Burnt Mountain

by Anne Rivers Siddons

From one of our most acclaimed writers comes this dramatic tale of a well-born Southern woman whose life is forever changed by the betrayal of her mother and by the man she loves.

Growing up, the only place tomboy Thayer Wentworth felt at home was at her summer camp - Camp Sherwood Forest in the North Carolina Mountains. It was there that she came alive and where she met Nick Abrams, her first love...and first heartbreak. Years later, Thayer marries Aengus, an Irish professor, and they move into her deceased grandmother's house in Atlanta, only miles from Camp Edgewood on Burnt Mountain where her father died years ago in a car accident. There, Aengus and Thayer lead quiet and happy lives until Aengus is invited up to the camp to tell old Irish tales to the campers. As Aengus spends less time at home and becomes more distant, Thayer must confront dark secrets-about her mother, her first love, and, most devastating of all, her husband.

Genres: Fiction, Southern, Audiobook, Contemporary, Chick Lit, Romance, Adult

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Born Sybil Anne Rivers in Atlanta, Georgia, she was raised in Fairburn, Georgia, and attended Auburn University, where she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta Sorority.

While at Auburn she wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Auburn Plainsman, that favored integration. The university administration attempted to suppress the column, and ultimately fired her, and the column garnered national attention. She later became a senior editor for Atlanta magazine.

At the age of thirty she married Heyward Siddons, and she and her husband lived in Charleston, South Carolina, and spent summers in Maine. Siddons died of lung cancer on September 11, 2019

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is so bad, it's funny. Therefore, it gets 2 stars instead of one.

I couldn't even place what period of time in which this book was occurring since the author can't seem to get her history straight. Okay, so Thayer goes to summer camp and meets her first love, but her Southern Genteel Mother is concerned about the social fallout of a Jewish boyfriend within the family, even if he is from the wealthiest family in town. Her grandmother has African-Americans servants that the characters refer to as "the Help." Must be the 1960's, right?

Then it's four years later and Thayer falls in love with her Irish Mythology professor. The first class she attended, he grabs her face and recites poetry at her in front of everyone. Swoon. When he tells her, "I'd do you" after the second class she attended (to which she responds, "What time?" Really?!?!?!?), well, what's not to like? My Irish Mythology professor certainly wasn't this suave. No really, the author insists that you'd love him if you knew him. And while the faculty would normally frown on such behavior, they're willing to make an exception for him. Wow, such lenient tolerance -- it definitely much have been a long time ago.

And now Thayer's one year out of college and the Olympics are coming to Atlanta next year... so wait, it's 1995? But everyone's chatting away on their cell phones, and you can just go to the MegaPlex and pick which Harry Potter film you want to see (even the one with floating brains [note: I never did see a HP film with floating brains]). So it's 2004?

Oh, also the first love comes back in the story and goes all The Notebook on us ("But I wrote you every day! I called and your mother said you moved!"), but look, he's managed to lauch a successful career as an architect AND get married and have 2 kids who are now in elementary school AND get divorced. Also, he has concerns about the sanity of Thayer's husband and would like to make a baby with Thayer, even if she is infertile. But it's okay, he knows some tricks around that. He's pretty sure her Fallopian tubes can be replaced with plastic ones. And you can just pick those up from the hardware store in town.

And if you thought the story was bizarre, it all leads up to and ending that makes you say "Wh-whaaaat?". I thought the "dark secrets" that the summary mentioned would be that her husband was cheating on her or something. But no, that would be far too normal.

And for good measure, some things that bothered me:
1) How many times are the female characters vomiting in this book?! Seriously, if you're tossing your cookies everytime you get worried, you should maybe see a doctor and get some anti-anxiety medication.

2) Usually as a consequence of the vomiting, how many times is a female character standing there in a stupor while various male characters strip them down, stick them in a shower, and wash them? Why is this a frequently repeated act in the book? Why can't these ladies handle their own loofahs? (And no, that was not intended as a double-entendre; let's keep it classy.) And to top it off, it reminds Thayer "of when Dad used to bathe me as a child." Ewww, no, stop!

Basically, this is an inspirational book because, friends, if Anne can publish a book, so can you!

[Sorcia Macnasty · Rating 1 out of 5]

SPOILERS AHEAD

Sweet Mickey Mouse on a cracker. I don't even know where to start. This book is a mind-hump of crazy. Foreal.

Between Anne's:
incorrect use of the word "literally"

+ her endless descriptions of furniture and lawns (if I wanted that kind of shite, I'd be reading Better Homes and Gardens -- there is actually a full paragraph plus dialogue dedicated to a pot of fake flowers in a fireplace)

+ her inability to tell freaking TIME (head's up, old girl -- the Olympics were in 1995, so there were no cell phones, limited internet access and no Harry Potter movies... was her editor on drugs? unconscious? I'd seriously like to know... it would be a better story than this garbage was)

+ a recycling of old characters/details/word choice/plot points that BOGGLES SANITY. Oh, an architect old boyfriend? A terrible experience with first love? Characters who love mythology? A warped relationship with your parents? Wild amounts of money being granted to people with BA's in English who like to work menial jobs? Terrible death that marks a young person? Black people being portrayed as only vaguely literate and given the only real dialect in the text? CHECK CHECK AND CHECK. If you have Alzheimer's and want to re-read Siddons' early work, this book is for you! It's like she has decided to murder originality with a hatchet.

+ irritating characters that you're expected to like based on "tell" vs. "show." She beats it into the reader that we should looove the husband character (he's magical! And Irish! And with black wet-looking hair like a comma!) then informs us halfway through that no, nope, it was the first dude we should have been loving (he's Jewish! And an architect! With freckles on his arms!) Oh, and there is a 7-year-old who is like a teeny GPS and recalls exact, obscure directions after hitch-hiking 80 miles down a mountain. Also, a "tragic" moment that reads like a craptacular school play, after which we're treated to 5 pages of a bewilderingly histrionic character weeping copiously and inexplicably over said-event.

= The biggest load of bullcrap produced by Ms. Siddons ever. Throw in a completely implausible supernatural ending (WTF was going on with that camp?! Were they sucking out souls? Did Stephen King stumble in drunk one day and offer to write the end? What?!) combined with a total eclipse of all early plot points and characters and you have this novel.

We have no idea what happens between Thayer and her mom, a central plot device early on. There are strange references to a part of the grandmother's inheritance that wouldn't have been a legal option for the characters talking about them. Where does poor abused Lily go? Just keeps getting the tar knocked out of her by Goose?

MAGIC!

Ugh. Anne, please. If you're drinking or smoking crack, just let your editor know. Actually, no, please, for the love of kittens, fire your editor because they have clearly sustained a head injury.

Reading this was like being fired out of a cannon of incompetence into a sea of rat-humping insanity. You need a stiff drink for the last 50 pages, and don't skip on the whiskey. YOU'RE WELCOME.

[Suzy Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have liked most Anne Rivers Siddons books. I feel a little stupid, since there were sooo many bad reviews for this book and I liked it. (rather like when I was the only person in the western hemisphere who thought that Forrest Gump was the stupidest book I had ever read-and was a stupid movie as well) Back to Burnt Mountain - I remember that several people said that there were too many loose ends and the ending didn't tie things together. I don't agree - while I thought the end was a little different than most, I don't think that every thing in a book needs to be tied in a bundle. The main complaint was that Thayer didn't ever confront or handle the issues she had with her mother. I felt that the entire mother thing was used to get a sense of why her mother made the choice for her that changed everything and how it impacted Thayer. He mother was never really mentioned again except toward the end. I don't think a confrontation or even putting the mother back in the picture would have made the story better or worse. I think I am one of only a handful who liked the book. Was it my favorite book, no. Did I like it, yes.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ahh, where to begin? Or rather which story to begin with? This book has some very lovely writing and aptly glimpses into the controlling Southern mother vs daughter relationship at times. Unfortunately, there is not enough of the lovely writing to make up for the peculiar mish-mash of storyline in this book.
I'm not sure if the editor actually read the whole book or if they just didn't have the heart to make Ms. Siddons pick a story and stick with it. When reading the book, it feels as if the author wrote a section and then cast it aside, a new story was started and then set aside and then part of a third story was written and finally after writing all of these sections, it was shoved together and a peculiar ending that made no sense at all was stapled to the end of it.
The time frame is difficult to place. The middle of the book reads as if it were set in the 50s, 60s, 70s but the end of the book references the Atlanta Olympics and the Harry Potter movies. Wouldn't be so hard to understand except that the end of the book takes place within a few years of the middle of the book. Not to give too much away (in case you decide to read the book anyway), there is a section where two people lose touch with each other just before they go to college and one is upset that their letters were never answered. This would have been in the late nineties and apparently these were the only two college age people without email, access to a car or a cell phone. The book is full of things like this that make absolutely no sense.
There are several sections and relationships that are vague or confusing. The main character and her sister are several years apart in age and don't really talk or get along but then all of a sudden they are calling each other and laughing over the phone. The mother and daughter have a very strained relationship and don't talk much but then at one point the adult daughter melts down and is crying that she wants her mother. Just all together odd and unrealistic.
Speaking of unrealistic, the ending is all and all weird. It does not make any sense whatsoever and was plucked from a different genre and shoved it for who knows what reason. Even if the rest of the book was fantastic, the last chapter is absurd enough to drag it all down into the mire.

[Beth Van Fossen]

The no stars rating is not an oversight. I've read most of ARS's books and enjoyed them. This one was terrible on a lot of different levels. I have to wonder if she was under pressure from her publisher and just churned this out to meet a deadline. The characterizations were terrible, the plotting was even worse. I found Thayer, the main character to be completely unsympathetic since she seemed to respond to every crisis with buckets of tears and screaming rages. If you're looking for a strong female character, look elsewhere. Her mother does all these terrible things, like having Thayer's child aborted while she was under sedation but there is never a confrontation of any sort or even a resolution. The mother's character is just dropped from the story halfway through the book! Thayer is in love with Nick, he supposedly stops contacting her - does she do anything about it? Try to contact him? Confront him? Nope - just screams and crys for a few months and then goes about in a haze for the next few years before falling in love with a complete stranger she seemingly never bothers to get to know. Ugh. And I haven't even started on the child abuse subtext that runs through this book. None of which is ever resolved in any meaningful way. It is just not right, even in a fictional story to bring up child abuse and then leave it completely unresolved except to indicate that Carol, who tried to save her children, was punished by losing custody of them. And apparently all the rest of the parents just overlooked the whole insane situation and went on with their lives. Ugh again. Poorly done. Very disappointing. Grateful I read this as a library book. I would be very mad at myself if I had paid good money for this terrible book.

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, and then I didn't like this book, then I liked it again. This is the first book that I have read by this author. I am still on the fence about her writing. I have yet to decide if it was the story line or the writing, or both, that has me so benign about this book.
The story of a young woman whose mother was a menace - self centered, selfish, controlling and deceiving. But whose grandmother was patient, helpful, kind and understanding. It tells of the problems that the mother causes throughout her life and of the calming effect of the grandmother's actions. It tells of her first love and loss, of her marriage, and of it's decline. A woman who's life was not her own, as hard as she may have tried. It all centered around Burnt Mountain - from her days at summer camp, to the loss of her first love, to the loss of both her father and her husband.
There is a lot of Celtic folklore in this novel - all very interesting. However the story seemed to lull in a couple spots and brought in characters that I saw no need for. At times it felt fragmented, pieces left undone, ideas over worked. Other times it purred like a kitten stretched out in a sunny corner.
I would try this author again just to find out if my unease with this book was due to the fractured story line, or if this is possibly just not an author for me.

[Bonnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the worse books I have ever read, the only reason I got through it was I listened to the audio version. I can listen to most anything in the car as it's better than the radio stations around here.
Then I kept listening to it b/c I couldn't believe how bad it was, it was like a soap opera script, a bad one.
The characters were 2 dimensional, the main character was immature and a cry baby. At first I thought I couldn't relate to this book b/c everyone was so wealthy but no, it's just bad writing, with descriptions of artificial flowers, please. I kept waiting for her to have it out with her mother over the abortion but that didn't happen. She should have sued that doctor, someone should have told her that nothing was wrong with her baby, that didn't happen. what a mess of a book.

Ms. Siddons didn't do her research, cell phones were not around in 1996 when the Olympics were in Atlanta, at least not pocket sized ones that young boys would have.
And the ending holy crap, I thought I was reading a Stephen King novel. (My apologies to Mr. King, a good writer.) I won't be reading anymore of this author.

[Virginia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read all of Anne Rivers Siddons books, beginning with Outer Banks. Her best is Colony. I fear this might be her worst. As it started, there was the Ms. Rivers I know and love - her use of language is mesmerizing, her command of being southern is captivating. I was drawn in as always. I couldn't wait for time to read more.

As I went along, however, I began to notice a great many things that her editor should have caught early on. It was as if we are in a time warp. First, it feels we are in the 1950's. Old fashioned summer camps, social climbing, society clubs. (Spoiler alert!) Then, the main character, Thayer, becomes pregnant and is tricked into an abortion that comes straight from the 1960's. Only four years later, we are reading about the proliferation of cell phones at summer camps, the Atlanta Olympics and Harry Potter (which started well after those summer olympic anyway). Although not really pertinent to the storyline, these discrepancies were terribly distracting nonetheless.

While the first two-thirds of the story slowly and satisfying builded to the antipated conclusion, that conclusion came in a terrible, hurry-up-and-finish rush. I finished feeling that 50-pages were accidently deleted somewhere.

I believe this would have been a great story had it been better edited and had more time been given to the end. I have read Colony a dozen times and felt this story had many elements taken from that one, but without the success. Indeed, I felt, for a time, that I was reading Colony. Alas, this was no Colony.

[Jodi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wtf did I just read??? Very slow & confusing start to this book-after deciphering who the author was speaking of (it jumps from daughter/mother & mothers' mother all in one chapter with no warning) I finally started to piece together who was who & decided to keep reading as not to waste my $10. It seemed to get a little more interesting....then boom! Wacked out story line...sounds normal, woman falls in love young, they go separate says, she married another, said new hubby is a teacher/storyteller-blah blah blah...then it just gets weird. Not funny haha weird, just WEIRD. As in leaves you wondering what on earth you just read weird. The end was completely ridiculous and I felt as though I skipped months of the story, because if jumped so oddly ahead. Moral of my rambling? Don't waste you previous time or money on this one.

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a book that can't make up its mind. Is it one of Siddons' typical (but well-written) Southern-family potboilers? Is it supposed to be a dark, Gothic fantasy, with little hints that Things Aren't Quite Right? Is it a romance, where the heroine mistakenly marries the wrong man, but her brilliant, ultra-manly true love shows up just in time?

The book reads as an awkward pastiche of many of Siddons' earlier works--people die by driving their cars off a steep mountain cliff. There's an overly ambitious, striving Southern mother who loves the other sister more. There's the wise grandmother who led a life of adventure, and sees deep into characters' souls. There's the misunderstood Jewish lover. There's even a spavined couch (a word I learned from reading Siddons, that seems to appear in every book). And--there's Atlanta (and Buckhead).

The only new (and thoroughly weird) element is the Irish husband who originally appears to be quirky and charming, but --evidently-- turns sinister once he goes up Burnt Mountain to summer camp. Is summer camp supposed to be the connecting factor? What is the significance of the Cannibal King? Who the hell knows? This book was a giant mess. Well-written, but completely incoherent.

[Annie · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 1/2 stars.

Oh, ARS, you've done it again. Written a book that started out promising, but quickly left me shaking my head in bewilderment.

Just a few of my many unanswered questions:

1- why would "Grand" encourage Thayer to marry Aengus if she thought he was potentially mentally ill? How in the world was Thayer supposed to keep him from going over to that "dark, magical place"?

2- what was the deal with "Big Jim"? Really, ARS, we are to believe Carol had to sleep with him in order to get her kids in the camp?

3- WHAT was going on at the camp? Was the creepy guy drugging them? What was he doing at night in their beds? So confused!

4- what version of Atlanta is this? I guess it was set in the 70s and 80s, but why in the world would the mayor tell the people they would certainly see hoop skirts?

Such a preposterous, unbelievable and weird story. I read this at the beach and was going to hand it over to my daughter when I was done. Upon finishing it, I was too ashamed to have wasted my time (again) on Siddon's novel that I stashed it away. As the young people say; smh.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fortunately, I am able to save some grace here by stating that I have read other books by Anne Rivers Siddons that I've enjoyed, "Nora, Nora" being one of those. And then there are the ones over the past several years that have just been rather boring and filled with insipid women that make me crazy. "Burnt Mountain" darn near got tossed out the window.

I see from other reviews that I wasn't the only one having difficulty with the timeline - it made no sense. We seem to have jumped from the 1960's to the 1990's, at least I think that's what happened......? And children with cell phones in the 90's? At that time, cell phones were huge, heavy, expensive extravagances, not something a kid carried to camp in his pocket like these days. Then there was the feeling that I had started reading an entirely different book altogether somewhere around 3/4's of the way through the story. The husband suddenly seems to go bonkers in a very odd and inexplicable way, the best friend/neighbor just simply gets written off with a few sentences and the book ends - it just ends. Very strange.

I might give Siddons another go one of these days, but for me, her writing has deteriorated over the past few years and "Burnt Mountain" has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I think it'll be a while before I try her again.

[Tyra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book did not receive good marks by the Goodreads reviewers and I must agree that this was not one of Siddons' better works. Siddons is a gifted writer and out of the 17 best-sellers listed in the front matter of this book, I've read six of them. Poetic style like "I twirled around three times on my bare feet and toppled over into the cool, damp grass, head back, face tipped up to the sun, eyes closed under its gentle fist," causes me to return to her musical pages again and again. Even though her sentence construction was still Siddons, in places, the story and plot in this latest novel left much to be desired.

I found the plot confusing. When Aengus entered the picture is where I felt that I left the endearing things about Siddons' writing and entered the world of another writer, like Stephen King's world in Lisey's Story. I hated that book and, likewise, felt repelled by Siddons' stab at mystery and the dark side of human nature. The story fell apart for me here and the concluding pages felt rushed. Some scenes felt forced and awkward, as in a "funny" scene between Thayer and her neighbor Carol Partridge. Overall the denouement did not make sense. I mean, Thayer's marriage falls apart and her life is threatened because her husband is obsessed with Irish folk tales? Really?

If you've never read Siddons before, I would recommend Outer Banks, Fault Lines or Hill Towns, but, unfortunately, not Burnt Mountain. This novel should have been left as a draft and overhauled completely before thrust onto a faithful readership.

[Stacy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Decidedly odd. And completely unedited for accuracy. The timeline inconsistency was troubling but as a bit of a Potter geek, I was most irritated by the fact they had seen all of the movies but managed to pick the one they wanted at the theater...and that they actually believed the floating brains scene made into a movie. I mean, it's one thing to confuse Olympics and cell phones but as an author you should at least respect other books.

I was okay with the beginning. I liked Caroline and disliked Crystal, just as I was meant to. I even liked Nick. Things started to go badly at the secret abortion (that probably included a coat hanger and a kitchen table) and by the time she fell for a teacher in a single day (after being a quarter short in her a major. Seriously. A quarter. Because colleges are filled with classes that involved quarters of credits. Oh, that's right...they aren't.) I was wondering what had happened to the strong beginning. Then she got married, moved to Eerie, Indiana (or Haven, for those of you not old enough to remember that show), and the weirdness started flowing. The camp and the story telling and the architect and the entire last third of the book were just so outlandish I don't see how they even connect to the beginning.

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whoa. That's what I had to say about the ending. It came waaaaaaay out of left field. I'm really not sure what this book was about. It started off with Thayer in the present day before switching to some chapters about Thayer's mother that seemed to add nothing to the story. Then it switched to Thayer growing up and some horrible things that happened to Thayer before switching to the present where it was a little better, but then it ended. And the ending was just weird! I don't even know how to describe it. I think the author just got tired of the story and just had to end it but in the strangest way.

I just didn't understand it at all. That's really all I have to say.

[Christina Grande · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read an Anne Rivers Siddons book since "Outer Banks," but upon realizing she wrote a new book, I picked this one up from my local library. I found the beginning to be quite slow, but by the middle I was definitely attached to Thayer's camp experience and her relationships with her grandmother (Grand) and her mother. I was drawn to Thayer, her wild personality, her red hair and exquisite eyes, and her uniqueness in the midst of "The Wentworths:- her mother and sister Lily.

My confusion with this text was when Thayer gets an abortion (which seems very bloody and old fashioned) without her knowledge and later when her husband has an "affair" that is never explained with Camp Forever. Siddons quickly brushes over details and seems to forget the time period of the text (sometimes I felt like I was in the year 1910, i.e. the abortion scenario and lack of air conditioning and sometimes I felt like I was in present day, i.e. the mention of Harry Potter.) I know that she attempts to focus on magic as a major theme in this novel with the magic of Nick Abrams and the Irish magic of Aegnus, but it doesn't work. We never really understand the magic of her husband and it seems all too convenient that Thayer "runs into" Nick exactly when she and her husband are having problems.

I thought that the motif of camp was a bit too obvious. Thayer meets Nick at camp and loses her husband at a camp. But, I can't find any other significance and again, I felt like Siddons was placing the story very far into the past. Where are we and what is the text trying to tell us? Unfortunately, we never find out.

The book begins slowly and picks up the pace so much that by the end of the text I was flipping back pages wondering if I had missed something. The answer- I had not. I think other readers would feel as surprised as me after reading the book.

[Doreen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm so disappointed. I've never read this author's work, but know that others have enjoyed her stories. Unfortunately, this book did not make me a fan.

The first 250 pages or so are fine. I was enjoying the story, relating to the jealous, distant mother and the tomboy who was her daughter. Young summer love and the unfortunate chain of events that followed, had my complete attention. The maturing college student falling in love with an eccentric Irishman, was a fine progression in the story. THEN, without warning, the story that was originally about families, marriage, lost-love, etc., became focused on a 'stepford wives' style camp with an ageless man who sucked the life-breath from the young, male campers. W H A T? I felt that there are two books here.....the beginning and middle is one story (with no ending) and the book's final 50-70 pages is another story (with no beginning or middle). They should not be bound in the same book.

I really don't like to bash a book. I've never written ANYTHING worth reading, so I have a great respect for those who write. This book just truly didn't make the grade for me. If the writing style and two themes were preserved, I'll bet I would have loved reading this as two separate books.

[Nette · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I was reading this book I was also deep into my third rewatch of the brilliant show "Deadwood," so the overly elaborate, flowery language didn't bother me at first. About halfway through I belatedly realized that while the fancy language on "Deadwood" is f***ing poetry, the fancy language in this book is just silly. I think it was when her grandma gives our heroine romantic advice: "He'll depend on you to tell him who he is. Otherwise he'll be gone in a puff of sea mist and moonbeams and you'll never know him." Or maybe it was when she starts dating the aforementioned Mr. Sea Mist McMoonbeam and he says to her, "You tell me, Miss Thayer Wentworth. She of the mahogany hair and eyes like amber. Do you have a fly in your eye, Miss Thayer Wentworth? Do you have a middle name?"

Yes. Yes she does. It's Thayer "At Some Point In Her Impressionable Youth Anne Rivers Siddons Read Too Damn Much Thomas Wolfe And Tennessee Williams And Then Drank Too Much Bourbon And Then Barfed It All Back Into Her Books" Wentworth.

[TheGirlBytheSeaofCortez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not generally a fan of Anne Rivers Siddons’ work simply because the subject matter of her novels doesn’t really entice me, but I’ve always thought she was a very gifted writer. Burnt Mountain, however, promised to be a very different book than say, Peachtree Road. I knew, though, as soon as I read Burnt Mountain’s Prologue that I was going to have certain problems with the book. I chose to read on, hoping I was wrong.

The Prologue revolves around Thayer Wentworth and her husband, Dr. Aengus O'Neill, as the two are awakened very early one morning by a group of children bound for summer camp. Now Thayer Wentworth is no stranger to summer camps. It seems as though all the meaningful events – both good and bad – of Thayer’s life revolved around a summer camp. Her father’s family owned a cottage on Burnt Mountain, and Thayer’s parents even honeymooned there. Thayer always wanted to believe that the honeymoon was the stuff that dreams are made of, but it was on Burnt Mountain that Thayer’s mother’s dreams were crushed rather than fulfilled. A beautiful Southern woman with “ambitions,” Crystal Thayer married a man from a prominent family for more than love, and he disappointed her when he told her that his ambitions didn’t extend any further than remaining headmaster of the all boys Alexander Hamilton Academy in Lytton, Georgia, a school founded by the Wentworth family. Thayer’s mother promptly turned her attentions from her husband to her eldest daughter, Lily. Lily was a girl who shared the same hopes as her mother; she was a girl Crystal could mold and live through vicariously.

Thayer, who was more of a tomboy, had a strained relationship with her mother, though she idolized her father and her Grandmother Wentworth. Although Crystal didn’t enjoy the days in the beautiful Greek Revival house along the river in Lytton, Thayer thought they were idyllic. When tragedy came into Thayer’s life, it was her Grandmother Wentworth, not her mother, who pulled Thayer through. And, it was at camp, Camp Sherwood Forest, that Thayer met her first love, Nick Abrams, a boy Crystal couldn’t stand. Difficulties arose, however, one of them truly life changing, and when Nick and his father left for a European holiday, Nick and Thayer were parted forever. Or almost. (Not really a spoiler.) Once again, it was Grandmother Wentworth who pulled Thayer from the depths of despair, that time by sending her to college in Tennessee. Thayer realized that while one door was closing for her, another one was opening and she remarked as she left her home, “And Detritus nosed the car out of our driveway and toward the Great Smoky Mountains and the rest of my life.”

It was at college that Thayer met and fell in love with a charismatic Irishman, Dr. Aengus O’Neill, a professor at the school and a student of Irish and Celtic Folklore. Aengus was a romantic, Irish soul himself, and he seemed to be everything Thayer could ever want in a mate. Crystal disapproved, of course, and even Grandmother Wentworth had her reservations, telling Thayer there was something “dark” about Aengus, but he and Thayer married anyway, and the “real” story of Burnt Mountain began. Unfortunately, it’s also the place where Burnt Mountain begins to fall apart.

Although Siddons attempted, in her Prologue, to set up a dramatic turn of events surrounding one of her characters (and I do applaud her for that), I don’t believe this turn of events is believable. The change in the character was too abrupt. Readers are, I think, left saying, “Oh, that would never happen!” And really, it doesn't seem like it ever would, and Thayer shouldn’t have been as unhappy as she was. Not at that point in the story. To make matters even worse, Siddons allows Thayer to “unexpectedly” run into Nick as he prepares to work on a project in Atlanta for the 1996 Summer Olympics. I found that unbelievable as well. And what is the year supposed to be anyway? Various references in the book place the story in the 1950s or, at the latest, the 1960s. However, besides the Summer Olympics, Siddons has one character talk about taking a child to see a Harry Potter film, and not necessarily the first one. (The first Harry Potter film wasn’t released until 2001.) I realize a significant chunk of time could have passed by between Thayer’s childhood and her marriage, but not thirty or forty years. Even if a reader isn’t bothered by the abrupt shift in time, many of the characters in Burnt Mountain use cellular phones, which weren’t so prevalent in the 1990s. And there’s a subplot involving a neighbor of Thayer’s, Carol, and Carol’s three sons. This seemed like it was going to be an interesting subplot, however far too much was left out. The subplot felt more like an outline than a fully fleshed out story thread.

I’m a reader who can usually overlook some messy plotting if the prose is first rate. And Siddons usually writes lovely prose. So it is in Burnt Mountain, though Siddons can, at times, be a bit overwrought and melodramatic, and melodrama definitely isn’t my “thing.”

Even Thayer wasn’t up to par with the characters Siddons usually creates. She was likable, to a point, but I got tired of her passivity, the fact that she more or less – usually more – drifted through life. She lived to love her father and her grandmother, then Nick, then Aengus. She never lived to love her own life, apart from others. In fact, she seemed to have no life of her own. She wasn’t at all complex.

Regarding the twisted turn the book takes during the last fifty pages or so, perhaps Siddons simply wanted to venture into the Southern Gothic, a genre I love. If she did, I believe Burnt Mountain missed the mark. While the Southern Gothic often incorporates the supernatural, one of the key components of the genre is deeply flawed characters and decayed, claustrophobic settings, often linked to racism, poverty, or violence. While these elements can enhance Southern literature, if they aren’t organic, everything seems out of kilter. This was the case with Burnt Mountain. The book's Southern Gothic elements seemed imposed on the story as opposed to the early “Tennessee” novels of Cormac McCarthy or the work of that master of the Southern Gothic, William Faulkner.

Although parts of the book were very good, and were beautifully written, the ending seemed “tacked on” despite the foreshadowing in the Prologue. The ending was weird and twisted and downright evil, and the rest of the book simply was not. And, in a book replete with ancient folklore, why is no explanation, supernatural or otherwise, given for the “curse” that haunts Burnt Mountain, itself?

Despite the problems with the book, I did, at times, love its darkness, and I loved the descriptions of the rural Georgia landscape. But these things, however, can’t carry an entire novel.

If you’re an Anne Rivers Siddons fan and want to read everything she writes, you might enjoy this book, though be warned, it’s very different from most of her work, and it’s certainly not her best effort. If you’ve never read Siddons and want to give her a try, please don’t begin with this book. Try Peachtree Road or Colony or Outer Banks, instead.

1.5/5

Recommended: Sadly, no. I rarely say this about any book because we all like something a little different and “good” writing has a strong subjective component, but this book really is a waste of time. Even most Siddons fans don’t care for it. Try Peachtree Road, Colony, or Outer Banks, instead. I'll say this, this is one instance in which I think the cover was absolutely perfect for the story the book tells. I loved it.

Please stop by and read my book reviews and tips for aspiring writers at www.literarycornercafe.blogspot.com.

[Snotchocheez · Rating 1 out of 5]

It pains me greatly to "dis" an author's work, especially the work of someone with the cachet of Anne Rivers Siddons, whose work I'd hitherto been unfamiliar with, and been well liked by a few of my Goodreads friends. However, I'd be remiss not to provide my two-cents about "Burnt Mountain", easily the worst book I've read thus far this year, if not the last five years (David Baldacci, you can breathe easier: this is easily worse than your "One Summer" travesty, believe it or not).

The sad thing is, this book was so bad, I'm afraid to even attempt to crack open another of her books, even the several that my friends deemed 4 or even 5 star-worthy, or the one that ever-trusty arbiter of popular entertainment Stephen King had praised ("The House on the Left"). Considered a preeminent author of Southern fiction, Ms. Rivers Siddons' effort left me with the the opposite feeling, like I encountered a doddering doyenne's desperate attempt to satisfy a publisher's contractual requirement. A fellow Goodreader gave this book two stars solely for comedic value; that's pretty on target, but given the comedy clearly was not intended, "Burnt Mountain"'s humorous aspects were more sad (and slightly pathetic) than funny.

I could easily come up with a laundry list of plaints about this book; for the sake of brevity, I'll limit myself to a few:

1.) Totally Unlikeable, Unrealistic, Unrelatable Characters:. Thayer Wentworth, her mother, her "Grand"-mother, her first love Nick ("the Jew Architect"), and her Celtic husband/college professor-turned-freakazoid Aengus (with that added "e" thrown in there like a flashing beacon: "Freak Alert! Freak Alert!") are (except for The Freak Aengus, who's just, uh, "freaky") dull as dishwater, self-absorbed cookie cutter copies of oodles of other novels' self-absorbed characters, assembled en masse for a dull collection of contrived unoriginality.

2.) Lack of Continuity: Ms. Rivers Siddons omits details like providing ages of her protagonists, or the years in which events occur, despite steadfastly bouncing back and forth between "the past" and "the present", providing for an extremely confusing and headache-inducing read. By the time she does provide a time touchstone (the Olympics in Atlanta) 2/3rds of the way into the book, the reader (certainly this reader, anyway) is hopelessly lost (which might be understandable in a book of considerable depth, like, say, a Pynchon novel, but inexcusable in pithier efforts like this one).

3.) A Strange Lack of "Sense-of-Place": For a novel set in the South, a place chock-a-block with quirky uniqueness in its inhabitants, "Burnt Mountain" (aside from a few "y'all"s and "Co-Cola" references), could just as easily taken place in almost any random place in the US. Rather than providing a sense of place, Ms. Rivers Siddons' incessant mentioning of South-Specific locales (like Atlanta's Buckhead and the University of the South Sewanee) seem almost like a desperate attempt to imbue the novel with a Southern flavor that the story itself fails to provide.

and 4.) Oh Holy Hell! That Ending Blows!: At risk of spoiling an already-spoiled story, the ending (with the aforementioned, completely anachronistic and out-of-place Aengus going going freaky-deaky) is so head-scratchingly, jaw-droppingly awful it defies description. (it's not even worth elucidation, although I will say that Aengus' sole purpose in the novel seems to be to allow Ms. Rivers Siddons an opportunity to show off her interest in Celtic mythology. That Aengus' presence (and his behavior) contextually make zero sense and alienate her readers doesn't seem to faze her in the slightest (which to me is the strongest case to make in favor of "dissing" the novel: its [although I hope not the author's intent] sheer arrogance.)

[Martha Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Who was Siddons' editor? Good grief. There were so many inconsistencies in this book I could not build much allegiance to the plot.

The high school summer boy friend goes to Yale, becomes an architect, becomes a significant architect, has a wife and kids and divorce in the same four years as our little heroine goes through college. In a matter of one summer the heroine marries, moves to a new home with hubby, he writes a book, finds a camp to entertain, learns the local law enforcement structure, friends Atlanta's mayor, and speaks for an Olympic planning event, quits his new job, doesn't tell his wife.... it's insane. The plot is about magic but it also featured about seven significant settings (mountain summer house, small town, Atlanta river community, summer camp #1, summer camp #2) which were like jostling along on a train ride. Oh, she works at a book store that busy summer, in the afternoons, but wakes up anxious about whether she has to go to work.. later in the day. She screws her prof and they marry and everyone thinks that's sweet (happens in a matter of months.) What world does that happen in these days? Bummer sleeps in the car in a sweater and with a blanket -- on what we have been told is a very hot hot hot summer evening. It is more than annoying.

I can't take it when novels are making snide comments about class, building characters that are totems of the South, referring to brands of china, and presumably are delving into our inner evil/good personalities, the draw of the dark side, and by the way, all sex is great.

I read it through, hoping hoping. I was also on a long trip in the car without another option except AM radio.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Normally, I love Anne Rivers Siddons... this book not so much.

Parts were so predictible - Nick just vanished? Come on who didn't think her mother had something to do with that? The timeline was so inconsistent it was distracting - Atlanta Olympics were in 1996/Harry Potter #1 came out in 2001. Also, Nick seemed to get an awful lot done in the four years since camp Sherwood Forest - degree, marriage, two children, divorce and big enough career that they asked him to design housing for the Olympics - makes no sense.

The author never answered my big question - just what was going on up on Burnt Mountan? What about Carol? When did Thayer and Lily get so close? Where was Thayer's big confrontation with her mother?!

The ending was so rushed, I thought Thayer's trip up to the camp was just getting exciting - next thing we know, there is an epilogue!

This book makes me wonder - was it edited at all, was there a plan or did Anne Rivers Siddons just throw together a mish-mash and call it a book? I was very disappointed, wanted to love it (I guess they all can't be Up Island or Colony)

[Cathie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this book three stars because I thoroughly enjoyed enjoyed reading it until the last few chapters. The female characters were wonderful. Who would not love Grand?

However, the male characters were simply caricutures.

The original boyfriend (Abrams) was a typical teenager, albeit with some wonderful pickup lines. I never believed he was anything but a normal hormonal guy, and I still don't.

And then Aengus who was odd, yet charming, turns into a total off the rails nut job in the last few chapters. Ummmm...why? Because he liked Irish folklore too much? Really?

I'm not sure but I think my grandmother, instead of bequething me a house, would've left me with the name of a good divorce attorney and perhaps a pearl handled pistol.

But all is well because on the very same freakin' day Aengus losses his ever lovin' mind, out of nowhere and by coincidence, here swoops in the original misunderstood boyfriend to sweep Thayer into his arms. Off they go (with someone else's kid?) to live happily ever after on some beach somewhere.

Forget the divorce attorney...someone call a psychiatrist and by all means, keep Abrams away from folklore!!

[Regina Spiker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thayer, unlike her genteel Southern mother and older sister is a tomboy through and through, especially when she's in her old hut on the riverbank. She connects more with her beloved father, busy headmaster at a boys' school and her grandmother, the lovely matriarch of the family. Several tragedies occur as she grows from childhood into a beautiful young woman herself and Thayer is betrayed by her mother, especially after an event that changes her life forever. After entering college she falls in love with Aengus, a Irish professor, and they make their home back in Atlanta, near Burnt Mountain. But, as Aengus slips more into his Celtic mythology, Thayer feels she will lose him forever.

I usually love Siddons' way of writing. There are a few authors that can make you hear, smell, and taste the characters and settings. This novel, although I enjoyed most it, seemed to fray near the end and I wasn't quite sure how I felt when I closed the pages of the book. Maybe confused?

[Walker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Almost unbelievably bad. I don't know why I feel compelled to read all Anne Rivers Siddons's books, since they have not been good in years. I won't go in to the ridiculous plot, but I will say, as other reviewers have, that it was difficult to figure out what year the story was supposed to be taking place. Siddons references the planning going on in Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics, and within a few pages talks about all the children having cell phones and going to see the Harry Potter movies. Could have used some major editing.

[Menatra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok, where to begin. This book sucks. The first part is really boring then you finally get a chapter about camp and it is holding your interest and then that is it, it's over.

The characters finally start to get interesting and some weird stuff happens - about 87% in - and then the author just stops writing. We (the readers) have no idea what happened to some of the characters and never know what actually happened up at "Camp Foreve".

I do NOT recommend this book to ANYONE!

[John Warner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thayer Wentworth lost her virginity to Abrams, a boy from the "wrong side of the tracks" when both were camp counselors at summer camp on Burnt Mountain. Each shared dreams of their future once they were finished college. These plans were thwarted when Thayer's "Junior League" mother manipulated the separation of the two.

When Thayer is in college at the University of the South she meets the charismatic Aengus O'Neill, her Irish Folklore professor. After secretly dating, the two begin a fairy tale marriage. However, fairy tales have a dark side, which Thayer soon discovers. When Nick returns to her life, she must choose between her first love or the man she married.

If this book had not been a selection of a local reading group, I would not have read it. The story began strong, but near the end it became hurried and sketchy, as if the author tired in writing it. With the exception of a few characters, such as her maternal grandmother, most were not fleshed out well which made the motivation behind some of their actions unclear. The only saving grace is that it is set in Georgia, especially northern Atlanta, which I'm familiar with. I probably will not be reading any of her other books.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was all over the place in the beginning. But by the end, it was weird enough to make me like it. A little over the top but fun.

[Michelle Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have thouroughly enjoyed Anne Rivers Siddons opften in the past. However, I cannot say anything good about this book.


I have to say, that Burnt Mountain, is so disjointed that is feels like more than one novel. None of them complete.

We meet Thayer and we see her involved in a positive loving relationship with her father. Her mother is cold and witholding, at best. We are given to understand that her mother was pretty calculating in her choice of a spouse and basically married Thayer's father with the expectation that she would get to live a life far removed from her current one. Her disappoint colors the way she views her husband and eventually, the way she behaves towards Thayer.

I expected this novel to delve more deeply into mother - daughter relationships. I did not expect or hope for a nice pat resolution for their relationship but I did expect to see time devoted to giving us, the readers, some ways of processing what was happening between Thayer and her mother. Never happens. When the book veers off, we never really hear anything about dear old mom again. Only about her misdeeds.

The one theme for this novel(I hesitate to call it that, as it does not feel like one complete work, as I have already said) is summer camp. Thayer goes to camp and meets the love of her life again, an idea that many of us can relate to, however, he is Jewish and which makes him unacceptable to Thayer's mom.

At the end of summer, they are seperated he promises to get in touch but Thayer believes he never does. I never believed this it just did not seem true for the charachter Nick had been. I found it bothersome that Thayer never tried to reach Nick but only waited passively to hear from him. Even if he rejected me, I would have to know.

Thayer finds herself pregnant, and her mother takes her, for what amount to a blackmarket abortion. This part of the book really bothers me because Thayer is so passive throughout this process. I just did not understand how she could seems SO confused and disconnected with what was happening TO HER BODY. ALso, I never believed that the unborn baby was deformed. I have mulitiple problems with this explanation given by her mother. How could the doctor have known that the baby had abnormalities? If this abortion was done in an era when ultrasounds were available, then, it stands to reason, that the abortion itself would have been safer.
Also, her mother's sympathetic explanation rang false, when even at the death of her father, her mother had been cold and unyielding toward Thayer. It is not the fact that Thayer had an abortion that is bothersome to me, just EVERYTHING surrounding it. I was so frustrated with this novel.

The book then veers into Thayer's college years. Where she meets Aengus, and enters into a relationship with him. Thayer's relationship with her Mom and Grandmother remain relatively static. I was also bothered by how little attention was paid to the relationship between Thayer and her older sister.



I could not like this book. It felt like misery and sadness. For me, this book is not at all reminiscent of any Siddons novel that I have ever read before. It is hard to recognize this book as anything that I have ever read by the same author.

I hoped to see some real evolution or personal growth between characters. I hoped to see Thayer find a way to make peace with, if not develop an adult relationship with her mother.

At the end of this novel, I felt that Siddons had decided that Nick and Thayer must be reunited no matter the cost. So, Angus is allowed to become this frightening unrecognizable person if felt so wrong and totally related to anything that we had seen of him prior to this time.
There are several things that I had a really hard time swallowing in this book. However, as a married person, one incident that just glaringly wrong to me. Nick carries Thayer home, basically bathes her and spends the night. I don't care if Thayer did believe that Aengus was on the mountain, I cannot see any person allowing this to happen with a great deal of apprehension and she had none. Also, it was such a betrayal of the marriage she had shared with Aengus, that even if he was behaving inappropriately it felt wrong.
I am not happy with this review. It feels disjointed I am having a hard time being concise in my thoughts about this novel. I attribute that in part to the disjointed way this book read for me.

I have never come away from this author disappointed but, I have to say, I am today.

I have read Siddons for years, and while I may not have always loved her novels I did at least, feel that I understood the characters and could connect with them in some way. That is not true for me with this novel.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Colony by Anne Rivers Siddons is an excellent novel and makes it onto my favorite books list. It has been about fifteen or so years since I’ve read it, but it holds a special place in my heart. My favorite high school English teacher gave it to me to read and I whipped through the novel. It was a great family saga, but also had great suspense that brought the novel to a stunning conclusion.

Unfortunately, Burnt Mountain does not achieve the heights of Colony. Thayer Wentworth has a childhood marred by tragedy, but also has a wonderful grandmother that sends her to summer camp where she meets and falls in love with Nick Abrams. Thayer is soon heartbroken by Nick, but meets a romantic Irish Professor named Aengus. Grandma Wentworth adores Aengus, but warns that he needs to make sure that he doesn’t get caught up in his love of myths. The young couple moves to a beautiful house in Atlanta that Grandma gave to them and seem to lead an idyllic life. Then things get strange. Aengus starts to help at a summer camp called Forever Young on the top of Burnt Mountain and very weird things transpire. The book randomly ends.

I enjoyed listening to the family saga at first, although the story seemed disjointed at times, jumping from era to era until I was unsure of the exact time setting until the Atlanta Olympics were mentioned at the end. The story started with adult Thayer with Aengus listening to the bus of campers drive by the house and then started to reminisce about her own life growing up. There was also a sidetrack about her parents and how they met and married. It wasn’t needed in the story, but was interesting. Thayer and her mother do not get along. Thayer’s mother Crystal long had a dream of belonging to the upper crust of Atlanta’s society. This dream seemed like it would come true when she married a Wentworth of Atlanta, but Thayer’s father enjoyed life in their small town as the headmaster of a school. Thayer is consistently considered second best to her sister Lily while growing up, but has a special place in her heart for her father and her Grandma Wentworth. She has her love affair at camp.

Then the book jumped into bad clichés and a very strange ending that came out of nowhere. I got very confused about the timeline as the book seemed to be set a lot earlier than the 1990’s and a lot time appeared to have passed for one character, while it seemed like Thayer had just gotten married and settled down with Aengus. Aengus seemed like a great and romantic husband and then suddenly there were unexplained marital woes. I like supernatural stories, but this novel quickly went from a family saga to supernatural at the very end and it didn’t work.

Kate Reading read the audiobook version of Burnt Mountain. I thought she did a great job reading it and enjoyed listening to the novel. A family saga, it was almost like listening to a soap opera as I worked or did dishes. I enjoyed it until the last part of the book which left me wondering “what just happened?”

I think Burnt Mountain itself summed it up with these lines at the end of the novel “It was all ridiculous. It was like a bad suspense movie.”

Overall, this book held great promise especially with the family dynamic between Thayer, Crystal, and Grandma Wentworth, but the entire book fell apart at the end with a change in genre, inconsistent timelines, and abrupt character changes. If you’d like to check out Anne Rivers Siddons, I highly recommend The Colony. Her novels also are good books to listen too as you work or are on a long car ride. They are very engaging.

This review was originally posted on my blog at: http://lauragerold.blogspot.com/2011/...