Lodestar - Softcover

Sarie Mackay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0978925912 ISBN 13: 9780978925918

Publisher: Lantern Lodge Publishing, 2006

When the impetuous Persis Allen marries Union Pacific railroad baron Alex Mackinney, she gets the life of luxury and frontier adventure she hoped for . . . at a price. Caught up at once in the lusty drama of Butte City and Helena, she meets wealthy cattlemen and miners and glimpses the strange poverty of prostitutes and opium smokers. The parites, balls, and flirtations at first seem the ideal backdrop for the handsome and aspiring couple. But a crack appears in this perfect vignette, and no matter how hard a terrified Persis tries to patch the fissure, it widens into a yawning abyss of danger. Alone and stunned into a brutal recognition of the truth, Persis must confront her own choice between life and death.

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About the Author:

Sarie Mackay lives in Red Lodge, Montana. When she isn't writing, she is either fly-fishing or helping non-profits raise funds for worthy causes.

Review:

In Lodestar, Sarie Mackay uses Montana's rough-and-tumble days before statehood as the backdrop for the story of Persis Allen, whose rapid-fire romance with railroad baron Alex MacKinney brings her west to a life for which her dreams could not have prepared her.

Mining the state s history for vivid looks at the circumstances of the very wealthy and the very poor, Mackay reveals lives which are closely entwined, despite social chasms. Even the millionaires must endure the increasingly tainted air from the minerals production in Butte or the muddy streets of the frontier communities.

A privileged lifestyle is not without cost, as Persis learns. Wealth doesn't translate into a carefree life, especially for a woman who chafes under the restrictions placed upon her sex. Not only do the social conventions of the time confine her to a gilded cage, Persis finds that life outside that cage leaves her vulnerable to losing her reputation, her income, and, as the drama of the book unfolds, possibly her life.

Lodestar operates on several levels - as a romance, as a glimpse into history, and as social commentary. Mackay acknowledges that women make up much of the target audience for the book. But she characterizes it as "women's fiction with a punch," moving the book beyond romance to a story of frontier adventure. The book is set more than a century ago, but has much to say about today. --Chris Rubich, Billings Gazette, Billings, MT

After my February skiing trip to the Tetons, I longed for a book that would help me keep some of the Western spirit in my Eastern soul. Sarie Mackay's Lodestar fit the bill, and then some. This is a novel to treasure, a love story in compelling prose and sparkling dialogue.

The tale of the Copper Kings and the Anaconda Mine has been told before, and William Clark and Marcus Daly give Lodestar a backlit glow. But it is the sexy, feisty, and beautiful Persis Allen who blazes across the pages. We are immediately plunged into her world, an Eastern-born beauty who falls for Alex MacKinney, a gorgeous hunk of an entrepreneur. He sweeps Persis onto the newly laid inter-continental rails and into his gambling life of commerce, transportation, mining and making millions in pre-statehood Montana.

Mackay is a sensualist, and her textured writing brings the sights and sounds of those early days to vivid life. While the tenor of the streets, the feel of Persis stately homes, and the slither of her silk are tangible, the book is at its best when Persis falls in love with the physical beauty of Montana s mountains, waters, and sky.

Few books are as honest in showing the ways in which women were used as one more ornament of display by the big men of the West when larger houses, faster horses, or deeper mines were the currency that mattered. But Lodestar excels at revealing how women both reveled at being valued because of their beauty and then consciously used that beauty as negotiable currency.

In Persis Allen we find a true Montana female icon: smart and headstrong, fearless and compassionate. Her attraction to Alex is emotional and sexual, and the tastefully rendered sex scenes are compelling in their acknowledgment of a young woman s erotic drive. As the tale turns darker, I felt Persis conflict and pain, but I kept rooting for this gutsy young mother to hang on to her own dreams.

Reading Lodestar in my Manhattan apartment evoked all that I love about the Rocky Mountain west and the people who live there. Sarie Mackay s leap into the world of writing is impressive, and I can t wait until her next book brings another wave of fresh mountain air and invigorating spirit to the concrete canyons of New York. --Dr. Gail O. Mellow, Pres., LaGuardia Community College, NY, NY

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