My Home Is On The Mountain by Caro Clarke is a hidden treasure. It’s one of those books that is easy to overlook, but don’t let this one escape you.
It’s 1931. Cecilia is a Howison, the prominent East Tennessee family. She is cultured, educated and has a little bit of a wild streak. Driving all round the area in her car gives her a small sense of the freedom she so desperately longs for. If there is one thing she is certain of it is that she cannot ever fall in love. She had to remain closeted and only allows herself short dalliances with other women.
Cecilia is not ready for Airey Fitch.
When we first meet Cecilia her car has overheated on a seldom-used dirt road and she is looking for help or water for her radiator. She finds Airey wearing nothing but overalls and asleep in a high meadow mountain next to her violin. Cecilia is immediately attracted and intrigued.
Airey invites her to come and visit her home and hear her play and Cecilia takes up the offer. Little does she know that Airey will forever change her life. Not only is this young mountain woman incredibly talented but Cecilia is deeply attracted to her and despite her best intentions to fight the feeling, she is drawn back again and again.
Airey Fitch lives with her family up a mountain. Every day is hard work and she is the backbone of her family, her siblings being too young to take on the responsibility, her father and older brother dead and her mother less of a forceful personality.
When Cecilia offers to make Airey’s dreams of a musical career come to fruition it complicates things. Not only is this something Airey wants desperately but she has to weigh up what leaving her family will do to them. The mountain folk are already at threat of losing their home as the national park is looking to take over the mountains.
The young women are drawn to one another in an undeniable force. Cecilia understands that what she is feeling can’t happen. The risks are far too high. Airey cannot be tied to Cecilia’s desire. If she is then she will just be considered depraved and her career will end before it even begins.
Cecilia pulls out all the stops to find Airey a way into the musical career she is destined to have. Try as she may, Cecilia can’t stop her heart from wanting the captivating mountain woman.
What happens when the real world comes knocking and Airey has to make a choice between the music she lives for and the woman whose heart she has?
This utterly satisfying story will take you on a glorious ride of music and romance set in the sweeping mountains of East Tennessee.
Pros And My Favourite Parts
The book has an excellent beginning, from the first line I was swept away in the story. Clarke has a unique voice and a beautiful way of telling a story.
The characters were clearly portrayed and I loved that the cast, while small, did have interpersonal relationships develop. For example, Cecilia got to know Airey’s family and built a relationship with them as well, not just Airey. It made the story feel real.
One of the other outstanding things about this book is the description of the music. It read like Clarke has a great passion for, and understanding of, music.
Cons And Heads Up
This cover makes me sad. It’s not going to sell nearly enough copies of this book.
Not a con, but a heads up, I have tagged this book as having tame/euphemistic physical relations because while there are graphic scenes and a fair amount when they finally get to it, the word choices are entirely euphemistic.
The Conclusion
Absolutely don’t let this one get away. If you want a beautiful piece of work that leans more towards the literary fiction side of the spectrum in terms of writing style but still contains a passionate romance then go for it. Get this book. I absolutely recommend it.
The story is well thought out, the characters feel real and the ending is perfect.
Excerpt from My Home Is On The Mountain by Caro Clarke
CHAPTER ONE
How much steam could a radiator give off? Would she be stranded here until she made newspaper headlines? HOPE FADES FOR COLONEL HOWISON’S DAUGHTER. SOCIETY FRIENDS WAIT AND PRAY. She watched a bee fly into the woods. At some point, tragically, FOUND TOO LATE.
No human sound. Only the birds calling, a bee buzzing past her, the hiss of steam. Another bee. Cecilia sat up. Her brother had once told her that bees traveled in straight lines only to water. Water would mean PLUCKY MODERN GIRL RESCUES SELF. And I, thought Cecilia, stripping off her driving gloves, am a very modern girl.
She perched on the Buick’s side mount, empty Thermos in hand, and waited. A bee shot by like a bullet. She was up the steep verge after it into the trees, taking an animal track that threaded its way below the towering oaks and yellow birch, hope and attention fixed on the bees zipping past. Ahead, a bright wink—sunlight on water? Yes. Tom was always right. Now she heard it trickling and quickened her pace, but she stopped abruptly as she stepped out of the woods. Someone was sprawled by the creek, asleep in the meadow flowers.
Barefoot, in nothing but overalls, wide brimmed hat fallen aside, but here was no country boy. Cecilia drifted across the meadow, breath high in her throat. Who is this? A local farm girl, long, ragged, rake-thin, and half-buried in the meadow grass. Cecilia saw fox colored hair, a nose and chin reddened by the sun, one cheekbone even more burned, and a shoulder crisply red. As she moved to cast a shadow, a tanned forearm came into view, a glimpse of white ribs. What had made this sleeping Artemis too tired to sense the sun was burning every exposed inch or that a stranger was standing over her?
Then she did, waking and scudding back, knees up, arms hard across the bib of her overalls, scowling.
“I’m sorry I disturbed you,” said Cecilia. “I was looking for water clean enough for a car’s radiator. I don’t want to turn an innocent Buick into a mudfilled monument to stupidity.”
The girl said something unfriendly in a crow voice that Cecilia had to tune her ear to mountain speech to understand: “You might find a monument handy.” Cecilia raised puzzled eyebrows. “You could sell folks tickets to see it, save up, and buy a car that works.”
“Tickets to whom, on that infernal road? I wouldn’t earn enough for shoe leather.”
“You’re the one who drove it. Nobody else does.”
“I’ve learned that lesson at bitter length. I need cooling down and,” her own pointed glance at the girl’s sunburn, “so do you.” “I ain’t dressed for company.”
“I don’t mind a bit,” Cecilia said truthfully. “You are better dressed for wading, if you would?” As the girl hesitated, Cecilia offered her the Thermos and turned away to face a cluster of blue-eyed grass, adding, “While I admire those.”
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Bits and Bobs
ISBN number: 9781952270406
Publisher: Sapphire Books Publishing
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