Join Books.org — it's free

Book cover of On Kingdom Mountain
Fiction

On Kingdom Mountain

by Howard Frank Mosher
Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Log in to track your reading progress.

Overview

Set in northern Vermont in 1930, On Kingdom Mountain is the story of Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson. She is a renowned local bookwoman, eccentric bird carver, and the last remaining resident of a wild mountain on the U.S.-Canadian border, now threatened by a proposed new highway. Miss Jane encounters a mysterious stunt pilot and weathermaker when his biplane crashes on a nearby frozen lake. He brings with him a riddle containing clues to the whereabouts of stolen Civil War gold that may have been hidden on Miss Jane’s property. As she and the footloose aviator search for the treasure, Miss Jane is confronted by the most important decisions of her life.
Featuring daring action scenes and outrageous comedy, along with a passionate, surprising love affair, On Kingdom Mountain is traditional storytelling at its best, rooted in Howard Mosher’s own family history and in a way of life on the brink of extinction.

Synopsis

Set in northern Vermont in 1930, On Kingdom Mountain is the story of Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson. She is a renowned local bookwoman, eccentric bird carver, and the last remaining resident of a wild mountain on the U.S.-Canadian border, now threatened by a proposed new highway. Miss Jane encounters a mysterious stunt pilot and weathermaker when his biplane crashes on a nearby frozen lake. He brings with him a riddle containing clues to the whereabouts of stolen Civil War gold that may have been hidden on Miss Jane’s property. As she and the footloose aviator search for the treasure, Miss Jane is confronted by the most important decisions of her life.
Featuring daring action scenes and outrageous comedy, along with a passionate, surprising love affair, On Kingdom Mountain is traditional storytelling at its best, rooted in Howard Mosher’s own family history and in a way of life on the brink of extinction.

The Washington Post - Steve Amick

On Kingdom Mountain is a whimsical and ambitious return to Mosher's lovingly crafted village of Kingdom Common, his own slice of Vermont's northernmost boondocks, the Northeast Kingdom, and a return to the long-limbed Kinneson family tree…I have no problem suspending disbelief in regard to the magical realism and can equally embrace the broad comic strokes and what one might call the ''exoticification" of this locale. Mosher's passionate geographical hyperbole is both justifiable and charming, producing a wonderfully intriguing sense of place.

About the Author, Howard Frank Mosher

HOWARD FRANK MOSHER is the author of ten books, including Waiting for Teddy Williams, The True Account, and A Stranger in the Kingdom, which, along with Disappearances, was corecipient of the New England Book Award for fiction. He lives in Vermont.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Steve Amick

On Kingdom Mountain is a whimsical and ambitious return to Mosher's lovingly crafted village of Kingdom Common, his own slice of Vermont's northernmost boondocks, the Northeast Kingdom, and a return to the long-limbed Kinneson family tree…I have no problem suspending disbelief in regard to the magical realism and can equally embrace the broad comic strokes and what one might call the ''exoticification" of this locale. Mosher's passionate geographical hyperbole is both justifiable and charming, producing a wonderfully intriguing sense of place.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Mosher's 11th book is the first-rate, offbeat chronicle of Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson's eventful 50th year in 1930. Ex-teacher, woodcarver, librarian, basketball coach and current self-appointed steward of the wild and pristine town of Kingdom Mountain, Vt., Miss Jane ("The Duchess") is entrenched in a battle against her cousin Eben and the town elders who want to build a highway and ski resort on her beloved mountain. Jane, as endearing as she is odd and independent-minded, looks to be in over her head until stunt pilot Henry Satterfield crashes his biplane near her home. Theatrical, dashing Henry recovers at Jane's place, and a romance blossoms. Henry also brings with him an old family riddle from Texas that he believes, if solved, will lead him and Jane to a lost Confederate treasure rumored to be hidden on the mountain. But all manner of heartbreak looms. Mosher (Waiting for Teddy Williams; The True Account; etc.) weaves homespun humor, a provincial New England setting and eccentric characters to create a satisfying, unique novel. (July)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Kirkus Reviews

Plucky spinster and rakish pilot meet cute in 1930s Vermont. Sentimentality, laced with whimsy, oozes like syrup-sleep-inducing stuff. Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson, still "strikingly attractive" at 50, tucks lustily into her vittles. Duchess of Kingdom Mountain, uber-quaint hamlet astride the U.S.-Canada border, she needs the carbs for fighting progress in the form of a proposed highway. Mosher (Waiting for Teddy Williams, 2004, etc.) cuts his characters out of industrial-strength cardboard, and we can file Jane under "eccentric." She's fixin' to conquer the North American Bird Carving Contest; as "bookwoman extraordinaire," she runs the Atheneum, a library peopled with life-sized figurines of fusty lit gods (Dr. Johnson, Twain, Dickens). Improbably, in lectures to nodding villagers, she rails at Shakespeare, decrying "The Pretender of Avon." Something like real life arrives when Henry Satterfield, proprietor of "Flying Circus Rainmaking and Pyrotechnic Services Beaumont Texas" crashes his biplane into her yard. Soon enough comes mutual eye-moistening, as Miss JHK is smitten by the galoot whose "gentlemanliness seemed very genuine." But, goshdarnit, it's not! Turns out the rogue is after $100,000 in "double-eagle twenty-dollar gold pieces," stolen from Kingdom Common by dastardly Confederates back in Civil War days. He heard tell of the treasure from his grandpappy. Aswoon, Miss Jane's unsuspecting; besides, she's got her hawk-carving hands full contending with cousin Eben Kinneson Esquire, fat-cat bossman of the Great North Woods Pulp and Paper Company, who's itchin' to run the highway through Jane's Kingdom and despoil its pristine splendor. Readers with the patience for "yarns" maythrill to the clotted-yet-cliched story and fall hard for the Cato-quoting Jane, doughty-yet-democratic dame who's enemy of all things bad but a good friend to even the town's fishmonger, Canvasback Glodgett (!). "Storytelling" run amok.

Book Details

Published
July 1, 2008
Publisher
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages
286
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780547053745

More by Howard Frank Mosher

Similar books