At 32, Elizabeth Garett Westbrook would be considered a spinster by some. But to the heroine of Tamara Alexander’s latest historical novel From A Distance, the fact that she’s still not married is of little concern to her.
What does occupy her mind is the possibility that she could be the first female photojournalist at the Washington Daily Chronicle. To gain the position, she must prove herself, and that’s why she has come all the way to the Colorado territory and goes out on more than one limb to capture its scenery and wildlife at their most spectacular.
In this post-civil-war story, Alexander has put a woman with rather modern values into an 1875 frontier setting. The result is the story of ambition and determination pitted against nature, a mysterious illness and a backwoods community that is not a little askance over our heroine’s big city outspokenness and style. During the months she spends in Timber Ridge, Elizabeth gains more than notoriety and an enviable portfolio as she comes to see that what she thinks she wants may not be what she thought it was after all.
Plot and character seem equally important in this story. Elizabeth’s ambition, along with the unpredictability of the Colorado spring weather, her unexplained breathing problems, and her August deadline push her to take all kinds of risks that endanger her and her assistant Josiah Birch. These challenges help us see what she is made of, expose flaws, and sometimes make her hard to like. Birch, her assistant, comes with his own baggage from the past. So does Daniel Ranslett, bachelor and sharpshooter who, after first meeting the spirited redhead, can’t get her out of his mind. The story twists and turns through murder, romance, greed, and forgiveness. As a whole the characters are well-developed and complex, and the plot is cleverly conceived. Some of the intertwining back-stories with their multiple coincidences left me felling a little incredulous though.
Article comments
1 - Sherri
I thought this book started off really slow and had actually laid it aside for a while before coming back to it. I'm very glad I gave it a second try as I found it to be another great story from Ms. Alexander. She is one of my favorite authors and I can't wait to see were she takes this new series.