticed right off is that Ellie looks like Elizabeth, the woman Jesse has planned to marry. But Elizabeth is not the sweet lady she seems. She, along with her paramour Clayton Scott, have designs on Jesse’s mine and the only way to get that mine is for Jesse to cease to exist. In a race against time, finding herself falling in love with Jesse, Ellie begins to fear she will not be able to save Jesse and that the force that sent her back in time will snatch her away before she can tell him she loves him.

Twists, turns, memorable characters and a “can’t put down” story are the trademarks that make Ms. Baldwin’s stories so wonderful. Each character is so well drawn you feel like you know them. What reader doesn’t know a self-centered, all about me woman like Elizabeth? Who doesn’t have at least one older uncle who’s a bit cantankerous and a tad forgetful, but so easy to love like Zeke or Lucky? And who doesn’t wonder if they could find a man like Jesse? Let us not forget the epitome of nasty – Clayton Scott.

From the first moment when this reviewer saw the cover of NEVADA GOLD I was drawn into the story. The cover epitomizes the shades of this most enjoyable read—from the colorful minor depicted in the foregoing giving way to the shades of gray in the background, so goes Nevada Gold. Elle’s life goes from what she thinks is exciting to the realization of it’s drab grayness…and while at first she finds Peavine of 1870 to be an uninteresting gray kind of place, she finds herself more alive than ever before.

When Ms. Baldwin describes the every day conveniences Elle is forced to do without, she relates the struggle in a way we can all relate to. Waking without the morning coffee, craving that one thing that we turn to when we need to de-stress, adjusting to a new way of living. The reader can find him or herself as one of the characters in the story. Each time this reviewer thinks Ms. Baldwin has written her most outstanding story, she is pleasantly surprised when the newest is released. NEVADA GOLD leaves this reviewer eagerly anticipating what will come next.

Readers will find NEVADA GOLD to be a highpoint in their 2006 reading.

August 2006