Review: Crow Mountain by Lucy Inglis

Crow Mountain by Lucy Inglis
pub 9/3/15 by Chicken House
YA - Contemporary/Historical

I bought Crow Mountain because it was a staff recommendation at The Winding Stair, one of the oldest independent bookstores in Dublin. I naively assumed that it would be hard to find back home (which I was totally wrong about) but mostly, I just wanted to buy at least one book on my trip.

I'm really glad it ended up being this one.

It tells the stories of two young women in completely different times and we switch back and forth between them. There's present-day Hope who is vacationing at a ranch in Montana with her strict single mother. She immediately connects with the rancher's son, Cal Crow but it's clear he has some drama with the small-minded town he's from. As she's getting to know Cal, Hope discovers the diary of a young girl from more than a hundred years earlier named Emily. And when Hope and Cal get stuck in a mountain cabin after a freak accident, she realizes they're in the same cabin Emily was. She too wrote about a similar fate and how she was rescued by a horse-trader named Nate. And so when we delve into the past to the year 1867, it's Emily we learn about.

I enjoyed both sides of this book but it was definitely Emily and Nate who stuck with me long after I finished. Even though I liked Hope and Cal, their relationship felt a bit rushed and the drama was over the top. I understood that the writer was trying to show us the parallels between Hope and Emily's lives but the things that occurred in 1867 didn't necessarily work in the present. But Emily and Nate! Oh how my heart ached for these two. We get to see the full span of their relationship and while they only take up half the book, we spend what seemed like months with them in comparison to the days/weeks with Hope and Cal. Emily is this sheltered girl off to be married to a man she's never met before. Then she gets into an accident, separated from her family and Nate comes crashing into her life. She's forever changed. Not only is he unlike anyone she's known but she has to grow up. She has to learn to survive on her own. And most importantly, she had to learn who she was beyond her parents desires for her. I loved reading about her journey and the personal growth she goes through.

Do I recommend?

Yes! I enjoyed this far more than I expected to and it was nice change of pace from the YA romances I've read recently.