Fire Along the Sky

Book 4 in the Into the Wilderness Series - another great installment. I no longer feel I have to compare to the Outlander series - This is absolute beautiful, exciting, interesting storytelling. The characters come to life, and are like old friends by the time this book begins. The main characters Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner have branched out to include their adult children and we follow them through their adventures as well as get an historical account of what life was like during this time period. Love, love love it! already started on Book 5.

From the Back Cover:

Sara Donati returns to turbulent early-nineteenth-century America and her best-selling Bonner family saga. Three generations of Bonner women will face their most daunting challenges as they search for love and happiness...no matter where it takes them...

In the sultry summer of 1812, Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner welcome Nathaniel's half-Indian daughter, Hannah, back into the family fold. But Hannah, a healer trained in both Western and native traditions, comes home to Paradise, New York, near broken in the wake of a haunting tragedy. Hannah soon finds that even in Paradise she can't hide from the newest war between England and the young United States. Her brother Daniel enlists...and is captured. Now it is up to show more Hannah and her cousin Jennet to pull off a daring act of rescue and sacrifice that will plunge these courageous Bonner women into the greatest danger of all...

My Review:

Ten years have passed since Hannah married Strikes-the-Sky and walked west with him to live among his people and now she is back in Paradise, alone, a quiet shell of her former self. She's not the only one who's found their way home to the welcoming arms of the Bonner family. Her newly widowed cousin from Scotland, Jennet, has arrived looking to rekindle her relationship with her first love, Hannah's half-brother Luke. Luke's home, too, and he's brought his business partner, fellow Scot Simon Ballantyne, who has eyes only for Lily, the youngest Bonner daughter.

Hannah was my favorite character in books two and three of this series, but Lily takes center stage for me in this novel as she struggles to make the transition from girl to woman. Lily's plans to study art in Europe have been foiled by the outbreak of the War of 1812, and her life is further complicated by an illicit relationship. Eighteen years old, headstrong and with a wild streak, Lily is determined to chart her own future, and she begins by convincing her parents to let her live and study art in Montreal with her brother Luke.

Lily's twin, Daniel, also leaves Paradise with his cousin Blue Jay to join the war and soon finds himself taken prisoner. Lily and Simon make the dangerous trip through the battle lines to bring the news to Paradise, where the decision is made for Hannah and Jennet to set out with Luke's help to bring Daniel home.

As war breaks out along the Canadian border, the narrative moves back and forth between Montreal, the battlefields, and Nathaniel and Elizabeth in Paradise, who in addition to worrying for their children, have problems of their own to face at home. This novel has a large cast of characters and there are multiple story threads, but even though they are separated, the Bonner family is never far from each other in thought and heart. The story concentrates on the younger generation, but Nathaniel and Elizabeth are still integral characters and the population of Paradise colorfully portrays the ups and downs of frontier life on the edge of the vast New York wilderness.

I really like this series, I own all of them except the final book, which was recently published, but with this book as in the others, there are always a couple of things that nag at me and keep me from giving them five stars. Two in this one: First, It took me a long time to warm to Jennet; I found her annoying and callously happy to be a widow, though by her own admission her husband was a good man, even thought the marriage was arranged. And second, the story held on a little too long. With so many characters and plotlines, it took too long to bring it all together and the pace slowed down when I was ready to get to the end to see what the conclusion would be.

In this book a few lingering loose ends from previous books are tied up, but several things are left hanging and the basis for the next book is presented, so I'm moving right on to Queen of Swords. Then I think I'll wait a while to read Endless Forests. I'm not quite ready to read the end of the story yet. show less

I started this series nearly 5 years ago-read the first three and then was never able to find the next 3. I forgot all about it. Thanks to a challenge I was doing I discovered this one my shelf.

This is the saga of the Bonner Family, living on a mountain near the village of Paradise, in up state New York. The story, in book 1, begins in 1792. In Book 4 we are in the year 1812 and war has returned. The children are all grown and scattering and a cousin from Scotland arrives unexpectedly. I was afraid that I would be lost, as it took so long for me to return to this series. Surprisingly. I was able to recall quite a bit from the previous books. I suppose that is, in part, due to Donati's wonderful writing. She pulled me right back into the show more lives of all these wonderful characters.

Looks like Michigan is headed for total lock-down again and I am looking forward to escaping into the Bonner family's world with books 5 and 6.

Highly recommend the series to anyone who loves HF and great family saga. show less

I adore her writing...no anachronisms to distract me and jar me out of the time period...Before you sit down to read this one you might want to assemble; a box of tissues for the sad parts, a fan to wave to cool you off during the racy parts and maybe someone sitting beside you to thump you on the back when you're laughing so hard that you're afraid you'll choke to death.

This is the third in a series about the Bonner family of New York. Donati delivers another satisfying historical tale about life in the budding, wild US in the early 1800s. Unlike many of its genres, these storie include characters of color, depicting them as people of importance and dignity. Each volume leaves me eager for the next installment. I wish I knew women with the wisdom and grit of Elizabeth Bonner and Curiosity Freeman.

This is the fourth book in Sara Donati's Wilderness series, featuring the Bonner family (and their friends and kin) of New York.  This one takes place in 1812-1813, ten to eleven years after the previous book.

The original couple, Nathaniel and Elizabeth Middleton Bonner, are still a part of the story, but the focus is on their four adult children - particularly the girls, Hannah (28 when the book begins) and Lily (18).  Their distant cousin Jennet (also 28) comes from Scotland, looking to rekindle her love with the oldest son, Luke, after being widowed.  And Lily's twin Daniel goes off to fight in what we today call the War of 1812.

The author readily admits in a note at the end that "in pursuit of a good story, I have fiddled with show more the facts" (page 657).  I think she gets away with it because so little is taught (in American schools at least) about the War of 1812, the backdrop for this story - what she writes seems plausible.  Her depictions of city and frontier life in that era feel spot on.

I don't want to give too much of the complex plot away.  Besides Paradise, the fictional town in the real Adirondacks near Lake George and Saratoga (both of which I have visited), the book also has as settings Montreal (Luke's home, where Lily goes for a while to study art), and Île aux Noix, or Nut Island, in the middle of a river in Canada just north of the border.  Let's just say the story kept me engrossed.

It also ends with a major event that sets up the next book in the series.  It's so compelling that I had to go borrow the book today to start reading it - I'd planned to take a break in this series for a good month!  Oh well!  I will miss Kate Reading's excellent narration in the audiobook format.

© Amanda Pape - 2016

[This e-audiobook, along with print and electronic copies, were borrowed from and returned to public libraries.] show less

The fourth novel in the Wilderness series, and I think my second-favorite, after Into the Wilderness. Often when an author adds in new characters as a series moves along, they fail to excite as much interest as the originals who started the whole story moving, but this series is definitely an exception to that. In this fourth volume, several previously minor characters become major ones, and it is a delight to get to know them better; they flesh out as very real-seeming individuals -- without taking away from the story surrounding the other principals whom we've known longer.