Author Charles Frazier grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, and this is truly evident in his style of writing and mind-boggling description in the midst of a story of romance, friendship, family, land and survival. What impressed me was the fact that this is Charles Fraziers' first novel attempt-this is an incredibly exciting beginning to a career headed for obvious success.

The story starts with Inman, a Confederate soldier, reviewing his life as an invalid in a war hospital. Inman's is a moving tale of one man's struggle to remain sane when he feels that his memories are no longer his own. He decides to escape the army's clutches and reclaim his past life, and his journey along the disintegrating south brings him into volatile and life threatening situations because he is now hunted by his fellow officers as a traitor.

The second chapter brings in Ada, a sheltered yet likable woman who has never had to work for anything her entire life. Ada is now facing the task of trying to revive the farm her father adored before he died and left Ada lost and alone. Ada receives a companion, Ruby, a woman with a disturbing past, who is comical in her blunt honesty.

Ada must learn that Ruby has not come to be her slave, but her equal.

As the book progresses it shifts between the two very different storylines. Suddenly we realize that the two are walking along a path leading back to one another and to Cold Mountain, where Ada and Inman met and fell in love years before. They meet a suprising and vast array of characters along the way.

The story's spectrum is so broad that the reader cannot even begin to predict the outcome of the book; the reader is simply at the mercy of the author as to who will survive, who will die and what direction the story will take.

As someone who is an avid reader, I found this book to be among the best I have read and it will haunt me for years to come. This is mostly because it is based on stories passed down in the authors family and is believed to be based on pure fact.

If you are someone who has a hard time reading a book with constantly shifting storylines, this will be a difficult read for you. However, I promise that you will find passages in this novel so rare and heart-stopping that they will be burnt into your memory forever. As someone not at all interested in the civil war, this book held me captive until the very last page.

I do not think any review I could write could do this book the justice it most truthfully deserves. As well as being a national bestseller this novel won the 1997 Notable Book of the Year award from the Globe and Mail. As an added bonus Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) will direct a film based on this book.

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