The Smoke Jumper - Hardcover

Evans, Nicholas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385334036 ISBN 13: 9780385334037

Publisher: Delacorte Press, 2001

Synopsis

The fire that was to change so many lives so utterly started with a single shaft of lightning. It struck a mountain ridge on a still and moonless night and nestled like a pupa of death in the desiccated heart of an ancient pine. There were witnesses no doubt to this sudden splintering of air and wood, but none that was human. The woman, camped nearby with her group of troubled teenagers, slept on and heard nothing.

She has brought them here by court order on a youth program to help them find themselves. But one among them will be lost forever. For soon the cocoon of fire will hatch to engulf the entire mountain and exact its deadly toll. And into this inferno will come ... The Smoke Jumper.

His name is Connor Ford and he falls like an angel of mercy from the sky, braving the flames to save the woman he loves but knows he cannot have. For Julia Bishop is the partner of his closest friend, Ed Tully, an ambitious young musician. Julia loves them both but the tragedy on Snake Mountain forces her to choose between them and burns a brand on all their hearts.

With his blond, blue-eyed looks and laconic cowboy charm, Connor is the only child of a Montana rancher and a rodeo queen. Until that fateful day, he has been happy to spend his winters nurturing a career as a photographer and his summer vacations with Ed, “smoke jumping” — being dropped by parachute to fight remote forest fires.

In the wake of the fire, he embarks on a journey to the dark heart of human suffering, traveling the world’s worst wars and disasters to take photographs that find him fame but never happiness. Reckless of a life he no longer wants, again and again he dares death to take him, until another fateful day on another continent, he must walk through fire once more....

After his two international bestsellers, The Horse Whisperer and The Loop, Nicholas Evans returns with an epic novel of love and loyalty, of guilt and honor. Moving from the towering wilds of the American West to the killing fields of Africa, The Smoke Jumper is the story of three people’s quest for happiness and self-fulfillment, played out against the heroism of fire fighting in the wilderness and photojournalism at the edge of human experience — a mesmerizing adventure for the spirit, told in the grandest tradition.

About this title

Review:

New York born and bred, Julia Bishop has no warning that spending the summer counseling troubled teens in Montana will change her life forever. Happily in love with smoke jumper and musician Ed Tully, she looks forward to spending the summer weekends with him in Missoula and is stunned and disturbed by the instant connection she feels to his best friend, Connor Ford. Connor, a Montana rancher and smoke jumper, loves fighting fires almost as much as he loves photography, and before the summer is barely started, he loves Julia Bishop just as deeply. The bond between the three is strong but the work of a smoke jumper is fraught with danger and the trio soon face death by fire. Survival changes their lives forever and places them on paths that divide Julia, Ed, and Connor just as surely as their individual journeys bind them irrevocably together. The Smoke Jumper is a tale of loyalty and guilt, honor and selfless love, and the human cost of choices made. --Lois Faye Dyer

From the Back Cover:

The elk emerged from the burning trees and stopped on the ridge above him. Its coat was scorched black and its antlers flamed like a torch. It stood there staring down at him and he felt like a pagan summoned before some ancient deity or devil from a world beyond. He slowly raised his camera and took its picture. Then, suddenly, it was gone, as if it never had been. But Connor knew it was an omen, though of what, as yet he had no idea.

About this edition

• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0385334036
• ISBN 13: 9780385334037
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448