The Silver Highway

by Marian Wells

North meets South in a mighty clash of wills on-The Silver HighwayThe entire nation balanced precariously on the brink of a devastating war, each side clinging stubbornly to political and moral... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1556610602
• ISBN13: 9781556610608
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The North and the South are different worlds

This book is a bit confusing in that it is a prequel which itself has a sequel, yet Colorado Gold is listed as book one...anyway, this introduces the reader to the underground railroad and those who have been changed from southern slave holders to abolitionists after hearing the truth and reading the Bible. I recognized several of the characters from Colorado Gold, and I am glad the author chose to go back and include some vital history.

This made me eager to read the rest of the series.

When I read _The Silver Highway_, I intended to stretch my reading of the Treasure Quest Series out, as I was in school. Within weeks, though, I found that I couldn't stand to wait, checked the three sequels out of the library, and devoured them in just a week. This book introduces over half of the recurring characters. In the mid-1850's Olivia Thomas's parents send her off to a Boston boarding school because she will not behave quietly, riding about the plantation in her absent brother's old clothes and protesting the overseer's whipping of a slave. En route to the school, Olivia befriends another of its new students, a dark-complected Creole named Crystal, who hopes to learn about a female relative who was in Boston years ago, whom her parents have never talked about. Olivia's parents feel sure that the Boston school will help to make her a proper southern lady, since it is well-supervised, and her brother, Matthew, attending nearby Harvard, can check on her now and then. Olivia meets Matthew's best friend, Alex Duncan, but isn't impressed. Before the year is out, Crystal is called home by her parents, and Alex, who is under pressure from a family friend to enter southern politics after graduation, disappears. He has met some famous abolitionists after waking up from a drunken spree and been impressed by them, but Matthew and Olivia have no idea what has become of him. Further events draw all four of these young people and another recurring character, Amelia Randolph, together on Alex's boat transporting slaves tup the Mississippi to Canada. Along the way some will be converted to lived, rather than merely formal, Christianity and to conscious opposition to slavery, while some will decide to head west to the new Colorado Territory on the eve of the Civil War. Marion Wells evokes her settings, the changed time of year at a new chapter's start, and her character's states of mind with bright clarity. In the copy that I read, I found one flawed historical detail, discussion of a "Missouri Compromise of 1850," a consolidation of two political compromises, but I was anxious to learn what would happen to the characters, and the series was worth the flaw, which for all I know may have been corrected in later printings. This flaw is the only reason that I did not rate the book 5 stars.