Customer Reviews

The Overmountain Men (Tennessee Frontier Trilogy)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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This novel is so entertaining!! Cameron Judd uses a great cast of fictional characters to convey the history of the settling of Tennessee as well as backing it up with factual characters, places, and events. I recommend this book to anyone who hated history as a child, but has become an avid reader in old age, like me!

Saw this book on a shelf and was interested by the subject. But once I got started reading I couldnt quit. I felt as if I were on the Tennesse frontier with Joshua Colter. I am definetly buying the other two books in the triology. I would strongly recommed this book to anyone interested in American history, especially the colonial period.

I bought this book because of the time and setting of the story 1759-1780 Pre-Tennessee Frontier. My Lemons ancestors came to live in the Watauga Association during the time of this book. I wanted to read about what it was like for my ancestors. The story was well told and gave me a good feel for what life was like. I was drawn into the story for the story sake though, as it was interesting and compelling. I would feel comfortable letting my 15yr old read the story but not my 12year old. The other part of the story that has me thinking, is the treatment of the Native Peoples during that time. It was brutal on both sides, and reminds me of the Arab/Israel conflict we have present day. Brutality met with greater brutality can be a never ending cycle. I wonder what part my ancestors played, in the brutality of the time.

I really enjoyed this book. Much of my family history came from this area during the 1750's onward, so reading this story, and knowing the places personally where many of these events took place, was truly refreshing. Also, it was excellent in terms of showing that the life that these people lived was not just the idyllic, romanticized time that Hollywood has us believe, but was a difficult struggle, with the people who eked out their livings in the wilderness being torn between allegiances, each other, and between events which embattled them in the immediate sense versus events which had less effect on them (yet still important, particularly in the future). The history appears to be very accurate, the story very gripping and believable, and anyone with history in that era and area could easily find a connection between the characters and themselves. It would make a great book for students after studying the history of that time and place, allowing them to actually begin to understand the flip side of the coin.

This is an interesting story of the frontier life in Tennessee. The protagonist Joshua Colter finds himself alone in the wilderness. Here Judd weaves his story of these brave long hunters in the Cherokee land of Tennessee. You will find that Judd makes you feel that you are there with Joshua. It is a good read. By Ruth Thompson author of "The Bluegrass Dream" and "Natchez Above The River"