Crow Mountain by Lucy Inglis

This book was published by Chicken House on the 3rd September 2015. It is available in print and e book versions.

While on holiday in Montana, Hope meets local boy Cal Crow, a ranch-hand. Caught in a freak accident, the two of them take shelter in a mountain cabin where Hope makes a strange discovery. More than a hundred years earlier, another English girl met a similar fate. Her rescuer: a horse-trader called Nate. In this wild place, both girls learn what it means to survive and to fall in love, neither knowing that their fates are intimately entwined.

My Thoughts

This book is a Young Adult Historical/Modern day romance story. Although outside my usual comfort zone, it has to be said that I was quickly drawn in and I found it thoroughly entertaining.

Firstly 1867 in Montana with Emily and Nate. Emily and Nate's story occurs when upon Emily trying to travel across America a disaster occurs and Emily is left alone, save for the care of Nate who rescues her and takes her back to his home and looks after her and what develops is an unlikely story of love.

In modern day Montana, Hope travels with her mother to stay at the ranch of Cal. Hope discovers a diary hidden away, telling the long ago story of Emily. History inevitably repeats itself, with similarites between the stories and the two strands seamlessly join together. Two separate times and two separate stories that are inextricably linked.

My favourite element is the story of Emily and Nate, it was beautifully written, and you could really imagine the time and place it was set.

Some important themes are tackled in this book. Firstly how two women from different times gain their independence and free themselves from their lives and futures that already seem mapped out for them. Elements of racial difference that occur in both periods of the story. Ultimately how it is possible to accept others despite their differences, with love being the over riding theme.

I really enjoyed it.


About the Author

Lucy Inglis is an eighteenth-century historian and curator of the award-winning Georgian London blog. She lives in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral with her husband and a Border Terrier. City of Halves was published in 2014, and this new novel, Crow Mountain, was published in 2015.

www.lucyinglis.com or twitter @lucyinglis