A Hope Unburied (Treasures of the Earth)
Set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the Dinosaur National Monument, Jensen, Utah, this novel follows Eliza Mills from her childhood to her position as a paleontologist during the time when interest in dinosaur fossils was just heating up.
Eliza was born to privilege. When the book opens, she is living with her wealthy grandparents following the death of her parents. She is tutored at home by a widower with a son her age, Devin Schmitt, who becomes her lifelong best friend. Unusually for a debutante in the period following the first World War, she studies paleontology at the university and is hired at the Carnegie Institute by Andrew Carnegie, because of her skills and the fact that he is a good friend of her grandfather. Carnegie sends her to The National Dinosaur Monument for the summer work with visitors to the dig site.
The book doesn’t seem to know what genre it wants to be. The topics jump from a woman’s struggle to be accepted in a man’s field, a strongly Christian subplot, publishing scientific research using a man’s name rather than her own, the conflict between creationism and Christianity, workplace sabotage, imposters, discrediting Eliza for personal gain, murder, people with mental health issues that target Eliza in both Utah and Pennsylvania, and the excitement of a dig site. Throw in Devin who has loved Eliza since childhood but who promised her grandfather not to pursue her, and you have a really disjointed and not very believable novel.
