BRIDEY'S MOUNTAIN

From the pseudonymous Adamson, a flat, glossy first hardcover with a bit of everything: a battle to save a forested mountain slated for development, four generations of Gregory women, a smattering of Colorado history, and a dash of the supernatural (curses, prophetic dreams, ghosts and second sight). Contemporary heroine Ariana wins $25 million in the Sweepstakes, but that's still not enough to preserve Bridey's Mountain from the clutches of the avaricious Jonah Murdoch, who plans to build a ski resort in the area. Meanwhile, it doesn't help that Ariana loses her heart to Rivers Alexander, who works for Murdoch. The big secret, though, is why her great-grandmother, Morna Gregory, who showed up in Telluride one day in 1899 to sing at the local whorehouse, couldn't marry Berkeley Glendowner, the man who took her away from all that and gave her the deed to Bridey's Mountain after the birth of their daughter. It had something to do with a husband she left back in the old country. Though Morna and Berkeley are blissfully happy, there are plenty of snakes in the grass, including the society matron who wants to marry Berkeley herself, and Caley Stanton, who's madly in love with Morna (all the Gregory women inspire this sort of hopeless passion in the men they meet) and tries to find her husband to buy him off. Unfortunately, the husband is a madman and also on Morna's trail, so she has to leave Berkeley and her daughter (to protect them). And so it goes down the generations: each beautiful Gregory woman falls in love with a dashing and desirable man, but the two can't marry. The backdrop changes from the mining camp of Telluride to WW II Denver to a commune outside of Boulder. Finally, Ariana, enlightened by her family's history, returns to Telluride and gets it all together. Long and laboriously detailed with period description, and with an overlarge cast of sketchy (at best) characters.