Pale Truth (The California Chronicles #1)

By Daniel Alef

Pale Truth, Daniel Alef’s debut novel, the first of a trilogy in the California Chronicles, is a gripping tale of two people, Colbraith O’Brien from New York, and Mary Ellen from Georgia, as they... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0970017413
• ISBN13: 9780970017413
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Maxit Publishers
• Length: 588 Pages
• Weight: 2.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.8" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Old-fashioned epic

I met the author at a booksigning in Memphis, bought the book and finished it in less than a week, not unremarkable for a 600 page tome. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not literary fiction, but it is a great tale. Not unlike Clavell or Michener's earlier works. The history is fascinating. Alef explained that his trilogy is one story, and the characters evolve through the three books. So I'll buy the next one, too. I want to know more about the characters and the times. This is a unique work, with a bibliography no less. If I have a gripe, it's based on what I found incomplete -- I want to know more about what was real and what was fiction.

Pale Truth

This is one of the best books on early San Francisco I have ever read. I can hardly wait for the next one to come out. A very interesting story line that would appeal to both sexes.

A fabulously entertaining historical novel of intrigue

Set against the San Francisco gold rush fever of 1849, Daniel Alef's Pale Truth finds Mary Ellen, whose cultured demeanor masks a deeply held personal secret. Neither the "Vigilante Committee", the U.S. government, nor a group of San Francisco thugs called the "Hounds", can stop Her growing political and financial empire, nor her dedicated determination to end slavery in American and transform the city by the bay into the Pearl of the Pacific. But every aspiration and dream has a price -- one that even Mary Ellen must pay. Pale Truth is a fabulously entertaining historical novel of intrigue, clashing interests, and the indomitable human spirit.

Great Characters and Great Scenes

I love a book that develops its characters, and Pale Truth delivers. Mary Ellen, the woman who passes herself as white, Thomas Brand, the Scottish investor, and that dark, mysterious New Yorker Colbraith O'Brien, are just some of the amazing men and women who inhabit Pale Truth. The amount of research required to write a novel like this is almost incomprehensible. Everything that happened in the 1800s is so real. In his afterword the author, Daniel Alef, says that when he wrote the book it was as if he were transported back in time. Well, the same goes for me. Fast-paced and fascinating events. This will surely end up as a movie or mini-series before his sequels come out.

You Can't Put it Down.

A great book from cover to cover. I read a review about it in the American Library Association's Booklist and decided to get the novel. Pale Truth is one of the best books I have read in some time. Alef really develops his characters. They are not two-dimensional. He has a good grasp of hooking the reader from chapter to chapter. And the setting of the story in San Francisco in the gold rush era is nothing short of amazing. It's hard to imagine all the remarkable things that took place, the vigilantes, the Hounds, the political corruption, and the flow of inconceivable wealth. Alef really blurs the line between fiction and history, but the Afterword gives some clarification. I love a novel with illustrations, and Pale Truth has great ones. My only complaint: lack of sleep because I couldn't put the book down. Can't wait for the sequels.