cover image Bridey's Mountain

Bridey's Mountain

Yvonne Adamson. Delacorte Press, $19.95 (613pp) ISBN 978-0-385-30850-2

Adamson's real eye for period detail often redeems this overlong multi-generational saga. Alone and broke, Ariana MacAllister is being pressured to sell her mountain land in Telluride, Colo., when she wins a $25 million lottery that will save Bridey's Mountain from developers. More than just real estate, the land is the tie that binds Ariana's past to that of the Denver magnate who wants it, and to the two men who want her. It also is her only legacy from three generations of women, starting with her Irish great-grandmother Morna Gregory. Morna's arrival in Telluride in 1900 opens the second and most convincing part of the novel, a clever story of love and ambition. Unfortunately, veteran mystery novelist Adamson falters and loses control of the novel in the middle: Ari, the modern heroine, is dull, and the lives of her mother, Trisha, and grandmother, Bridey, are scanted. Also, after celebrating Morna's and Bridey's love for the married whose children they bear, there is something hypocritical about Adamson's reference to the only minority character as being a product of a ``black, unwed mother and a white father.'' The truth is, Morna deserves her own novel; she's the only vibrant character here. BOMC alternate. (Aug.)