Coming to Seattle from the Women's Medical College of
Pennsylvania, Aurelia Breighton finds herself in the middle
of gold fever. Men are gathering goods and heading to the
Klondike. She's twenty-four, and she understands the need
to bring lime juice capsules to ward off scurvy, but a
stove, a tent, four hundred pounds of flour and two hundred
pounds of bacon are on her shopping list. Prices are high
and the Canadians won't let her across the border without a
year's provisions, and pleading that she's looking for her
sister doesn't help.
BAND OF GOLD captures the spirit of the times, when a woman
doctor is seen as taking a man's livelihood. Aurelia's
grandmother insisted that she get a good education and not
be dependent on a man, and also taught her to shoot and
gave her younger sister Violet a gold ring. But aged
sixteen Violet's head was turned by a rusher, and she ran
away to the Klondike with him. Aurelia heads in pursuit but
first she meets a man called Clay Guardian, a former bank
clerk in Seattle, who took the gold ring as collateral for
a loan - that Violet and her partner never repaid.
The sheer logistics of travel are daunting. By boat, by
foot and dog-sled, the rushers keep moving, and a woman
alone is both rare and at risk. Pooling their resources
allows the two main characters to travel lighter and more
safely in the rugged country. Packing the goods by stages
converts a thirty-three-mile walk into a thousand-mile one,
with all the back and forth. Aurelia's expertise is first
called upon after an avalanche buries dozens of cheechacos
in snow. It won't be the last time.
Many people got into hot water in the frozen North, and
it's hard to really take on board today just how extreme
the conditions were for rushers. The people making money
were those selling supplies or means of transport. Mark
Twain's eye-witness accounts back up the details given by
Zita Christian. Amid all this hardship it takes an
exceptional woman to buckle down and do her share, and it
is no wonder that Aurelia makes friends. When she tells
one of her friends that she loves him, another man
considers the matter and says, "That's better than finding
gold, isn't it?" I couldn't agree more. BAND OF GOLD is a
fine adventure and romance.
When Aurelia Brighton leaves medical school for the
Klondike, it isn’t to find fortune. It’s to find her little
sister, who’s far too pampered and innocent to join the mob
of desperate people looking for gold. Violet must have been
abducted, enslaved by a peddler of the flesh. What other
explanation could there be?
Stymied at the border by Canada’s strict entry requirements,
she’s grateful when a kind, handsome gentleman steps forward
to help.
Clay Guardian also has his sights set on the Klondike—and on
tracking down Violet, the deceiving vixen who robbed his
bank and ruined his reputation. He never expected to
encounter his quarry’s sister at the Yukon border, but
partnering with the beautiful, willful Aurelia will bring
him that much closer to his goal: to see Violet hanged.
It’s only when Aurelia agrees to share food and provisions
for the long, dangerous journey, after the ship sails away,
that she learns the truth. Yet the perils they encounter
force them to trust each other with their lives—and an
unexpected love.
This book has been previously published.
Warning: Contains a hero intent on revenge and an innocent
medical student heroine who learned about anatomy from her
books, until now…
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