INTO THE WILDERNESS (The Wilderness Series Book 1)

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When Elizabeth Middleton, twenty-nine years old and unmarried, leaves her Aunt Merriweather’s comfortable English estate to join her father and brother in the remote mountain village of Paradise on the edge of the New York wilderness, she does so with a strong will and an unwavering purpose: to teach school.

Fans of earlier titles will not be disappointed, as [Fire Along the Sky] contains the same combination of romance and adventure, not to mention the most intriguing mystery in the series yet. The down side is that this is 2 credit/book and The Outlook series is only 1 credit/book( an excellent series in the same style. I wonder how many noticed that Claire and James Fraser (from the Outlander series) were mentioned in "Into the Wilderness" story. Into the Wilderness follows the adventures of Elizabeth Middleton as she makes the shift from a spinster’s life in England to life on the American frontier, circa 1792.Cooper's writing may not be stellar, but the original plot was wonderful, tragic ending and all; and when I realised that Donati had written an alternate version of said plot, I wasn't exactly happy because I learnt she opted for the film's version of Hawkeye and Cora's stories instead of the book plotline.

I'm willing to allow that; her mother was said to be a Quaker, so a reader can allow Elizabeth some nonconformity, but I could never settle in comfortably into a belief in the tale, which quickly shaped up to be a rather formulaic romance riffing off Last of the Mohicans with guest starring appearances from Jamie and Clare of Outlander and cameo roles from Jane Austen's novels.But with this journey a whole new world opens up to Nathaniel and Elizabeth–and a destiny they could never have imagined awaits them. When the series took that trajectory Gabaldon introduced Native American’s to the storyline, and if you’re like me you especially loved the character arc of Young Ian who went on to become an Indian warrior.

I loved the setting in a small village in post-Revolutionary America, where Mohawk inhabitants and white settlers have to interact on a regular basis, with the subsequent racial tensions, prejudices, conflicts, but also loyalty and respect in some cases. Epic in ambition, heaving-bosomed and lavish with pioneer life, Donati's debut inevitably invites comparison to the Revolutionary War-era romances of Diana Gabaldon. At first they are an enchanting couple, shooting at bad guys and making athletic love in unlikely woodsy settings. This novel reads like really, really bad fan fiction, one that impoverishes rather than enriches the originals. The key to possession of the mountain is Elizabeth, as the Judge has willed it to her on condition she marry the man he's indebted to.

little girls are kept away from the things that would make them strong, in the name of protection and propriety. Nathaniel saw something he had forgotten about women : that words can do the same work as hands and mouths and a man's body, that she was as undone by his admission of desire as she had been by his kiss. The book tells the story of a twenty-nine-year-old Englishwoman, Elizabeth Middleton, who travels to a remote area of New York State in 1792, to take up residence there with her father and brother.

Nathaniel is the only thoroughly admirable white male in the huge cast--upbringing having triumphed over blood--and no person of color has flaws. I guess it is because Donati had the temerity to make a nod to Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series (with a short passage about a few of Outlander's characters). I did like them but they do pale a bit in comparison, only because they have some similarities with the Outlander series. The author could have built tension and developed her characters through dialogue or more thoughtful plotting. And she meets a man unlike any she has ever encountered – a white man dressed like a Native American, Nathanial Bonner, known to the Mohawk people as Between-Two-Lives.With this in mind, she sets out into the wilderness that is "Paradise" to join her father and brother.