What a surprise. October has been declared Country Store Month in Vermont, and my novel, Wild Mountain, is all about a community around a country store in Vermont.

It reminded me of this story/review of Wild Mountain by Kim Church:

“When I was a child, I did not dream of becoming a writer. I was practical. l wanted to be Mrs. Bates, who with her husband ran the neighborhood store, a sturdy brick building on Cotton Grove Road. While her husband pumped gas, Mrs. Bates ran the cash register and scooped ice cream and sold penny candy. She was old and round and saggy and wore housedresses and she knew everybody and I loved her.

Okay, I didn’t want to be her exactly. I couldn’t imagine myself old or round or saggy. I just wanted a store. I wanted to be the center of a community. And sell candy.

What a delight, then, to meet in fiction the person I had always wanted to become: Mona Duval, a central character in Nancy Kilgore’s new novel, Wild Mountain (Green Writers Press). Mona (who is not old or round or saggy) runs the general store in her small Vermont community. She is devoted to the place—its history, its natural beauty, its people. She and the store and the 200-year-old covered bridge beside it are the literal center of Wild Mountain. When an ice storm collapses the bridge, Mona is devastated. She and part-time Vermonter Frank McFarland organize an effort to restore it, but meet with surprisingly emotional resistance. Tensions over the bridge betray a deeper political schism over a same-sex marriage bill.

Meanwhile, Mona is facing her own crisis: her dangerous ex-husband is back in town. As she works to bring together opposing factions in Wild Mountain, she makes her way toward her own center.

I felt at home in the world of this novel. I looked forward to spending time with the characters and was sorry to leave them when the book ended.” see more here of Kim’s interview with me.