INTO THE WILDERNESS (The Wilderness Series Book 1)

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Accompanied by her stepdaughter, Hannah, their wise friend Curiosity Freeman, and Runs-from-Bears, a Mohawk warrior and lifelong friend of Nathaniel’s, Elizabeth journeys through the snowy wilderness and across treacherous waterways. The matriarch of the family has left Pensacola for New Orleans and taken the child she now claims as her great-grandson with her. Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner have settled into their life together at the edge of the New-York wilderness in the winter of 1794 when Elizabeth gives birth to healthy twins. Elizabeth persuades the judge to sign over the deed of ownership, and instead of marrying Todd she slips away and marries Nathaniel. Her series features Nathaniel Bonner, who is Hawkeye (Daniel Day Lewis for those only familiar with the movie adaptation) and Cora’s son.

Those new to Donati’s work would be better served starting at the beginning of the series with Into the Wilderness…—but any reader will be won over, sooner or later, by Donati’s affection for her tough, complex characters.

Torn apart, the Bonners must embark on yet another perilous voyage…this time all the way across the ocean to the heart of Scotland, where a wealthy earl claims kinship with Nathaniel’s father, Hawkeye. Nathaniel’s heroine is Elizabeth Middleton – a 29 year old spinster who never thought she would find love in the wilderness, let alone with an adopted Mohawk. The reference to these characters is very brief and matter-of-fact, and it doesn't have any bearing on the rest of the story. Gabaldon’s characters speak into your ear, so believable are their speeches – especially when she is putting weasel words and round-about talk into their mouths.

I’d never heard of Sara Donati before, nor had I heard of Diana Gabaldon, whose high praise on the cover conveyed much about this mystery book’s contents. Into the Wilderness is one of those rare stories that let you breathe the air of another time, and leave your footprints on the snow of a wild, strange place. Going into the book I thought that it could be fun, especially as I knew Diana Gabaldon had had some influence on Donati's writing (as Donati herself acknowledges in her Notes). This book is a rather juvenile attempt at being real historical fiction that gets tangled up in its Mary Sue's ripped bodice. I'm willing to allow that; her mother was said to be a Quaker, so a reader can allow Elizabeth some nonconformity, but I could never settle in comfortably into a belief in the tale, which quickly shaped up to be a rather formulaic romance riffing off Last of the Mohicans with guest starring appearances from Jamie and Clare of Outlander and cameo roles from Jane Austen's novels.I think it’s because Gabaldon is so adept at writing action and heart-palpitating plot that anything slower is sometimes frustrating to trudge through. Donati’s acknowledgements come before the story, in which she showers thanks upon Gabaldon for helping her with it. Reviews I read before spending my precious one credit a month indicated that this series started rpugh and the author grew into it.

A gifted healer, this striking young woman of two worlds finds herself in peril when a dangerously ill runaway slave is discovered near the family home and Hannah insists on nursing the outlaw. Although born in the United Kingdom, she lived the first forty years of her life in Zimbabwe, where she met and married her husband, Kingsley. In short, my familiarity with the landscapes of the Adirondack locations and interest in the area's history gave these books a special meaning for me and resonated more deeply than Outlander.Cooper's writing may not be stellar, but the original plot was wonderful, tragic ending and all; and when I realised that Donati had written an alternate version of said plot, I wasn't exactly happy because I learnt she opted for the film's version of Hawkeye and Cora's stories instead of the book plotline. There was a lot of staring, some bad dialogue (Our hero actually says: "You're a spinster woman, no?