The heart of Sherry Leonard's riveting novel is the Atacama high desert and the copper mine itself, with all its beauty, its challenges, and its inexorable fate. The colorful humans immersed in the mine's story warrant our full attention, still. The bullheaded and ambitious young engineer newly arrived from America. The strange yet ethereally lovely girl, raised in a cage, adopted by the mine's owner, who captures the young man's attention. The huge, earthy Catholic priest who is the girl's self-appointed protector. The decent, competent other engineer newly arrived at the mine, who scrambles to understand and cover his colleague's increasingly distracted behavior. The Chilean miners who risk their lives as a result of the Norteamericanos' decisions and mistakes. All coming together in a fateful event that changes everything. You'll be entranced by this world and the people struggling with its demands--written by an author who has lived in such a mining community in Chile's Atacama.
 
Raymond Barnett, Ph.D., Author of Jade and Fire, and Earth Wisdom

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