A View Most Glorious

Starred review from September 15, 2021
Mountain guide Nathan Hardee knows too well the dark side of the social elite, and taking the likes of prim Coraline Baxter up Mount Rainier is the last thing he wants to do. But money is money in hard times, and the harrowing trek unexpectedly reveals that there's more to the lady than meets the eye. Cora is an embodiment of grace and grit, determined to bring attention to the women's suffrage movement with her summit-climbing. As the allure of Cora's strength pushes Nathan to the brink of his, they must decide whether their course forward can be with one another. Scott's historical inspirational romance captures the magnificence of the mountain and the thrilling triumph of climbers in the 1890s. As a native of the Mount Rainier region, Scott writes with an exhilarating wealth of sensory detail, brings the setting to such vivid life that the mountain becomes a dynamic character in its own right. The protagonists' emotional movement from friendship to attraction will resonate with readers, as will the tale's timeless touchstones of daring and wit and the dilemma of what to do when dreams send a man and a woman in different directions. This is a truly remarkable conclusion to Scott's exceptional American Wonders trilogy, following A Distance Too Grand (2019) and Nothing Short of Wondrous (2020).

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