River of Dreams
The antebellum American South is brought vividly to life in Harrison Neese’s River of Dreams, which follows a small cast of characters centering around handsome former blacksmith Ethan Hayes and scheming, black-hearted Mississippi river boat tycoon Stephen Jones as they’re brought closer and closer to collision, first by business dealings and then by complicated personal connections.
The personal connections turn on the book’s most interesting and memorable character, Cassie Jones, who meets Ethan while in the slow and torturous process of removing the “stain” that is Stephen from her life, and this in turn makes the two men mortal enemies in a contest of will and strength spreading across three states.
Neese fills his story with well-drawn supporting characters, plenty of action, and some very lively dialog, at all times imparting a richly authentic historical feeling of what life on the river was like over a century ago, when men and women made their living by boats, and when there was a great deal of new money to be made by the canny and the careful. Ethan Hayes can at times be a bit too much of a paragon to maintain interest, but this is more than compensated for by Jones, a villain readers will truly love to hate. A very enjoyable read.
