Redemption Mountain

by Gerry FitzGerald

In this emotional debut from Gerry FitzGerald, a NY executive, restless in his success, is sent to W. Virginia and meets a small-town woman and her son who open his eyes to a richer life than he could have imagined. On the surface, Charlie Burden and Natty Oaks could not be more She, the daughter of many generations of rural farmers; he, an executive at a multi-national engineering firm. But, in each other, they find the new lease on life they both so desperately need. Natty dreams of a life beyond her small town. She is unhappily married to her high school crush (who now spends more time at the bar than at home) and passes the time nursing retired miners, coaching her son, The Pie Man's, soccer team and running the mountain trails she knows by heart, longing to get away from it all. Charlie has everything he ever thought he wanted, but after 25 years of climbing the corporate ladder, he no longer recognizes his own his job has become bureaucratic paper-pushing, his wife is obsessed with their country-club status, and his children have grown up and moved on. When he is sent to West Virginia to oversee a mining project, it is a chance to escape his stuffy life; to get involved, instead of watching from the sidelines. Arriving in Red Bone, though, he gets more than he bargained his new friends become the family he was missing and Natty, the woman who reminds him what happiness feels like. When his company's plans threaten to destroy Natty's family land, his loyalties are questioned and he is forced to choose between his old life and his new love in a fight for Redemption Mountain.

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary

448 pages, Hardcover

First published June 10, 2013

About the author

For the last thirty years, I've owned my own advertising agency in Springfield, Massachusetts, a wonderful city in a great state in the nicest part of the country.

I live in East Longmeadow, a soot-stained little mining town just outside Springfield, with my wife Robin, an elementary school teacher. My son is a doctor in his first year of residency at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, CT (which he loves). My daughter just graduated from the College of Veterinary Medicine at The Ohio State University - which she loved attending.

Many years ago, I graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University with an MSJ, and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst with a degree in marketing.

Many, many years ago, I served in the USArmy and spent 1970 in Vietnam.

I am on the adjunct faculty of a wonderful school called Western New England University, and teach an advertising course that students literally fight over to get into.

I love tennis, golf, cigars, all UMass sports,(particularly lacrosse), and of course the Bruins, Patriots, etc.

And I wrote a book. And now I'm writing another one (a novel about mountain climbing), which is what I now enjoy most!

Reviews

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Redemption Mountain
By
Gerry Fitzgerald

My "in a nutshell" summary...

Natty and Charlie are total opposites...but something is drawing them together!

My thoughts after reading this book...

This book is one of those books that unfolds itself as if it was a lovely flower. I loved the alternating Natty/Charlie chapters. I loved their background stories and I loved the story that they created together. But most of all it was the story of the mountain that captured the heart of this story.

Natty is abused by her lazy awful husband...lives in a trailer...hides a sad past and the only joy she seems to take for herself is being with her children and running. Charlie...hmmm...successful, married to a sort of distracted materialistic wife and totally unsatisfied with his corporate life. Charlie needs more...wants more...in his life. He yearns to get back to his roots and in the field again. Enter Natty, West Virginia, and Natty's family farm which appears to rest on the mountain that Charlie is supposed to get rid of. You know that this is the tantalizing stuff that a good combative love story is made of.

What I loved about this book...

The problems are what make this book so interesting. Natty's husband, her children, her life! Charlie's wife, his values, his confusion about what he really wants. Lots of issues in the town with people...both good ones and bad ones!

What I did not love about this book...

I was struck by the sadness of Natty's life...the trailer, the meanness of the people around her who were supposed to love her. Buck...Natty's husband...was not so admirable...I didn't have any love for him!

Charlie's wife...Ellen...she and Charlie didn't even seem as though they ever had anything in common with each other. Can these relationships be saved?

Final thoughts...

I found this book to be interesting but perhaps at times just a bit predictable. However, I read so much that certain books feel that way to me. It did not detract from my enjoyment of this book. It's a soft cozy reading experience with just enough danger and excitement to keep me reading.

[Jen Yonit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't want to like this book. I was expecting the usual, handsome man and incredibly beautiful, yet unappreciated and unaware woman who get together against all odds. But this book delivered a lot more than just that. The supporting characters, the non-fairy tale like story. It was much more than the trite love story I was expecting. Definitely enjoyable!

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

i wish I could give this book more than five stars. the characters are so well developed and so sympathetic that i wanted to the book to go on and on.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I now have a new favorite author! Loved the writing style and the characters.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you found the love of your life, but then meet someone and you love them even more? In the book “Redemption Mountain” By: Gerry FitzGerald that is a fiction book, Natty and Charlie are from different worlds, but met in West Virginia, Red Bone. I thought this book was good.
Charlie job is a engineer. Charlie has to to go to Red Bone for a job.When Charlie first gets to Red Bone his first friend is a kid named Pie man that is Natty son. Natty husband Buck is a alcoholic and isn’t a good dad or husband. Charlie and Natty hang out and they run together. Charlie goes back to New York for a meeting and Natty signs up for a trip to visit New York. In New York they hang out and they decide that after the soccer season is done they are going to live together but first they have to tell Buck and Ellen.The last Game for the Champions Buck comes to cheer on Pie man and Buck has been acting like a father for the first time. While on the way back to Red Bone Natty and the kids on the bus slide off the road. All the kids were okay but only one kid died. While Natty was in the hospital she couldn't remember everything. Charlie told Buck this is your second chance to be a husband and a father. The book was good. If you like a little bit of romance then you would like this book.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been looking and looking for a book with characters I could root for and I found them here in Nattie Oakes and Charlie Burden who have to be the two most decent people in the world caught between their desires and their conscience. when the book seems predictable you don't mind because you like these characters so much. Having only seen the nusicl ad never having read Les Miserables I can't say with any genuine authority but I believe you could call this an Appalachian Les Mis. (thankfully it is shorter)

[Patricia Williford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gerry Fitzgerald’s first novel is a breathtakingly beautiful tale of love, loss, and redemption. Turning the last page, I had that ache that comes when I have to close the door on characters I had come to care about and a world I wasn’t ready to leave. Take a trip to Redemption Mountain. I guarantee you’ll enjoy the journey.
Patricia Donaruma Williford

[Anne Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent narration and amazing story. Truly worth the time to read or listen to. If all authors were this talented and all narrators this amazing, everyone would be an audiobook fan like me. This book was a GIFT to listen to.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will miss listening to this story — one of my favorite books ever. I love it when the characters are so well written and the story line is amazing. Even the ending (while sad) wasn’t what the reader expected.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface this is the story of immediate attraction between a proud hillbilly and the restless New York company man leading a big project in her town. You can easily read through the book just enjoying the story.

This book also presents deeper questions on the meaning and expectations of marriage. What is a good marriage? What if a marriage doesn't meet that definition? What are our responsibilities to our spouse, our children or a neighbor in a difficult marriage? I enjoyed this book and the reflection it inspired regarding what are the right answers and right responses.

I also liked how the author captured a sense of West Virginia mining towns, the beauty, poverty and resilience.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charlie Burden is a superhero. He doesn’t wear a cape nor leap tall buildings, but to the people of Red Bone, West Virginia, Charlie is a hero! I don’t know how I stumbled upon this book, but it is a fantastic story that had me in it’s grip right from the beginning. Author, Gerry FitzGerald, does a masterful job describing the mining culture and the down-to-earth people of Red Bone. Mark Bramhall is such a great narrator that I looked for other audiobooks he has done. It is a heart-wrenching story that brought me to tears, yet there are happy and humorous moments. I highly recommend the book.

[Cathy Biggers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very moving, emotional book for me and an outstanding effort for a first time novelist! The various storylines from different perspectives coming together were intriguing and made perfect sense in this very imperfect world. There were definitely tears in my eyes reading the last few chapters but life is like that - there's not always the ending you think you'll find. Highly recommend this book to readers everywhere.

[Wiebke Kuhn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked about this book the history about coal mining in it and the portrayal of the women and men living in this small West Virginia mining town. I had a really hard time with the knight in shiny armor approach and how, when it is all said and done, the women still have to lose out so that the plot can come to a dramatic conclusion.

[Denise Basinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a long book, but due to the easy vocabulary, it does not take that long to read. I enjoyed it!

[Flexnib · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was completely expecting this to be a happily-ever-after story.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Illuminating and disturbing. This was equal parts romance and historical fiction and I’m not sure which part I appreciated more. Both were heartbreaking.

[Kelsey Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Should have quit sooner but I pressed on. Yawn! The story went in circles, the plot began repeating itself and being very predictable.

[Virginia Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author Gerry FitzGerald's "Redemption Mountain" is a beautifully told tale, one that is nuanced and involving, taking the reader in unexpected directions. Natty Oakes and Charlie Burden are both runners, moving toward a point where their paths will cross, and their lives, and the lives of those around them, will be forever changed. Natty is a wife and mother, living in a trailer deep in the coal country of West Virginia. Married to her high-school sweetheart, Buck, a lazy, abusive drinker, Natty still has her dreams. She also has her two children, her daughter, Cat, and her son, known as "Pie Man", who was born with Down Syndrome. Natty coaches Pie's soccer team and works as a home health aide, caring for the elderly in the community. Charlie, a corporate executive for a global engineering company in New York City, is restless and reaching back for the beginnings of his career, when he was enthusiastic and useful. His wife, Ellen, is ever more submerged in the endless circling of social status. His children are grown and on their own, and he greatly misses the early years of their family life, when the children were young, and they shared so much. The change that Charlie longs for comes his way when he is sent to Red Bone, WV to oversee the construction of a power plant that will bring much-needed jobs to an economically-deprived area. It will also destroy the natural beauty of an ancient, mountainous region, and not all residents will be better off with the construction of the plant. What Natty and Charlie find in each other is renewal, revelation, and hope for the future. However, the hand of Fate can be a harsh master, and heartbreak is often entwined with happiness. A future awaits that neither of them imagined, but is that a future where they will be together? Will the community of Red Bone not just survive, but somehow find a way to thrive through all the changes to come? Take a trip to Redemption Mountain, and enjoy the storytelling of author Gerry FitzGerald. You will be glad that you made the journey.

Review Copy Gratis Amazon Vine

[Shelly Itkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charlie Burden is high on the corporate ladder in his company and after twenty-five year is not sure of his own life anymore. Charlie decides he wants to work with his hands on projects and not in the office anymore. He is tired of the country club life and his children are both adults and so it is just he and his wife. He decides he wants a change and although he was hoping to go to China he winds up in West Virginia where he is in charge of overseeing a construction project on Redemption Mountain in Red Bone, Virginia.

When Charlie arrives, he meets Natty who is beautiful, young woman who could not be more different then Charlie. She is married to a childhood sweetheart that abuses her and hardly pays any attention to her and none to his children. Natty is a caring woman who takes care of retired miners by nursing them as best as she can and also is the coach for her sons soccer team.

The friendship becomes more involved and Charlie finds himself on the opposite side of his job. He seems to be helping Natty and the family along with the town instead of sticking to the original plan he was sent there to complete.

Charlie has become friends with many of the local people and lives in a rented walk up apartment that even includes sharing a bathroom. Nothing like the accommodations the company had reserved for him to live in.

We learn about love, commitment, second chances and just how precious real life is. Charlie is a different person then the one who arrived originally and is liked by all the towns people for the way he wants to help them.

I enjoyed the book but found it a little long and felt some of it could have been left out to make it a little shorter as it was four hundred and fifty pages.

[Kitten Kisser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Redemption Mountain in based on the residents of West Virginia & the giant oil & gas companies. Despite being a fiction book a lot of what is contained within the pages is more truthful then most folks would want to admit. From the beaten down uneducated West Virginians "Hill Billys" (not my term, it's commonly used in the book) to the sophisticated glamorous rich who either do not understand or do not care what the effects their decisions have on the poor.

The two main characters, Natty & Charlie suffer from marital issues. Natty & Charlie are the victims of their spouses selfish desires. They see in each other what is missing from their lives. Charlie loves the the naked honesty he sees in Natty. Natty yearns for the security & kindness that Charlie provides. In the midst of this relationship big corporations are throwing their money at the politicians & throwing their weight around on the locals. No dirt poor "Hill Billy" farmer can win in a fight against these corporations.

If you are expecting a romance novel you will be sorely disappointed. This is more of a true to life book about relationships rather than romantic trysts. It took me a while to really get into the book, but once it got going I found it fully engaging. It pulled at my emotions on many different levels. If you are curious about the dynamics of West Virginia you can't go wrong with Redemption Mountain.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great first novel by Gerry Fitzgerald tells the story of a wealthy man in a global engineering firm, a big home, and country-club membership in Westchester, New York, and a family with children out on their own. Charlie still feels like something is missing in his life; his wife and he have grown apart and he misses his former life with his children. Then his company sends him to West Virginia to oversee a project in Red Bone where he meets people who will change his life.

Natty Oakes is the wife of an abusive husband and mother of a daughter and a son with Downs Syndrome. Her days consist of nursing retired miners, coaching her son's soccer team, and running the mountain trails she has known all her life. The meeting of Natty and Charlie will change life for the better in the small mining town. The author gives a true-life account of her hardships that the miners in West Virginia go through and uses Charlie to try and right the wrong.

Redemption Mountain is at the crux of the story and the place where a huge coal vein is located. Charlie's company, OntAmex, has plans to get to the coal using the mountain-removal method that will destroy not only the mountain, but the surrounding area. And there is only one man who can help the town and the people who live there.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charlie Burden, once an engineer; now an executive is feeling the itch to get back into the field and do what he loves best; build things. He wants to go to China, but instead his bosses send him to West Virginia to oversee a mining project.

Natty Oaks has lived on Redemption Mountain all her life. She married her grade school crush, who is not much of a husband or father; can’t keep a job and drinks too much. When these two meet there is a spark, but when Charlie’s project threatens to destroy her grandfather’s farm; decisions have to be made and relationships destroyed.

One would think this would be a love story about a city guy and country girl, but it is more than that. It’s not about romance, but more about corporate greed, the coal mining industry and how individuals and the environment get lost and trampled on in the quest for riches. Seen it; read I before; and thought this would be another twist on the same old story. But you know what; the climax and the ending was unpredictable and more realistic and made me enjoy the story that much more.

[Renee Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Redemption Mountain by Gerry Fitzgerald. Essentially this story is about a man and a woman, each married, bored and unhappy. Charlies wife is more in love with the money he makes than she is with him. Charlies is sent from New York to West Virginia by the company he works for. He ends up meeting Natty. A woman whose first child has Down's Syndrome requiring much of her care and attention. She also has a husband who spends most of his time drinking and away from home.
Among the various additional plots, these two find themselves in love with each other and both struggling with new found love and burned out marriages.
In-spite of all of the additional plots within this story, I was bored. It simply did not get my interest. I found both the writing and the storyline dull. Renee Robinson

[Tonya · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for 2013. Wow. I fell in love with this book right away. How can you not like both Charlie and Natty? Their paths will cross in the small town of Red Bone. Talk about redemption mountain. Coal towns are a hard place to be. They are very small knit communities. I really felt as if I got to know both of them really well.

Both runners, they have found a common bond. But will that end when Natty finds out when Charlie's company wants to destroy her family farm? Charlie will have to choose which side he is on. Both of them married, what will happen to those relationships? Natty's husband is an abusive man and Charlie's wife is looking for nothing more from him than status.

I loved both characters. Fitzgerald did a fantastic job with this book. I love each page, it was a bit long, but I really enjoyed it. The cover was perfect as well.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

* I RECEIVED AN ADVANCED COPY OF THIS
BOOK THROUGH A GOODREADS GIVE-A-WAY FOR AN HONEST REVIEW *

I loved the way the story portrayed the relationship between Natty & Charlie. The way he helped everyone in that town was so great, his relationship with Pie Man had me smiling from ear to ear. As pie man made me smile with his personality. I do have to say I was rooting for Nat & Buck great ending.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story, and liked the characters. I kept imagining who would play who in the movie. After reading this book, I would love to visit Appalachia...I spent days reading more about the history of this area.

[Debbie Swanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like the book Redemption Mountain..Thank you goodread and Thank you Gerry Fitzgerald,

[Candy]

After reading The Unquiet Earth by Denise Giardina, this pales in comparison. I read a good bit of it, but it just does not compare to Giardina's book on the same subject, at least for me.

[Donna Brown]

11-13-13 Mona

[Elizabeth Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book.