Helen Bryan came into my life with "War Brides". which I enjoyed so much, I read "The Sisterhood" immediately after. Fast forward a couple years and I get a notification about "The village" being published AND that it will be a trilogy! Although there are a lot of characters involved, I love this aspect of Helen Bryan's writing, seeing how all of their lives intertwine. "The Valley" introduced me to Grafton and it's origins then "The Mountain" continues the journey, I have now seen Grafton survive harsh beginnings and grow into a thriving and diverse community, experiencing many deaths but also many births along the way. I cant wait to see what happens next.

This just didn't grab me. Also, I questioned the authenticity of the story. It did not seem historically accurate.

The Mountain is the second book from Helen Bryan’s The Valley Trilogy. I enjoyed this one more than first book. I give it four stars.

Sigh. Although you get a good dose of early American history, there are a lot of characters. So many that the oomph of the story gets lost in the crowd. That said, it's a good setting and Bryan clearly knows her stuff. I thought that the first book needed a strong editor to pare things away and it's true here as well. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I've liked Bryan's other work but this series hasn't been as successful for me.

This is not one of my favorite books. It seemed to go on forever. I usually like stories about the settling of our great nation but this book, to me, was difficult to really get into. I understand that it was about all of the people on the mountain but I lost characters and picked up more to try to keep up with. I wish one or two of the original characters had been focused on and developed and their children and then grandchildren and so on. Towards the middle of the book, there was an interesting incident about a young teacher and her young students~ it was almost a sci-fi incident and I still don’t know what happened to those children. Maybe this book was not for me. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy for my honest review.

I liked this book OK, but it spans so much time and there are so many characters that I was lost a lot of the time. I kept reading in hopes that I would be able to catch up. I'm beginning to think that this series may not suit me. (I think that I gave The Valley 2 stars)

My thanks to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for this advanced readers copy.

Helen Byan tells each character’s story in chapters that spans over 100 years. Historical conflicts, Indians, white settlers, slaves, wars, diseases, religions, pagans, heretics and old legends. If your family is from Appalachia the characters and their lives may seem very familiar. The settlement in The Mountain could easily have been in Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, or West Virginia. I did have a little difficulty at first keeping track of the characters and storyline. Suddenly a few chapters in I was caught up in the story and reading any free moment available. The Mountain has the depth and detail of early American History that few authors are able to relate successfully. I look forward to reading all of this author’s books especially the books in this series. My thanks to the author, the publisher and netgalley for making this book available for me to read and review.

I wanted to like this book so much but in the end I had make SIRI read a good majority of it to me while I worked on other things because I couldn't ever really connect with it. My toenails and eyebrows look amazing though, so that's nice. There were some fantastic ideas here for great stories but it was like the author couldn't decide on just one and threw them all in there.


Pros:

There are a lot of great ideas in here.
I really could have liked a few of the characters if I had been allowed to get to know them better. Little Molly seems awesome!
Halfway through when Hezziah comes in Siri starts reading the book in German, which is fun.

Cons:

There is so very little character and plot development.
The story skips around a lot and it's very distracting.
There are full chapters of completely boring stuff that doesn't help the plot at all.
So many rushed, unfulfilling endings to character's stories.
I want to know more about the crazy half eagle guy!?!? What the heck was that?