Mini-Reviews: Hot-Button Topics: Freedom to Marry, Immigrants, and Walls

Wild Mountain is set in the mountains of Vermont, a place of uncivilized natural beauty, where generations have come to commune with nature and the gods (and goddesses). The town of Wild Mountain is comprised of folk with deep roots and newcomers attracted to living simply in a beautiful place.

It is the story of Mona Duval's several battles which encompass her personal growth. She must let go of the past and her abusive ex-husband to embrace the future and the possibility of love. She stands loyal to old friends besieged by prejudice.

Mona's story is well developed with enough tension and conflict to keep readers of romance and women's fiction interested. The political issues the town struggles with, including the rebuilding of a historical covered bridge and the Freedom to Marry bill, highlights the division in the town, as well as in our world.

I was disappointed that the expected climax of the town meeting and voting on these issues takes place off camera. The issues drop out of center stage. Instead, the story line sifts focus to a (previously) minor character's death. The ending consists of an idealized gathering around an ancient stone circle on the solstice, with Wiccan and Christians celebrating together.

Learn more about the background of the book at  https://nancyhayeskilgore.wordpress.com

Wild Mountain
by Nancy Hayes Kilgore
Green Mountain Press
Publication Oct. 1, 2017
$19.95

*****

"The end of the world can be cozy at times."

After hearing so much about Exit West by Moshin Hamid I borrowed it from the library and fit it into my heavy reading schedule. It is a wonderful book, fiction about the refugee/immigrant experience.

Nadia and Saeed have just met and would, perhaps, fall in love and marry and have a normal life. Except militant radicals take over their unnamed city. They turn to each other in the crisis. When all normalcy is ended, they seek the 'doors' that have popped up allowing escape to other places.

"... that is the way of thing, for when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind."

As they travel through doors to other places they encounter all the immigrant experiences, from refugee camps to nativist mobs. The stress pulls the couple apart. 

"and when she went out it seemed to her that she too had migrated, that everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same house our whole lives, because we can't help it. We are all migrants through time."

The magical realism of the doors allows an exploration of the totality of why people leave their homeland and the experience of being a stranger in strange lands. It is a sad but tale, beautifully told.

Find a Reading Guide at
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/549017/exit-west-by-mohsin-hamid/9780735212176/readers-guide/

Hardcover | $26.00
Published by Riverhead Books
ISBN 9780735212176

*****

In future days when America is divided into walled enclaves, those inside the walls are addicted to tablets and enjoy a sheltered life, while those outside live in a world of deadly ticks. Between the two is the Salt Line, a burnt out wasteland and immense garbage dump. Thrill seekers risk their lives to see the natural beauty on the other side of the walls.

The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones follows a tour group of the rich and the famous going over the Salt Line. They think they are on a three week experience of sights few inside the walls ever see. Yes, there are those gruesome ticks and the horrible death they carry. Protective suits offer some comfort, and there are tools to kill the ticks through extraction and burning eggs out of the tissue, leaving circular battle scars.

The tour group is taken hostage by an outer-zone insurgency group based in Ruby City, a functioning village populated mostly by people of Cherokee descent. The community is without fear of the ticks, thanks to The Salt. The hostages create alliances and discover what the out-zoners want from them.

I was hooked by the time the tour group reached the Salt Line. I enjoyed the characters with their various backgrounds and relationships: a gangster businessman with political ambitions and his wife who will do anything for their sons, a scrappy nobody with a big heart, and a entrepreneur looking for meaning.

Ruby City is peopled with characters who seem both admirable and well meaning, but are also willing to do whatever it takes to protect themselves.

There is a touch of mystery, intriguing motivations, and riveting action. And the whole issue of the Wall, who gets to be on the inside and who is left outside to fend for themselves in a lawless wilderness, can invite thoughtful consideration of the many walls being built today.

The ending is a bit weak, but only because it is obviously a set-up for a second volume. I along with many others will look forward to following these characters on their journeys.

You can find a Book Club Kit at  https://randomhouse.app.box.com/s/yavenpwz7lc34r3fmptx34pkn630icfw

I received a free ebook through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.