Lake in the Clouds

By: Sara Donati

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Length: 24 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

In her extraordinary novels Into the Wilderness and Dawn on a Distant Shore, award-winning writer Sara Donati deftly captured the vast, untamed wilderness of late-18th-century New York and the trials and triumphs of the Bonner family. Now Donati takes on a new and often overlooked chapter in our nation’s past - and in the life of the spirited Bonners - as their oldest daughter, the brave and beautiful Hannah, comes of age with a challenge that will change her forever. Masterfully told, this passionate story is a moving tribute to a resilient, adventurous family and a people poised at the brink of a new century.

It is the spring of 1802, and the village of Paradise is still reeling from the typhoid epidemic of the previous summer. Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner have lost their two-year-old son, Hannah’s half brother Robbie, but they struggle on as always: the men in the forests, the twins Lily and Daniel in Elizabeth’s school, and Hannah as a doctor in training, apprenticed to Richard Todd. Hannah is descended from healers on both sides - one Scots grandmother and one Mohawk - and her reputation as a skilled healer in her own right is growing. After a long night spent attending to a birth, Elizabeth and Hannah encounter an escaped slave hiding on the mountain. She calls herself Selah Voyager, and she is looking for Curiosity Freeman - a former slave herself, one of the village’s wisest women and Elizabeth’s closest friend. The Bonners take Selah, desperately ill, to Lake in the Clouds to care for her, and with that simple act they are drawn into the secret life that Curiosity and Galileo Freeman and their grown children have been leading for almost 10 years. The Bonners will do what they must to protect the Freemans, just as Hannah will protect her patient, who presents more than one kind of challenge. For a bounty hunter is afoot - Hannah’s childhood friend and first love, Liam Kirby.

While Elizabeth and Nathaniel undertake a treacherous journey through the endless forests to bring Selah to safety in the north, Hannah embarks on a very different journey to New York City, with two goals: to learn the secrets of vaccination against smallpox, a disease that threatens Paradise, and to find out what she can about Liam’s immediate past and what caused him to change so drastically from the boy she once loved. The obstacles she faces as a woman and a Mohawk make her confront questions long avoided about her place in the world. Those questions follow her back to Paradise, where she finds that the medical miracle she brings with her will not cure prejudice or superstition, nor can it solve the problem of slavery. No sooner have the Bonners begun to rebound from their losses - old and new - than they find themselves confronted by more than one old enemy in a battle that will test the strength of their love for one another. Hannah faces the decision she has always dreaded: Will she make a life for herself in a white world or among her mother’s people?

©2003 Sara Donati (P)2009 Random House

Brings story together

This is the 3rd book of the series and Im so glad that I listened to it. It fully brings all the family back together as all the characters of the previous books are blended in. I almost felt like
a member of the community. I've learned to appreciate that time period in history and what life was really like for all involved from these
books.
I'm not sure I'll purchase the next 2 books for
taking my 2 credits for so many months has limited
my variety of choices. I felt this book had a good enough ending for me to imagine their futures
and feel satisfied without running the series in the ground.

with every series it just gets better

I don't know why people compare this series to Outlander because there is nothing to compare. This story builds even better as it goes along with strong women and some weak one to contrast but progresses past Elizabeth and Nathaniel with their children. u gave up on Outlander at the fourth installment. Couldn't endure one more story with their bratty kids. I actually look forward to the next installment instead of dreading it. Glad that there is less of the mushy love scenes. pardon me as I must download and start the next book. Surprisingly enjoyable series with all the wonderful historical tidbits.

Great Story Line but Not Very Steamy

I loved the book and couldn’t stop listening but I do wish it were just a bit steamier.

Tears and joy

One of my favorite yet. Especially spoke to me as a young woman that still longs for her mother but also takes care of my father and will soon be married and starting my own family.

Truly wonderful

I love this series and I loved this book! I could not stop listening.

LOVE THIS SERIES

Would you listen to Lake in the Clouds again? Why?

This is one series like the Outlander series that I will listen to again and again.

What did you like best about this story?

I can't name just one thing I like about this book. I love the time period and the small facts that she puts into her stories.

As good as if not better than Outlander.

As a lover of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, I read Lake in the Clouds and Sara Donati's previous book in this series ready to compare them negatively. NOT SO!
I actually enjoyed Donati's writing more and found myself totally immersed in the sweeping saga. Gabaldon applies a formulaic style of sensory writing which often stilts the action while she stops to describe a smell or a fabric. Donati's weaves her sensory descriptions seemlessy and naturally into the narrative.
I fell in love with her characters and am now a big fan of her work. This series is well worth the read.

Beautiful details

A beautifully written story that takes the reader away so very clearly! I loved it!

Love this book and the series all together

One of my favorite books I read and listen to all of these books at least once a year. And love them every time

Not as good

This book was not as good as the others in the series. Even so it's better than most other books plus the narrator keeps me coming back.