Lily Nevada

Lily Nevada by Cecelia Holland is the sequel to Railroad Schemes and continues the story of Lily Viner. Five years have passed since the day on the beach that Lily lost King Callahan to a bullet from Frank Brand. Now, at twenty, she has become an actress and taken the name Lily Nevada. Her troupe has come to San Francisco in order to advance themselves and play for a better class of audience than the ones they have been playing to in the mining camps.

I was disappointed with this sequel. Lily, who as a young girl was headstrong and vibrant, has grown into a selfish and overbearing woman. Frank Brand was reduced to much lesser role, and the plot seemed weak and muddled. Once again Lily has taken up with a bad man, and it is up to Frank to show more save her. I was at least hoping that Lily and Frank would finally face up to the fact that they were meant to be together, but again Lily makes some wrong choices.

I enjoyed the first book very much and was looking forward to continuing with Lily’s adventures, but overall this book would have been better left on the shelf as there was really no closure to the story which really left me feeling quite disgruntled show less

It's been five years since the close of Railroad Schemes and Lily Viner, now known as Lily Nevada is a member of a theatre group en route from Virginia City to San Francisco. On the way she briefly meets up again with the despicable (in her eyes) Railroad detective Brand. In San Francisco the acting troop reaches the heights of success in their version of Hamlet as the flames of anger from the depressed railroad working class swirl around them, and Lily also searches for true love and her long lost mother.

Sound interesting? Actually it's not, at least for this reader. Without the endearing innocence of Lily in the first novel, along with the absence of her beloved books, Lily was rather bland and I didn't find much in the rest of the show more story or characters to interest me much either, especially the railroad strikers and the riots. It all just fell flat and thankfully was over quickly at just over 200 pages. Three stars, not great but not really bad either. For those who want a thumping good read about 19C San Francisco I highly recommend Gwen Bristow's Calico Palace. Out of print but well worth taking the time to search out. show less