Under a Gilded Sky hauls the reader into the unforgiving wilds of 1874 Missouri via a classic Western trope. A mysterious stranger enters the orbit of a strong-willed woman running an isolated ranch with her younger sister. Their parents are dead, and they’re clinging to what remains of their family legacy.

Geneviève “Ginny” Snow lives a balancing act unique to women. A beauty and a gifted pianist, she could be a drawing room ornament in another life. Instead, she endures a rancher’s rugged existence without the advantages of male authority over workers, suppliers and the bank. What respect she receives is contingent on her status as a ranch owner and her virtuous femininity. Of course, as a single woman of property, she must be in want of a husband, so she is catnip for every opportunist male with ambitions of land ownership and, inevitably, a topic of tittle-tattle. Unwilling to be cast as the ‘Siren of Snow Ranch,’ Ginny is guarded in her interactions. Her reserve distances her from the community and is perceived by some as standoffishness. The barren landscape around her seems like a metaphor for her personal life. Cold. Lonely. Inescapable.

When her sister shows up with an injured drifter, Ginny’s world shifts on its axis. He probably won’t last another day if she turns him away, but his presence is a threat. Despite her qualms, she nurses him back to health and their dual viewpoints reveal a growing, chaste attraction. But who is Lex Carlton and how did a man who does not fit the mold of a gunslinger or cowboy end up out West looking for work as a ranch hand? Who is the elegant girl in the photograph that falls from his vest?

As trust develops between Lex and Ginny, a tender romance evolves. Yet, important questions remain unanswered, leading to doubts and misunderstandings that eventually drive Ginny from post-Civil War Western Missouri to the rarefied drawing rooms of Boston’s elite. On a quest to discover the real identity and character of the man she has fallen for, she finds herself in a demoralizing world of snobbish exclusivity where she feels like a trespasser.

When she finally learns the truth about Lex, Ginny faces tough choices about love, autonomy, and belonging.

Under a Gilded Sky is an engaging story that surpasses expectations of a Western-flavored romance. It does not pigeonhole easily as a light, traditional historical romance, but crosses into broader women’s fiction with its themes of sisterhood, family loyalty, and self-discovery and the scope of the setting.

Ms. Martin’s writing is enjoyable and competent, reflecting her promise as an author. Her narrative is well paced and invites the reader to turn pages, however her evocative setting invites a far richer descriptive treatment than her prose delivered. Ginny is a well-crafted, rounded and relatable MC whose spirit infuses the story and whose prickly exterior never feels petulant. Her love and attraction to Lex is believable and emotionally honest.

Lex is much more than the rough diamond trope I suspected at first glance. He’s a natural gentleman: empathetic, honorable, kind, sensitive and protective. Ms. Martin made a few missteps with his character voice in the early chapters, maybe caught up in the quandary of how to reveal him while also keeping his backstory enigmatic to both Ginny and the reader. Inconsistencies in his inner and spoken dialogue jumped out at me. One moment, he’s pondering shelves full of books, observing: “Maybe that would show him the sorta people he’d landed on.” The next, he’s peering through “crepuscular murk” while reflecting that: “folk kept on surprising him. ” Soon after, he’s familiar – as only an educated man could be – with the “disreputable” contents of Madame Bovary in the original French. We then discover his horse is named Arion, after the divine horse mentioned in Homer’s Iliad, not the typical choice of a cowpoke – good clue that there is more to him than meets the eye.

The fact that he and Ginny elected first name address from the get go didn’t jive with the 1870s setting, nor with Ginny’s mistrust of him and caution around her reputation. Since she discovered his surname ‘Carlton’ soon after his health improved, I didn’t see the point of withholding it in the first place. That seemed like an unnecessary contrivance.

Plot-wise, it’s a challenge for both author and reader to juxtapose two very different settings and introduce a whole set of new characters some 80% of the way into the book. For me, it didn’t work as well as it might if Ms. Martin had found a way to thread Lex’s mysterious other life into the story a bit sooner. By then, Ginny had spent the entire book dealing with ranch issues and caring for her sister, and both priorities seemed to vanish far too readily as she suddenly got swept up into socializing and buying new dresses. Honestly, I feel like this less-than-ideal transition revealed the author’s inexperience in structuring a novel. It made the ending feel somewhat rushed and disjointed from the story. Having spent so much time in the Missouri setting, I felt the absence of a homecoming, despite the sisters being reunited.

None of these minor quibbles prevented me from enjoying this heartwarming story. There’s a lot to like about Under a Gilded Sky, most of all the emotional honesty, strong female MC, and insights into post Civil War dynamics and divisions. It’s a 3.75 rating from Regency Chronicle, rounded up to a 4 for Goodreads and the like.

Our thanks to the author, Storm Publishing, and NetGalley for providing an advance copy. Cover image courtesy of Storm Publishing © 2023.  Review by Pam Baker © 2023 The Regency Chronicle.