Sara Donati · 2010 · overland
Sara Donati's 2010 novel, the last of the Wilderness series. The scattered Bonners come home to Paradise in 1824 - from Manhattan, from the south, from Europe - and arrive in time for the ice dam on the river to break and take half the village with it. What is rebuilt afterwards is the settling of accounts the whole series has been working toward.
- 1Manhattan
Hannah's stepson and the younger Bonners have made lives away from the mountains - medicine, art and marriage in Manhattan and further south - and word goes round the family that it is time to come back to Paradise.
- 2Albany
They travel up the Hudson to Albany, the road every Bonner has taken in one direction or another since Elizabeth first came north in 1792, and turn west into country that has been logged, sold and settled in their absence.
- 3Paradise
They reach Paradise in the spring, and the ice dam breaks: the river takes the mills, the bridge and a good part of the village, and the reunion becomes a rescue conducted in freezing water.
- 4Hidden Wolf
On the mountain the old house still stands, and the last of the disputes over land, inheritance and who belongs where is finally settled - three generations on from the winter Elizabeth walked up here to get married.