Book Review: Rivers of Gold

Title: Rivers of Gold

Author: Tracie Peterson

Publisher; Bethany House

Date: 2002

ISBN: 0-7642-2380-1

Length: 383 pages

Quote: “The woman gently urged, ‘You wake up. You no die.’”

Rivers of Gold is a romance.

In the smaller sense of the word, which is the one most often used today, a romance is a story in which two people “fall in love.” Though the details of their quarrelling and making up may teach readers something about interpersonal relationships, the main purpose of these stories is to remind people of the feeling of “falling in love,” and thus either help hard-working wives turn their attention back to their husbands, or distract teenagers from what they ought to be doing, depending on who is reading these stories. Since there is no doubt about the outcome of these stories, and little is going on besides the couple drawing closer together, many people say that, if “romances” are not positively pornographic, they’re boring.

In the larger and more classical sense of the word, however, a romance differs from a novel in that more goes on in a romance. A novel was originally supposed to be a realistic story in which things that really happened were fictionalized just enough to allow the author to reminisce (or speculate) frankly about people’s private thoughts and motives. A romance was supposed to be a fantastic story, usually set in faraway times and places the author and reader knew only in fantasy, often dealing with the adventures of royalty, superheroes, or arch-villains, sometimes featuring speculative elements like ghosts, supernatural beings, or time travel, and usually featuring adventures that were at least unlikely. The names of the genres were originally meant to suggest the difference; for English readers a novel was meant to be like a news story, a romance to suggest the exotic glamour of Italy. A “love story” is not even a necessary element in this type of romance, though the classics of “romantic” fiction, like Orlando Furioso and The Faerie Queene, usually include more than one couple who will share adventures and be separated and be reunited before the end.

I mention this because what Tracie Peterson set out to do with her “Yukon Quest” series is a romance in the classical sense, dramatizing the broader-stage “romance” of the Yukon’s gold rush days with tales of the unlikely adventures, including love stories, that real people really had. Though Miranda, who almost froze and/or drowned in an icy river and is being urged to wake up in the opening scene, will fall in love with the scientist whose housekeeper wants her to sip spoonfuls of hot tea, we’ll read about their “romance” and the early days of their marriage along with the other adventures of their friends; the story’s not over when Miranda and Teddy take their vows. Babies will be born; toddlers’ lives will be in danger. A murderer will falsely accuse an innocent teenager and get the boy locked up until the others can prove who really killed their friend. What seem like fortunes in cheapened gold will be found and lost. Bethany House being a Christian publisher, somebody who has led a frivolous, unbelieving life will be led to profess faith in Christ. The story is fiction, and is meant to sound excitingly exotic and unlikely to us today, but it’s based on records of things that actually happened. Bethany House achieved fame with the Mandie books for children; though the setting is different this series is meant to appeal to adults who enjoyed the Mandie books.

What’s not to like? If you start here (volume three), although it’s easy to figure out that a Victorian Heroine is meeting her Rescuing Hero in the first scene, it takes a while to figure out who the other characters are and why we’re reading about them in the next several pages. It wouldn’t have been hard for Peterson to let Miranda’s happy dream, before she sips tea, include some reference to her friend Karen, or let Karen’s conversation with her husband include some reference to the certain death of their friend Miranda—but she doesn’t. Eventually, of course, all readers will catch up with the story, but I suspect I would have liked this book better if I’d started with volume one.

If the idea of a large multiethnic cast of people trying to bring the Gilded Age alive in the wilderness appeals to you, you may want the entire series. Here be steamships and washtubs, proper etiquette and concern about when the next shipment of canned fruit will arrive, passionate kisses followed by guilty soul-searching until proper Victorians can make up their minds to marry each other, sled dogs and claim jumpers, a kidnapping, a madly international celebration of Queen Victoria’s birthday, couples living in love after the honeymoon is over, enough tender moments to remind you of your courting days if you’re a grandmother, and no details likely to raise a suspicious blush if you’re reading this book in the most boring class of your school day. People who like historical romances should enjoy every page.