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    Savage Country: A Novel
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    Savage Country: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Savage Country: A Novel
    Ebook294 pages4 hours

    Savage Country: A Novel

    By Robert Olmstead

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    A “gorgeous, brutal masterpiece” of loss, survival, and buffalo hunting in the nineteenth century Midwest by the “great American writer” of Coal Black Horse (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

    Michael Coughlin, a Civil War veteran with an enigmatic past, arrives in Kansas to settle his dead brother’s debt. There he finds his widowed sister-in-law, Elizabeth, bankrupted by her husband’s folly. Her last hope to salvage something of her former life rests in the dangerous buffalo hunt her husband had been planning—a hunt that Michael and Elizabeth will now embark on together.

    Plunging south across the “dead line” between Kansas and Indian Territory, nothing could have prepared them for the dangers: rattlesnakes, rabies, wildfire, lightning strikes, blue northers, flash floods—and human treachery. With the Comanche in winter quarters, Elizabeth and Michael are on borrowed time, and the cruel work of harvesting the buffalo is unraveling their souls.

    Savage Country follows an infamous hunt that drove the buffalo to near extinction, and tells the intimate story of how that hunt changed Michael and Elizabeth forever.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateSep 26, 2017
    ISBN9781616207656

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    Reviews for Savage Country

    4/5

    17 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Very entertaining read that depicts the rough and violent nature that was the American west. I believe Olmstead's version is amped up a bit to provide greater entertainment, but the darkness he portrays does feel realistic. Story centers around a buffalo hunt that is taken on to enrich a widow. Expedition is more or less guided by her brother in law, while all kinds of characters join them to make the trip more profitful, yet dangerous. Book is good for teen audiences, particularly later teens that struggle to find reads that hook them. Death, gore, and violence are around each corner from page to page.
    • 4/5
      Kansas, 1844, Elizabeth finds herself without monetary means after the death of her husband. she learns that he had hinged everything on a buffalo hunt, a hunt he hoped would provide him with the necessary funds the clear his debts. His estranged brother Michael, makes an appearance and Elizabeth begs him to take on this hunt, and to take her with him.The last buffalo hunt, two powerful characters, gorgeous writing, outstanding imagery of nature, but a very brutal time. The title is apropos, a time when survival was less than certain. Where many things could kill you, snake bites, the betrayal of other men willing to take what you have, by whatever means necessary, the changing, harsh weather, and Indians. I loved how he portrayed Elizabeth, a deep inner strength, but kind when needed, decisive in her thinking, and willing to inhabit and endure these harsh conditions, alongside her workers.The buffalo hunt that basically wiped out the herd, is historical fact. Have to admit at cringing at the very graphic descriptions of the slaughter, skinning and cutting of these noble animals. Yet, it was survival, during a time when one had to make their own way, their own money and living by whatever means they could. Thought this novel was very well done, as well as providing an insight of a particular harsh period of time.ARC from Netgalley.
    • 4/5
      The first paragraph really sets the tone of this novel - it's raw, it's dirty, and you can feel it! The whole book is like that - the "real" west, blood and guts and crust in yer eyes! I felt like Olmstead really captured what it was like to be out on the range in 1873 on a buffalo hunt. And his character Michael is as rough and tough a man as they come! The story itself isn't much in the way of something that really stands out and may be remembered down the road. But the writing, well, I think I'm still coughing trail dust outta my lungs after reading this.