The Measure of a Lady

October 1, 2006
Gist follows her popular " A Bride Most Begrudging" (2005) with a -damsel-in-distress tale set in 1849 San Francisco, where Rachel Van Buren is marooned when her gold-crazed father dies. Rachel must also care for her two young siblings. She finds a city filled with mud and sin, and there is no other decent woman, or "sunbonnet," in residence. She'll have to adjust her straitlaced outlook or die, and adjust she does in this amusing, often almost titillating tale brimming with period detail. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)