RaveBookPageCharles Frazier uses reverse psychology to great advantage in his debut novel, Cold Mountain, a Civil War saga with blood on its bayonets and romance in its gentle soul ...reshaping the true battle tales of his great-great-grandfather into an epic story that accumulates power and purpose with each turn of the page ... Our hero, Inman, much like the sensitive lead character in Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, is sickened by the wanton waste of young lives on the battlefield and torn between the traditional conflict of valor and cowardice ... So the eventful journey back to his sweetheart, Ada, begins. Frazier takes us into the life and mind of Ada, a young girl stunned by the sudden death of her consumptive father ... It is the emotional bond between these two sturdy souls and their startling evolution as characters which lift this novel above and beyond the usual offerings in historical fiction.
