One Mountain Away

One Mountain Away

by Emilie Richards

Genre: Women's Fiction

Synopsis: With nothing but brains, ambition and sheer nerve, Charlotte Hale built a career as a tough, do-anything-to-succeed real-estate developer. She's at the top of that mountain…but her life is empty. Her friends are as grasping and insincere as she has become. Far worse, she's alienated her family so completely that she's totally lost touch with her only daughter.

One terrifying day, facing her own mortality, she realizes that her ambition has almost destroyed her chance at happiness.

So Charlotte vows to make amends, not simply with her considerable wealth, but by offering a hand instead of a handout. Putting in hours and energy instead of putting in an appearance. Opening her home and heart instead of her wallet.

With each wrenching, exhilarating decision, Charlotte finds that climbing a new mountain—one built on friendship, love and forgiveness—will teach her what it truly means to build a legacy. 

from GoodReads

Review:  As the book started, it was slow going.  Since I was listening to the book, I kept on going and got caught up in the story and in Charlotte's path to redemption.  Charlotte learns that she is sick and faces all the mistakes she made in the past.  Her goal is to try to set things right and make up for what she had done.  Throughout the story we meet an eclectic cast of characters who all worm their way into your heart from Harmony, the vegetarian free spirited woman who Charlotte takes under her wing to Analiese, the minister who counsels Charlotte.  As the book moves along I found myself invested in Charlotte's life and hoping that she would make everything right.  I cried as I listened to the end.  One thing that kept this book from being a 5 star book was the length of it.  Emilie Richards has a way with descriptive words but there were times that I felt the descriptions were intrusive and unnecessary.  I also didn't get the idea of the anonymous goddesses that was brought up at the every end.  I felt like the author added that in at the last minute because she wanted to make this book into a series (which it is-there are 3 more books about 3 of the characters we meet in this story). I think the women in the story deserve their own stories and I would be interested in reading about them but the goddess part could have been left out. 

Rating: 4 stars