A mountain man can survive anything even a cold day in hell...
Nathaniel Squire is a giant of a man, and the only one Col. Leander Melton thought could lead his pack of greenhorn would-be trappers into the mountains. And deep in Blackfoot territory, Squire must teach the youths to face the ways of survival, the rage of the Blackfeet, the cunning of a traitor — and what it means to be a mountain man.
John Legg has had more than 50 Westerns published, including a number of series novels, and one book of Western nonfiction. He has also done a number of articles on Western history for national magazines. He has been a newspaper copy editor for more than 30 years. He also has edited novels, articles, short stories, and other works through his editing/critiquing service, JL TextWorks. He has an MSJ from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
I bought the 3 volume "Mountain Times" series for 99 cents, I think, on Amazon. I like mountain man / trail west novels where a group of trappers provision up, hit the high plains and make their way trading and fighting and adventuring to the Rockies and back. That's basically the premise of Winter Rage.
Not overly original, but the premise was fine by me. However, this first book took too much time provisioning up. Way too many details, I think, though historic description can be interesting if done right. Then, finally, came lots of fighting and adventuring - but it was accompanied by too much cussing (lots of GDs and such which turned me off).
Plus, I was already a bit bored by the time the action finally took off that I started skimming. Encounter with hostile Indians, buffalo stampede, in-fighting in the group, etc. Standard fare and only moderately well told. Except for a secret identity revealed, there wasn't much new ground this novel covered - except for the daring rescue at the end.
So I'll probably finish the series eventually and read books 2 and 3 since they came as a box set, but not for awhile yet. This first one? 3 stars or just under.
Vvery interesting lots. Of very good scenarios. I would have liked to have seen more details of what it was like for successful trapping and transporting beaver
I want to put it out there that I am not really a western kinda of reader. But I was surprised with how much action that was packed into this book. The characters were easy to get into and very entertaining. While there was a lot of violence and some with to much detail for my liking it was still a good read.
This story had a lot of action and a lot of entertaining characters. There was also an extreme amount of violence and it was overly descriptive in some areas. I wasn't too impressed with all the errors, considering the author owns an editing company.
This story was. Crafted to give the reader a first rate experience of historical conditions of. The late mountain era, and craft a vision that every reader can relate too. Thanks Mr. Legg