SEATTLE GREEN

by Jane Adams ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 1987

Adams (Good Intentions; Tradeoffs,) here belts out the stirring romantic saga of three generations of women set against the birth and growth of Seattle. In 1866, teen-age Muddy Douglas runs away from Fall River, Massachusetts, to be a member of Asa Mercer's expedition to bring brides to the first pioneers of Seattle. Maddy is a lonely, bookish girl, and during the journey she befriends Sonnet McBride, a scarlet woman with a generous heart. The expedition runs out of money in San Francisco, but Mercer convinces Abel Blanchard, a stolid, land-rich widower in Seattle, to wire money for Maddy's passage, and finally to marry her. Abel makes a steady husband, but his true love is for Seattle--and his nemesis is his handsome brother Caleb, who so loves his land, the wild beautiful place called the Bluff, that he will yield to no pressure of Abel's to sell. Meanwhile, Maddy is stirred by Caleb, and when Sonnet McBride eventually comes to Seattle as madam of the infamous ""White House,"" Caleb says Muddy can meet her now-forbidden friend on the Bluff. On the clay of the great Seattle fire of 1889, though, when Muddy, now a prominent matron and mother of two sons, rushes to meet Sonnet, she instead finds Caleb alone; Muddy falls into his arms, and thus is begun the secret legacy of to-be-born Catherine--to whom ""Uncle"" Caleb will leave the Bluff when he dies. Catherine's passion for the land will be rivaled only once--by a love for Leighton Blake, a womanizing raconteur who marries her when she gets pregnant but turns cold when she refuses to give up her land. And though she has twin sons and another ""ninny"" of a daughter, it is her youngest, Natalie, who will carry the spirit begun by Muddy. After decades of estrangement, the two strong-willed women are reunited, and on Catherine's deathbed, Natalie vows to keep Caleb's Bluff untouched. Implausible coincidences abound, but Adams achieves a solid, better-than-average generational saga that should be especially satisfying to those interested in the history of Seattle.

Pub Date: May 27, 1987

ISBN: 0595185649

Page Count: -

Publisher: Arbor House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION