Cold Mountain

Inman is recovering in a military hospital after being gravely wounded in the fighting at Petersburg when he decides that the Confederate war has no further claim on him. He leaves without permission and begins a dangerous journey towards Cold Mountain in western North Carolina, avoiding Home Guard patrols, bounty hunters and armed men living from the disorder of the collapsing South.

At Black Cove, Ada Monroe has been left with a failing farm and little practical knowledge after her father’s death. Ruby Thewes teaches her how to work the land, and their growing partnership becomes a second story of survival alongside Inman’s odyssey. The novel combines romance, wilderness travel and the Civil War home front while examining desertion, violence and the possibility of building a different life.