About this item
Francesca di Paoli, a gifted yet penniless chef, arrives in Jackson Hole in 1925. Rescued by William Sutton, the "steady" son of a dude ranching family, she begins to feel safe, until the historic Gros Ventre landslide buries her and William alive. Though they survive, the uncertainty in the valley, as a new lake forms perilously behind the slide debris, parallels the uncertainty of Francesca's fate. William saves her again, finding her work in the Suttons' ranch cookshack. There she meets William's brother, Bryce, a charming wanderer. William and Bryce, already rivals for their parents' approval, begin to vie for Francesca s attention. Over the next two years, valley ranchers clash over a Park Service proposal to extend Yellowstone Park south to Jackson Hole.
About the Author
Linda Jacobs started creating fiction when she was very young, but for twenty years her writing took a back burner to her career as a professional geologist. Then she attended Rice University's novel writing program and never looked back. She has published four books in The Yellowstone Series and two romances under the name Christine Carroll. Married to fellow geologist Richard Jacobs, Linda divides her time between the West and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Born a university brat and trained at the Master's level in Geology, I was one of Exxon Corporation's first woman field geologists. Before my 2004 move to New Mexico, I lived in Houston and Dallas and worked for a number of oil and gas companies on the front line where new fields are found. This fascinating and stimulating career was a roller coaster, with discoveries and dry holes, but I wouldn't change a minute of it. Growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, fiction came to me when I was very young. Already an avid reader, I'd hit a ball against a wall and tell myself stories . . . about people who lived in New York City, a place I'd only read about in Dorothy B. Hughes's and Jacqueline Susanns work. By age thirteen, I'd taught myself to hunt and peck on Dad's old Royal Typewriter and started writing novels. In addition to New York, my characters roamed Hollywood, Yosemite and Hawaii. I even featured a Saudi Arabian princess attending college in America (after careful research of Medina and Mecca in the 1963 World Book Encyclopedia) . My largest effort was over one hundred single-spaced, typewritten pages. Eventually, I decided, as many adolescents do, that my mother might be reading my material, so I had a bonfire in the backyard. This is certainly a blessing for posterity, as well as for me. Now, no one will ever know how truly awful those works must have been. I published poetry and a short story in the Greenville High School literary magazine, known as Bits-o-Lit. In college at Furman University and doing graduate work at The Ohio State University, I studied science and my fiction took a back burner to technical writing. I did read, though, voraciously: James Mitchener, Ian Fleming, Ken Follett, Margaret Mitchell, Ayn Rand, and Nora Roberts to sample a few.After a twenty-year layoff, in 1992, I joined Rice University's novel writing program, chaired by American Book Award winner Venkatesh Kulkarni. I studied with this consummate teacher and author for a total of six years, until he passed on. The Rice critique group still meets in Houston to this day, although I don't get there often. I thank the following people for their steadfast support of my efforts: Marjorie Arsht, Kathryn Brown, Judith Finkel, Bob Hargrove, Elizabeth Hueben, Karen Meinardus, the late Joan Romans, Angela Shepherd, Jeff Theall, Diana Wade, and Madeleine Westbrook.Then, following the old adage that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, I m
