Part of Series
In Railroad Schemes, Holland introduced us to one of the most compelling characters she has ever Lily Viner, a young girl raised in the harsh mining camps of Virginia City, rescued by the legendary "King" Callahan, a wild Irish outlaw, only to lose him in a battle with the railroad barons who controlled the Western frontier. Now, in Lily Nevada, Cecelia Holland continues the dramatic tale of this beautiful, strong-willed woman who flees her dark and violent past to make a new life and name for herself in San Francisco at the dawn of the Gilded Age. It is a time of great opportunity, and even greater peril; when fortunes are built, and lost, overnight; when ruthless tycoons amass great wealth, and growing labor unrest threatens to topple these newly minted empires. Lily has become an actress and soon her great beauty and even greater skill hurtle her into the limelight. But tormented by her shattered past, Lily begins to live a strange double life. By day, she performs in velvet and lace before the fabulously wealthy rulers of San Francisco's new aristocracy. But by night, dressed in men's clothing, she roams the darkest corners of the city, searching for the mother who abandoned her. As embittered workers at last challenge the might of the railroad magnates, the city explodes in violence and turmoil. Alone in a world engulfed in flames, Lily comes face to face with a long-forgotten adversary who could destroy the new life she has won for herself.
Author
Pen name used by Elizabeth Eliot Carter. Cecelia Holland is one of the world's most highly acclaimed and respected historical novelists, ranked by many alongside other giants in that field such as Mary Renault and Larry McMurtry. Over the span of her thirty year career, she's written almost thirty historical novels, including The Firedrake, Rakessy, Two Ravens, Ghost on the Steppe, Death of Attila, Hammer For Princes, The King's Road, Pillar of the Sky, The Lords of Vaumartin, Pacific Street, Sea Beggars, The Earl, The King in Winter, The Belt of Gold, The Serpent Dreamer, The High City, Kings of the North, and a series of fantasy novels, including The Soul Thief, The Witches Kitchen, The Serpent Dreamer, and Varanger. She also wrote the well-known science fiction novel Floating Worlds, which was nominated for a Locus Award in 1975. Her most recent book is a new fantasy novel, Dragon Heart.
