Into the Wilderness

Into the Wilderness (Wilderness, #1)Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I found this book when it was recommended to me by my taste preferences in Diana Gabaldon's work. I purchased the book, and then I let it sit on my shelf for a good while. Well, after reading it, I wish I would have picked it up a whole lot sooner!

This book is absolutely amazing. It is a wonderful retelling of part of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, mixed with the author's amazing wit, and writing talent. She incorporates a brief glimpse as well of some of Diana Gabaldon's characters from her Outlander series. Lovers of Diana Gabaldon should NOT pass this series up!

Into the Wilderness is book one in the Wilderness series. In it, we meet Elizabeth Middleton, a recent immigrant to America's frontier from England. She and her brother have come to make a home here with their father, and neither of them are overly pleased by it.

I loved the character of Elizabeth. She is 29, and claims herself a spinster teacher. She is strong-willed, sharp tongued, and with a fiery wit. Watching her fall in love with Nathaniel Bonner was an amazing transformation.

Nathaniel Bonner is a play on JFC's Hawkeye, but at the same time not. It's hard to explain without reading the book, but let's just say that Nathaniel makes the perfect other half to Elizabeth. Where she is prim and proper, he is wild, and free, and everything that deep down, Elizabeth wants to be.

The story is not just them falling in love, but them fighting against the prejudice of the local townsfolk towards the Mohawk that is Nathaniel's family, and fighting also against a local to keep land that Elizabeth was given by her father. The story is action packed, romance filled, and historically written. It is everything that is right in a book.

This is a very long story, the paperback copy I had was 876 pages, but it was definitely a book that I had a hard time setting down. I have book two on order, and book three already on my shelf, and I can't wait to dive in!

View all my reviews

~♥~
Lady D

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