Born in Canada to Swedish immigrant parents in the early 20th century, 12-year-old Karin sees herself as a modern Canadian girl. Her father speaks English: why does her mother cling to her language and old-country ways? Karin is shocked out of her adolescent intolerance by her mother’s sudden tragic death in a mountain avalanche. Her body is never recovered, although Karin does find the goldstone pendant her mother wore: she always took it off at night because she said it brought her frightening dreams of the future. When Karin herself wears the goldstone, she finds that foreknowledge carries with it a heavy responsibility.

The pendant with its prophetic powers lends an element of fantasy to this historical fiction. Goldstone’s roots are in the stories of prolific British Columbia writer Julie Lawson’s own maternal grandparents, the real-life models for Karin’s father and his second wife. While Karin and many of the book’s other characters are invented, Lawson vividly recreates the railway town of Donald, a community where lives are shaped by the weather and the CPR. She conveys deep admiration for the heroism of earlier generations working in cold, dangerous conditions far outside our experience. She handles the devastating loss of a much-loved parent sensitively and convincingly, and though there is a breezy sitcom glibness to much of the younger characters’ dialogue, the psychology rings true. The book is briskly paced and suspenseful; we are aware that terrible things may happen, for the real world that Lawson evokes offers no guarantees of a happy ending.

Lawson intends Goldstone as the first book of a trilogy, and while it feels complete, there are plenty of promising threads to be spun out, such as Karin’s relationship with her loyal friend Stuart.