Air Like Champagne
A Novel of Victoria
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Some contended that the American venture was a seduction; others a swindle; others yet, a calling. For Beryl Newland, it was an escape. On the run from a London sickroom and a frustrated suitor, Beryl joins an 1873 cadre of British "colonists" led by the Scottish silk merchant George Grant. Their object? To found the ranching town of Victoria, Kansas. Beryl quickly discovers, however, that broken hearts, like broken bodies, know no borders: The Great Plains with its "champagne air" beguiles and devastates with stunning impartiality. There, she and the women she meets forge friendship and enmit...
Some contended that the American venture was a seduction; others a swindle; others yet, a calling. For Beryl Newland, it was an escape. On the run from a London sickroom and a frustrated suitor, Beryl joins an 1873 cadre of British "colonists" led by the Scottish silk merchant George Grant. Their object? To found the ranching town of Victoria, Kansas. Beryl quickly discovers, however, that broken hearts, like broken bodies, know no borders: The Great Plains with its "champagne air" beguiles and devastates with stunning impartiality. There, she and the women she meets forge friendship and enmity in a crucible of clashing cultures, violence, and disappointment. Seeking identity and independence from the men - idealists, speculators, and ne'er-do-well aristocrats - who populate Victoria, Beryl finds herself attracted to a talented musician from Russia, an immigrant her brother scorns as a peasant. Only when this relationship leads to near-tragedy does Beryl realize how much Old-World social constraints continue to bind them all - and how she, like Victoria's passionate leader, George Grant, will have to face down the dangers that accompany loving anyone or anything too much. Air Like Champagne: A Novel of Victoria celebrates the lives and legends that added color to Fort Hays and the Smoky Hill region of western Kansas in the 1870s. Drawing upon features of the gothic, the western, and the literary romance, it chronicles one woman's journey to resilience and mature love.
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