This arrived on our shores in 1998 as a large, expensive paperback and proceeded to sell through word-of-mouth.  Then the publishers made a bold decision … they brought out a hardback turning the traditional publishing route of hardback, paperback upside down.  I applauded, I am a firm believer that a new author (and this was a debut novel) should earn a hardback edition, and so Charles Frazier did.  There then followed a mass market paperback and later a disappointing film.  This is a big novel in every sense; long, detailed, dramatic and quite wonderful.

Comparison: Stef Penney, Alistair MacLeod, Guy Vanderhaeghe.

Synopsis

A soldier wounded in the Civil War, Inman turns his back on the carnage of the battlefield and begins the treacherous journey home to Cold Mountain, and to Ada, the woman he loved before the war began.
 
As Inman attempts to make his way across the mountains, through the devastated landscape of a soon-to-be-defeated South, Ada struggles to make a living from the land her once-wealthy father left when he died. Neither knows if the other is still alive.

Reviews

'A remarkable first novel, a romance of love, of friendship, of family, of land. Frazier has inhaled the spirit of the age and breathes it into the reader's being... Cold Mountain sent this hardened reviewer weeping to her bed' - Erica Wagner, The Times

'This wonderful novel presents the terrible, discordant reality of life in a war. Profoundly moving, it raises all the big questions' - Christina Patterson, Observer

'A poetic account of hardship, violence and longing...From a simple framework of alternating narratives, Frazier builds up a richly detailed portrayal of a vanished world' - Daily Telegraph

About the Author

Charles Frazier grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. COLD MOUNTAIN, his highly acclaimed first novel, was an international bestseller, selling over one million copies and winning the National Book Award in 1997. It was the inspiration for the Oscar-winning film directed by Anthony Minghella and starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, and Renee Zellweger. A second novel, THIRTEEN MOONS, was published by Sceptre in 2007. NIGHTWOODS, Charles' latest novel set in a lakeside town in 1960s North Carolina, will be published by Sceptre in October 2011. Photograph - Phil Bray / © Miramax Film More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation