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Blackston Gold #1
The Solitaire Ghost
Dorian Wild has a car, a good apartment, a junior partnership in a law firm, and a solid relationship. Then a seeming ghost walks out of an elevator floor, and rebalances a miner's panning dish on top of her head.
Suddenly Dorian Wild also has danger, tragedy, mystery, break-ins, mayhem, an unscrupulous megacorp on her trail, and a whole new concept of reality. Especially when it involves a nineteenth-century Irish activist called Jimmy Keenighan, who has ended up in her time and place for reasons neither of them understands. Except that the whole tangle of gold-mines old and new, dangers past and present, time-shifts, deceit and violence, centers on the town of Blackston, with its once rich and still potential goldfields, and the great mine called the Solitaire. Perhaps, somewhere amongt the mysteries, there maybe another ghost: a shadow, a question, a possibility called Solitaire Two.
The Solitaire Ghost is a fast-moving combination of suspense and time-romance, played out in an Australian setting. The story knits together the historical past and the twenty-first century present, and discovers many common elements, especially around the ever-disturbing presence of gold.
Suddenly Dorian Wild also has danger, tragedy, mystery, break-ins, mayhem, an unscrupulous megacorp on her trail, and a whole new concept of reality. Especially when it involves a nineteenth-century Irish activist called Jimmy Keenighan, who has ended up in her time and place for reasons neither of them understands. Except that the whole tangle of gold-mines old and new, dangers past and present, time-shifts, deceit and violence, centers on the town of Blackston, with its once rich and still potential goldfields, and the great mine called the Solitaire. Perhaps, somewhere amongt the mysteries, there maybe another ghost: a shadow, a question, a possibility called Solitaire Two.
The Solitaire Ghost is a fast-moving combination of suspense and time-romance, played out in an Australian setting. The story knits together the historical past and the twenty-first century present, and discovers many common elements, especially around the ever-disturbing presence of gold.
- GenresTime Travel
302 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 2011
About the author
Sylvia Kelso
34 books19 followersSylvia Kelso lives in North Queensland, Australia. She writes fantasy and SF set in analogue or alternate Australian settings. She has published six fantasy novels, two of which, The Moving Water (2006) and Amberlight (2007) were finalists for best fantasy novel of the year in the Australian Aurealis genre fiction awards.
Her most recent novel-length work is a two-volume contemporary fantasy, the Blackston Gold series, The Solitaire Ghost, and The Time Seam.
Her novella, "Spring in Geneva," a riff on Frankenstein , came out from Aqueduct in 2013.
She has also published short stories in Australian and US anthologies, including "The Cretaceous Border" in Neverlands from Susurrus Press, "The Sharp-Shooter" in New Ceres Nights from 12th Planet Press, and "An Offer You Couldn't Refuse" in Love and Rockets from DAW. She lives in a house with a lot of trees but no cats.
Her most recent novel-length work is a two-volume contemporary fantasy, the Blackston Gold series, The Solitaire Ghost, and The Time Seam.
Her novella, "Spring in Geneva," a riff on Frankenstein , came out from Aqueduct in 2013.
She has also published short stories in Australian and US anthologies, including "The Cretaceous Border" in Neverlands from Susurrus Press, "The Sharp-Shooter" in New Ceres Nights from 12th Planet Press, and "An Offer You Couldn't Refuse" in Love and Rockets from DAW. She lives in a house with a lot of trees but no cats.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 17, 2012
Dorian is the junior partner of an Ibisville, North Queensland law firm and she has a good life: a good apartment, close friends, and a strong relationship with a great guy. Then, one day she, while “[juggling] a trio of lunch bags” in the elevator in her building, on the way to her law firm’s office on the eighth floor, Dorian sees a ghost. A tall man, he walks out of the elevator floor. He has a beard like a Victorian patriarch, “dark, the rich bronzed dark of a red-cedar wood. A young man’s beard, live and thick as a bush” (9), and he balances a miner’s panning dish on her head.
Things change pretty quickly after that. Dorian finds herself facing danger, tragedy, one mystery after another, break-ins, spectral and not so spectral, an evil American megacorporation up to no good at all, and somehow, some way or another, she has to adjust her idea of how things are to accommodate her ghost—who, it seems, really isn’t, but rather a 19th-century Irish activist, Jimmy Keenighan, who has wound up in Dorian’s time and place. Or rather the time streams of the past and present are somehow intersecting.
This multilayered, multifaceted novel, and its sequel, The Time Seam: Blackston Gold, Book Two, are among Kelso’s best. Yes, as the book jacket says, “Solitaire Ghost is a fast-moving combination of suspense and time-romance, played out in an Australian setting.” True enough, but that falls short of all that Kelso has got going on here—(and let me say for the record I am a Kelso fan). The novel is a love story—and yes, one eventual couple has the added complication of being from different centuries—and it is a ghost story. To suspense, I would add mystery and legal thriller: the novel is fast-moving and a page turner. Once I started, I kept going. Solitaire Ghost is also about language and voices, and history and storytelling, as well as about geology and gold mines—the Solitaire is an old gold mine—and Australia. Add to that heady mix, The Solitaire Ghost is about good and evil and corporate power and greed. The result is a rich and compelling novel. The bad guys are really bad, yet still human—as are the flawed, engaging and likeable heroes.
All these seemingly disparate elements are skillfully and gracefully woven together and work together into a well-crafted, and detailed world—both and present. Kelso’s talent as a writer and a storyteller and a wordsmith shines in this well-told tale.
Highly recommended.
Things change pretty quickly after that. Dorian finds herself facing danger, tragedy, one mystery after another, break-ins, spectral and not so spectral, an evil American megacorporation up to no good at all, and somehow, some way or another, she has to adjust her idea of how things are to accommodate her ghost—who, it seems, really isn’t, but rather a 19th-century Irish activist, Jimmy Keenighan, who has wound up in Dorian’s time and place. Or rather the time streams of the past and present are somehow intersecting.
This multilayered, multifaceted novel, and its sequel, The Time Seam: Blackston Gold, Book Two, are among Kelso’s best. Yes, as the book jacket says, “Solitaire Ghost is a fast-moving combination of suspense and time-romance, played out in an Australian setting.” True enough, but that falls short of all that Kelso has got going on here—(and let me say for the record I am a Kelso fan). The novel is a love story—and yes, one eventual couple has the added complication of being from different centuries—and it is a ghost story. To suspense, I would add mystery and legal thriller: the novel is fast-moving and a page turner. Once I started, I kept going. Solitaire Ghost is also about language and voices, and history and storytelling, as well as about geology and gold mines—the Solitaire is an old gold mine—and Australia. Add to that heady mix, The Solitaire Ghost is about good and evil and corporate power and greed. The result is a rich and compelling novel. The bad guys are really bad, yet still human—as are the flawed, engaging and likeable heroes.
All these seemingly disparate elements are skillfully and gracefully woven together and work together into a well-crafted, and detailed world—both and present. Kelso’s talent as a writer and a storyteller and a wordsmith shines in this well-told tale.
Highly recommended.
February 12, 2011
Reviewed for Affaire de Coure, June 2011 Issue. http://www.affairedecoeur.com/
December 2, 2011
I took a bit of getting into, but once I got involved with the characters I enjoyed it. Written by an Australian, even I had to think about some of the words used in the text, but I figured them out. There is obviously a sequel in the works as the story finished with someone just walking through a door.
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December 22, 2015Katharine is a judge for the Sara Douglass 'Book Series' Award. This entry is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
I won't be recording my thoughts (if I choose to) here until after the AA are over.
I won't be recording my thoughts (if I choose to) here until after the AA are over.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews