Book cover of The Shining Mountains

Book description

The year is 1838. A young Scotsman forced from his homeland arrives at Hudson's Bay. Angus McDonald is contracted to British masters to trade for fur. But the world he discovers is beyond even a Highlander's wildest imaginings: raging rivers, buffalo hunts, and the powerful daughter of an ancient and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Shining Mountains as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Like most people raised in the US, I thought I learned the history of westward expansion in school. I even knew that Manifest Destiny destroyed Native American populations and cultures. But this novel by Alix Christie brings the tragedy home in ways the flat text of history books cannot.

Through the story of two generations of one family, The Shining Mountains explores how a relatively respectful discourse between fur traders and indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest deteriorated into hostility, suspicion, racial discrimination, warfare, trickery, and murder after the Gold Rush of 1849, with long-term consequences to both those displaced…

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Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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