Description
Amanda Dykes has created another work of beauty, this time about a small mountain town in the Rockies in 1948. Born of Gilded Mountains is a story of an unlikely friendship between two girls who begin as pen pals, and it is also a mystery of a stolen train and decades-old clues to hidden treasure.
It is also about grief, resilience, and grit, along with being a poetic love letter to small mountain towns, which may be a little romanticized but will nevertheless speak to anyone who has lived in or by the mountains, especially the Rockies.
I fell in love with the protagonists, Marybeth and Rusty, from their first exchange of letters, and I loved seeing their growth through the novel. Dykes does an excellent job showing their two very different forms of courage and the way they both need one another to help find completeness. I also appreciated the way she wove Christianity into the book. It is never heavy-handed, never tacked on in a needless addition. It is applied with a light and loving touch, and it enhances the story beautifully.
I highly recommend this book.
