Wilderness Fiction

Weaving a vibrant tapestry of fact and fiction, Into the Wilderness sweeps us into another time and place...and into the heart of a forbidden, incandescent affair between a spinster Englishwoman and an American frontiersman. Here is an epic of romance and history that will captivate readers from the start.

Peter Dunstan is a big rancher who wants to become bigger, to control more land. So when he buys Dr. Henry Morgan's ranchland that has been unsuccessfully converted to farming, it is his intention to return it to open range. The only stipulation the doctor makes is that Dunstan must retain Sandy Sweyn, who has more or less been Dr. Morgan's ward. Though the man is of age, he is generally considered a half-wit, even by the doctor. Still, Sandy has a fabulous gift: He can communicate with animals.

Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Until now.

With epic sweep and breathtaking adventure, Sara Donati's best-selling saga of an Early American family's struggle for survival in the Northeast wilderness continues with the story of an indomitable woman and an unforgettable journey of redemption across a young nation threatened by the flames of war.

It is the spring of 1802, and the village of Paradise is still reeling from the typhoid epidemic of the previous summer. Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner have lost their two-year-old son, Hannah’s half brother Robbie, but they struggle on as always: the men in the forests, the twins Lily and Daniel in Elizabeth’s school, and Hannah as a doctor in training, apprenticed to Richard Todd. Hannah is descended from healers on both sides - one Scots grandmother and one Mohawk - and her reputation as a skilled healer in her own right is growing.

Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner have settled into their life together at the edge of the New-York wilderness in the winter of 1794. But soon after Elizabeth gives birth to healthy twins, Nathaniel learns that his father has been arrested in British Canada. Forced to leave Hidden Wolf Mountain to help his father in Montreal, Nathaniel himself is imprisoned and in danger of being hanged as a spy.

In each of these tales, Margaret Atwood deftly illuminates the single instant that shapes a whole life: In a few brief minutes we watch as characters progress from the vulnerabilities of adolescence through the passions of youth into the precarious complexities of middle age. By superimposing the past on the present, Atwood paints interior landscapes shaped by time, regret, and life's lost chances, endowing even the banal with a sense of mystery.

Often based on historic journals from the Old West, David Thompson's Wilderness series thrills readers with authenticity and storytelling bravado. Recapturing the experiences of naturalist and painter Robert Parker, Into the Unknown showcases a man's battle against bloodthirsty prospectors.

It is the late summer of 1814, and Hannah Bonner and her half brother Luke have spent more than a year searching the islands of the Caribbean for Luke's wife and the man who abducted her. But Jennet's rescue, so long in coming, is not the resolution they'd hoped for. In the spring she had given birth to Luke's son, and in the summer Jennet had found herself compelled to surrender the infant to a stranger in the hope of keeping him safe.

Coyote Peterson's Brave Adventures: Wild Animals in a Wild World chronicles some of the wildest encounters Coyote Peterson has had over the course of his travels.

Thirteen-year-old Ben is sent to a remote reform program for troubled teens by a juvenile court judge. But when he arrives at the camp, located on the edge of the vast wilderness of northwestern Montana, he immediately recognizes that there is something off about the counselors. They’re too friendly and upbeat…yet Ben can tell there’s an undercurrent of menace. As he gets to know the boys in his cabin, he soon discovers that they each have far more going for them than whatever crime landed them there.

The spring of 1824 is a challenging one for the inhabitants of Paradise N.Y. when a flood devastates the village. But for Nathaniel and Elizabeth Bonner, it’s also a time of reunion as their children return from far-off places: Lily and her husband from Italy, and Martha Kirby, the Bonners’ ward, from Manhattan. Although Lily is nursing her own grief, it is Martha, fleeing a crushing humiliation, who brings with her trouble that will reverberate in all their lives.

Will Epstein had it all - playboy good looks, wealth and prestige, and a gorgeous fiance to costar with him on a reality television show. But that was years ago, before he was abandoned at the altar on national television. In the aftermath, Will's world crumbled, leaving him humiliated and lost. Andre Rivera married his first love and lived a dream life until tragedy stepped in. His wife's sudden death left him devastated and struggling to build a life for his young daughter. Being a pilot offers Andre a sense of freedom from Lavender Shores, but he feels unable move forward.

Determined to give her son Jeremy the childhood he deserves, Chloe Evans has left a tough past behind and is starting fresh in the charming resort town of Jack Pine, Oregon. But protecting Jeremy becomes a dicey proposition when he seeks out the most dangerous man in town to heal his sick puppy. Chloe has been warned to stay away from Ben Longtree. But there's something about the gentle, untamed loner that intrigues her....

Canoeing in the Wilderness by Henry David Thoreau is an account of a canoe trip through a vast tract of almost-virgin woodland in Maine. The author, a friend and a Native American guide spent two weeks in the wilds, navigating waterways in a canoe or walking and camping on land. The charming prose blends the meditative with detailed descriptions of the journey, the scenery, and the guide’s admirable knowledge and skills.

In the 1880s, Stanislas (Stas) Tarkowski, a 14-year-old Polish boy, and Nell Rawlinson, an eight-year-old English girl, live in Port Said, Egypt, while their widowed fathers work as engineers on the Suez Canal. When their fathers are away, Stas and Nell are kidnapped by Arabs as part of a rebellion against British rule. Once captured, the children are forced to travel through the Sahara Desert, and they face all manner of obstacles, from heat and hunger to disease and deadly animals.

Jimmy Benge is excited to celebrate his thirteenth birthday with an ice fishing adventure in northern Minnesota. He's even allowed to invite his best friend, Ryan, to spend winter break at the family’s lakeside home. The two boys learn a lot about ice fishing and catch a few panfish but decide to fish for something bigger: Northern pike, the alpha predators of the lake.

No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he's got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin’s shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness. But she’s starting to push back against the sheltered life Cooper has created for her - and he’s still haunted by the painful truth of what it took to get them there.

Twins Harley and Rhiannon Hummingbird have always been competitive. But there's one thing the siblings can agree on—they can't wait to travel from their Oklahoma home to their grandparents’ new cabin in northern Wisconsin. Both Harley and Rhiannon are looking forward to a week of swimming, boating, and most importantly, fishing.

Sienna Naples's family has taken care of their wild Idaho land for generations and Sienna can't imagine any other life. But at Christmastime, with her parents gone and her painful marriage finally over, it's full of memories… and incredibly lonely. Until a tall, handsome stranger and a little girl walk into her life and suddenly the holidays are alive again.