Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2010
640 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
With a master storyteller's skill and a historian's precision, Sara Donati has delighted readers and critics alike with her bestselling novels of the nineteenth-century New York frontier. Now she brings us The Endless Forest, set in the remote village of Paradise, where the Bonner family that readers first met in Into the Wilderness make their home.
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.
In the sudden peace that follows the storm, as families struggle to rebuild, childhood friends Martha and Daniel, Lily's twin brother, suddenly begin to see each other in a new light. But their growing bond is threatened when Martha's mother arrives back in Paradise a decade after abandoning her daughter. Jemima Southern is a dangerous schemer who has destroyed more than one family, and her anger touches everyone, as do her secrets. Has Jemima come to claim her daughter–or does she have something else in mind? Whatever happens, Martha and Daniel and all the Bonners must stand united against the threats to both heart and home.
Painful secrets and hidden sorrows, joy, heartbreak, and passion follow the Bonners through a season of change and renewal. A rich, passionate, multilayered portrayal of family strength and endurance in a fascinating place and time, The Endless Forest will be remembered long after the last page is turned.
"Those new to Donati's work would be better served starting at the beginning of the series with Into the Wilderness - it's nearly impossible to pick up at this point—but any reader will be won over, sooner or later, by Donati's affection for her tough, complex characters." - Publishers Weekly
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rosina Lippi is a former academic and tenured university professor. Since 2000 she spends her time haunting the intersection where history and storytelling meet, wallowing in 19th century newspapers, magazines, street maps, and academic historical research. And she never gets bored with any of it.
Under the pen name Sara Donati she is the author of the Wilderness series, six historical novels that follow the fortunes of the Bonner family in the vast forests in upstate New York, from about 1792-1825. Her newest novel about the Bonner family is The Gilded Hour. The new series jumps ahead past the destruction of the Civil War to follow Nathaniel and Elizabeth's granddaughters into the twentieth century.
Under her own name Rosina writes contemporary novels (and academic work). The ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Sara Donati's Website
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