The Mountain Between Us: A Novel - Softcover

Martin, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0767927028 ISBN 13: 9780767927024

Publisher: Crown, 2011

Synopsis

Now a major motion picture starring Kate Winslet and Idris Elba

From the author of Where the River Ends, comes this page-turning story of love and survival.

On a stormy winter night, two strangers wait for a flight at the Salt Lake City airport.  Ashley Knox is an attractive, successful writer, who is flying East for her much anticipated wedding.  Dr. Ben Payne has just wrapped up a medical conference and is also eager to get back East for a slate of surgeries he has scheduled for the following day.   When the last outgoing flight is cancelled due to a broken de-icer and a forthcoming storm, Ben finds a charter plane that can take him around the storm and drop him in Denver to catch a connection.   And when the pilot says the single engine prop plane can fit one more, if barely, Ben offers the seat to Ashley knowing that she needs to get back just as urgently.   And then the unthinkable happens.  The pilot has a heart attack mid-flight and the plane crashes into the High Uintas Wilderness-- one of the largest stretches of harsh and remote land in the United States. 
 
Ben, who has broken ribs and Ashley, who suffers a terrible leg fracture, along with the pilot's dog, are faced with an incredibly harrowing battle to survive.   Fortunately, Ben is a medical professional and avid climber (and in a lucky break, has his gear from a climb earlier in the week).  With little hope for rescue, he must nurse Ashley back to health and figure out how they are going to get off the mountain, where the temperature hovers in the teens.   Meanwhile, Ashley soon realizes that the very private Ben has some serious emotional wounds to heal as well.  He explains to Ashley that he is separated from his beloved wife, but in a long standing tradition, he faithfully records messages for her on his voice recorder reflecting on their love affair.  As Ashley eavesdrops on Ben's tender words to his estranged wife she comes to fear that when it comes to her own love story, she's just settling.  And what's more: she begins to realize that the man she is really attracted to, the man she may love, is Ben.
 
As the days on the mountains become weeks, their survival become increasingly perilous.  How will they make it out of the wilderness and if they do, how will this experience change them forever?
 
Both a tender and page-turning read, The Mountain Between Us will reaffirm your belief in the power of love to sustain us.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles Martin is a New York Times bestselling author of eleven previous novels. He lives in Jacksonville, Florida with his wife and their three sons.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Prelude
 
            Hey...
            I’m not sure what time it is.  This thing should record that.  I woke a few minutes ago.  It’s still dark.  I don’t know how long I was out.
            The snow is spilling in through the windshield. It’s frozen across my face.  Hard to blink.  Feels like dried paint on my cheeks.  It just doesn’t taste like dried paint.  
            I’m shivering...and it feels like somebody is sitting on my chest.  Can’t catch my breath. Maybe broke two or three ribs.  Might have a collapsed lung.
            The wind up here is steady, leaning against the tail of the fuselage...or what’s left of it.  Something above me, maybe a branch, is slapping the plexi-glass.  Sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.  And more cold air is coming in behind me.  Where the tail used to be.  
            I can smell gas.  I guess both wings were still pretty full of fuel. 
            I keep feeling like I want to throw up. 
 
            A hand is wrapped around mine. The fingers are cold and calloused.  There’s a wedding band, worn thin around the edges.  That’s Grover.
            He was dead before we hit the treetops.  I’ll never understand how he landed this thing without killing me, too.
            When we took off, the ground temperature was in the single digits.  Not sure what it is now.  Feels colder.  Our elevation should be around eleven-five.  Give or take.  We couldn’t have fallen more than five hundred feet when Grover dipped the wing.  The control panel sits dark, unlit.  Dusted in white.  Every few minutes the GPS on the dash will flicker, then go black again.     
            There was a dog here somewhere.  All teeth and muscle.  Real short hair.  About the size of a loaf of bread.  Makes snotty, gurgling sounds when he breathes.  Looks like he’s jacked up on speed.  Wait... 
            ‘Hey, boy...Wait...no.  Not there. Okay, lick but don’t jump.  What’s your name?  You scared?  Yeah...me, too.’
            I can’t remember his name.
 
            I’m back...was I gone long?  There’s a dog here.  Buried between my coat and armpit.
            Did I already tell you about him?  I can’t remember his name. 
            He’s shivering and the wrinkles around his eyes are quivering.  Whenever the wind howls, he jumps up and growls at it.
 
            The memory’s foggy.  Grover and I were talking, he was flying, maybe banking right, the dash flashed a buffet of blue and green lights, a carpet of black stretched out below us, not a light bulb for sixty miles in any direction, and...there was a woman.  Trying to get home to her fiancé and a rehearsal dinner.  I’ll look. 
 
            ...I found her.  Unconscious. Elevated pulse.  Eyes are swollen shut.  Pupils are dilated.  Probably a concussion. Several lacerations across her face.  A few will need stitches.  Right shoulder is dislocated and left femur is broken.  It didn’t break the skin but, her leg is angling out and suit leg is tight.  I need to set it...once I catch my breath. 
           
            ...It’s getting colder. I guess the storm finally caught us.  If I don’t get us wrapped in something...we’ll freeze to death before daylight.  I’ll have to set that leg in the morning.    
           
            Rachel...I don’t know how much time we have, don’t know if we’ll make it out, if...but...I take it all back.  I was wrong.  I was angry.  I never should’ve said it.  You were thinking about us.  Not you.  I can see that now. 
            You’re right.  Right all along.  There’s always a chance. 
 
            Always. 

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0767927028
• ISBN 13: 9780767927024
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336