Heart Spring Mountain - by Robin MacArthur (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this evocative first novel, a young woman returns to her rural Vermont hometown in the wake of a devastating storm to search for her missing mother and unravel a powerful family secret

It's August 2011, and Tropical Storm Irene has just wreaked havoc on Vermont, flooding rivers and destroying homes. One thousand miles away--while tending bar in New Orleans--Vale receives a call and is told that her mother, Bonnie, has disappeared. Despite a years-long estrangement from Bonnie, Vale drops everything and returns home to look for her.

Though the hometown Vale comes back to is not the one she left eight years earlier, she finds herself falling back into the lives of the family she thought she'd long since left behind. As Vale begins her search, the narrative opens up and pitches back and forth in time to follow three generations of women--a farming widow, a back-to-the-land dreamer, and an owl-loving hermit--as they seek love, bear children, and absorb losses. All the while, Vale's search has her unwittingly careening toward a family origin secret more stunning than she ever imagined.

Written with a striking sense of place, Heart Spring Mountain is an arresting novel about returning home, finding hope in the dark, and of the power of the land--and the stories it harbors--to connect and to heal. It's also an absorbing exploration of the small fractures that can make families break-and the lasting ties that bind them together.

From the Back Cover

It's August 2011, and Tropical Storm Irene has just wreaked havoc on Vermont, flooding rivers and destroying homes. One thousand miles away--while tending bar in New Orleans--Vale receives a call saying that her mother, Bonnie, has disappeared. Despite a years-long estrangement from Bonnie, Vale drops everything and returns home to look for her. But the hometown that Vale comes back to is not the one she left eight years earlier, and she finds herself falling back into the lives of the family she thought she'd long since left behind. Vale's search becomes intertwined with the stories of three generations of women--a farming widow, a back-to-the-land dreamer, an owl-loving hermit--as they seek love, bear children, and absorb losses. All the while, Vale unwittingly careens toward a family secret more stunning than she ever imagined.

In this evocative first novel, Robin MacArthur crafts an arresting story about coming home, finding hope in the dark, and the power of the land to connect and to heal. Heart Spring Mountain is a captivating exploration of the small fractures that make families break--and the lasting ties that bind them together.

Review Quotes

"Heart Spring Mountain begins with heroin and a hurricane, but the real home-wreckers are family secrets, hidden for generations. It takes the storm of the century for Vale to uncover them, and recover the mother and grandmother she never really knew. Traveling back and forth in time, Robin MacArthur renders both the Vermont landscape and Vale's family tree with poetic precision and gutting realism. I fell in love with these women and their mountain." - Alexis M. Smith, author of Marrow Island

"Traveling back and forth in time, Robin MacArthur renders both the Vermont landscape and Vale's family tree with poetic precision and gutting realism. I fell in love with these women and their mountain." - Alexis M. Smith, author of Marrow Island

"A fecund and contemplative feminist family saga." - Kirkus

"Powerful...MacArthur demonstrates a commanding ability to weave meaning from separate narrative threads, exploring how the impact of a person's choices can echo through generations, even as a storm washes the past away." - Booklist

"Soberingly relevant." - Library Journal

"[A] story of hope, the possibility of resurrection by a person, a people, and a planet, and a magnificent, rutting, music-steeped will to survive... MacArthur on the page makes music. She sings in a way that makes the reader's ear dance." - Brattleboro Reformer

"Tender....nuanced, poetic, and evocative. MacArthur empathetically depicts each of her characters in their wounded but hopeful glory." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Heart Spring Mountain is a revelation. It's a novel as rich as the fertile earth and as powerful as a surging storm. Every page is filled with wonder and beauty, compassion and longing. The women Robin MacArthur has brought to life--their histories, their struggles, and their fierce independence--will haunt and inspire and stick around long after their stories are told." - Ivy Pochoda, author of Wonder Valley and Visitation Street

"A revelation...As rich as the fertile earth and as powerful as a surging storm. Every page is filled with wonder and beauty, compassion and longing. The women MacArthur has brought to life...will haunt and inspire and stick around long after their stories are told."

"Lyrical and faintly political (but never pedantic), Heart Spring Mountain is a timely wonder of a debut." - Shelf Awareness

"Poetic....A love song to the natural world, and a plea for its protection." - Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A novel of compassion for ourselves and for those who came before us." - Oprah.com