TBR Challenge: category

[jmc_bks]

AvidReader's TBR Challenge carries on!  This year is slightly different, with a suggested sub-genre for each month.  January's selection:  category romance.

Thunder Mountain by Rachel Lee
(c) 1994

Why did I select this book?  Although it has been awhile (several years), I've read and enjoyed several books in Lee's Conard County series, and this book is set there.  I wasn't sure if it was part of that loosely connected series or just geographically located in the same area.
 

Thunder Mountain speaks . . .

It was scarcely possible to believe, but Mercy Kendrick could not escape the sensation that the storm-racked mountain looking down on Conard County was a living, breathing entity -- something so powerful it could destry an unwelcome mortal in an instant. . . .

And none of the mountain's dangers was more terrifying that Gray Cloud -- silent guardian of a place that had been sacred to his people since the beginning of time.  And yet, despite whispered warnings -- and her own trembling heart -- she could not keep away from this seductively sinister man. . . .
 

What did I think of the book?  Well, I finished the book feeling rather ambivalent about it.  I didn't really care about the hero or heroine or their HEA.  But I was interested in the idea of the book:  the mountain as a character, as a living being with the power to damage invaders on its slopes.  In some ways, it reminded me of Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series, which includes the earth and mother nature as a sentient being, awakening from a long, long nap and angered by the use to which humans have put her.  I suppose, given the copyright information, that it would be better described as a predecessor of some sort.

In terms of being a Conard County book, a few characters who seemed vaguely familiar (the sheriff, a rancher) were mentioned but were not part of the plot.

Keep or pass on?  Pass on.

Read Lee again?  Maybe.  Although I'm not sure if she is still writing romance. 

Some other information that may interest readers:  The edition in my library dates back to a re-issue in late 2000 or early 2001 if I go by the other Harlequin books and their sale dates.  I'm not sure which line TM originally was part of, but the re-issue was as part of Silhouette's Dreamscapes, a paranormal line.

More trivia:  Lee has also written single titles as Sue Civil-Brown.