Review and Highly Recommended Award from The Historical Fiction Company

…The work is well-written, paying close attention to readability, grammar, and timing. The reader is never pulled out of the narrative by the dialogue or historical details’ neat and consistent layout. Even readers who are not familiar with 19th-century oil history will find the novel quite comprehensible because historical information is woven into the experiences of the characters rather than presented as dry lectures. The book’s format, which alternates between brief chapters and points of view, maintains momentum while allowing each character to grow…….

Few books address the oil boom in Pennsylvania with such narrative richness and complexity. Flanders reminds us that the oil fields of western Pennsylvania were just as wild, just as transformational, and just as globally significant as the Gold Rush and the westward expansion that frequently dominated American industrial-era fiction……

By the end, the reader is aware of not only these men’s destinies but also the price and effect of the oil boom: strained families, scarred land, and made and lost fortunes. Because it depicts the bittersweet truth of ambition-the victories, the setbacks, and the legacy left behind-rather than tying everything together, the ending strikes a chord.