Name: Into the wilderness
ISBN: 9780553578522

Sara Donati

A schoolmarm leaves England in 1792 to join her father and brother in a mountainous village in upstate New York, where she falls in love with a man torn between white and Native American culture.

Into the wilderness

Anyaconda

This was surprisingly good. Some of the plot events were a bit stupid, but still very entertaining.
I'm looking forward to listening to the next in the series.

Shay Henrion

Not as good as Outlander, but definitely in a similar vein!

Brittney Browne

My favorite type of book! Well-developed, strong characters, a good storyline, and rich prose that puts you right in the story. Somewhat similar in style to Outlander but unique enough on its own. Just excellent.

The first in Sara Donati's bestselling Wilderness series, this epic novel of love and adventure interweaves the fate of the Mohawk Nation with the destiny of two outsiders from different worlds. When Elizabeth Middleton leaves England to join her father and brother in a remote mountain village on the edge of the New York wilderness, she does so with a strong will and an unwavering purpose: to establish a school. It is December 1792 when she arrives in a cold climate unlike any she has ever experienced and meets a man unlike any she has ever encountered - a white man dressed like a Native American, tall and lean and unsettling in his honesty. He is Nathaniel Bonner, also known to the Mohawk people as 'Between-Two-Lives'. Determined to provide schooling for all the village children - white, black and Native American - Elizabeth is soon at odds with the slave owners, as well as her own father, who insists she marry local doctor Richard Todd. Such an alliance could save her father from financial ruin, but would call into question the ownership of Hidden Wolf, the mountain where Nathaniel, his father, and a small group of Native Americans live and hunt . . . 'One of those rare stories that lets you breathe the air of another time, and leave your footprints on the snow of a wild, strange place' Diana Gabaldon

Into the Wilderness

I just can't. I stopped at about 50%. I thought this might be a nice guilty-pleasure type romance novel to read before sleep. It was ok at first, but every chapter went downhill. When I got to the part where Nathan got angry with Elizabeth for having the gall to be tied to a tree by a potential rapist and told her to never do that again I just quit. It was getting pretty boring already, but that scene really killed my resolve to keep going. Also all the characters twitched in their cheeks a lot. "A muscle in his cheek twitched." "Her cheek twitched". Everyone is very twitchy.

Liza 

Thea MacDonald

A great book if you want an easy to read, escape from reality. The characters where easy to like/dislike and it certainly left me curious about what the next book would entail. I would recommend this book if like me you are interesting in the emerging America time period and complex characters.

Judy McClure

Devoured this book. Loved the story and the characters. Looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

window

Intended to be an epic tale of an English woman's arrival and survival in post-revolutionary New York.

Elizabeth, a 29 year-old spinster, arrives from England to New York in order to escape the confining rules of English society. She is content with her spinsterhood and she believes that marriage will take away her independance. She plans to open a school in her new home town of Paradise where her father the Judge is a wealthy landowner.

The trouble begins when the Judge arranges a marriage between Elizabeth and the local doctor Richard Todd. The marriage will relieve the Judge of his debt, partially brought on by his neer-do-well gambler son Julian. The judge planned to deed a portion of his land to Elizabeth upon her marriage which would then become the property of her husband. Todd gets the land, the Judge pays his debts while keeping the land "in the family" and everyone is happy with the plan except for Elizabeth.

Elizabeth falls in love with, and secretly marries, Nathaniel Bonner. Bonner is half white and half Indian, and therefore is less than a suitable match. The land intended for Todd now belongs to Bonner which is what Elizabeth intended. The townspeople have been trying to run Bonner and the rest of his people off of the land they have been living on. Now that the land belongs to Bonner, they have secured a place for them to live.

However, Todd is not one to give up on his plans to capture Elizabeth as he wants that land and the townspeople are determined to scare the Bonner clan out of town. The rest of the story focuses on Elizabeth's and Nathaniel's quest for victory over Todd and the townspeople.

The characters, including the minor ones, are well drawn and the plot moves along quickly. I must confess that I didn't always "get" Todd's character, particularly as he morphs from land-hungry and almost-evil to just pathetic and resigned.

Into the wilderness

Reviews

Highlights