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Dan Ames
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To Find a Mountain Kindle Edition

by Dan Ames (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 3,841 ratings
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Benedetta Carlessimo is no stranger to hardship. Ever since her mother died, the sixteen-year-old Italian girl has cared for her rambunctious younger siblings without complaint. Then World War II arrives on her doorstep, leaving her face-to-face with the most terrible evil she has ever witnessed.

With the Germans and Americans fighting furiously to control a strategic swath of Italy, Nazi forces seize Benedetta’s village, turning her home into a command center—and forcing her beloved father to choose between fleeing or fighting on the front lines.

In the midst of great deprivation, Benedetta struggles to feed both her family and the Nazis, all the while keeping her father’s whereabouts secret. Yet her blossoming love for a handsome young Italian man hiding in the mountains brings a sliver of joy to her life. But with the Americans advancing and the Germans growing increasingly desperate and cruel, Benedetta knows that one misstep could bring horrible repercussions…and only an extraordinary act of courage can save her family.

Revised edition: This edition of To Find a Mountain includes editorial revisions.

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  1. Print length
    226 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Lake Union Publishing
  5. Publication date
    October 28, 2014
  6. File size
    1839 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
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  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This engaging story is of courage, love, honor, and the atrocities of war. Thought provoking, as well as deeply emotional, Benedetta's story will remain with you long after you reach the end. Her bravery will amaze you. If you read only one historical fiction this year, make it To Find a Mountain. You'll be glad you did." —Carol Davis Luce, bestselling author

"Original...engaging." —Thomas Perry, New York Times bestselling author

About the Author

Dan Ames is a crime novelist and winner of the Independent Book Award for Crime Fiction. His books have reached the bestseller lists in the US and abroad. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Western Writers of America. Dan graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in journalism. He currently lives with his family in Detroit, Michigan.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00K2GMMPI
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lake Union Publishing (October 28, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 28, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1839 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 226 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 3,841 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Dan Ames

Dan Ames

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Author of the USA TODAY bestselling series: The JACK REACHER Cases.

Dan Ames is an international bestselling novelist and winner of the Independent Book Award for Crime Fiction.

His popular series THE JACK REACHER Cases earned a spot on the USA TODAY bestseller lists and now features seven novels in the series.

You can learn more at AuthorDanAmes.com

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
3,841 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

MaxwellB
5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Read
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2024
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Couldn't read this fast enough. Interesting, shocking, beautiful. And a reminder that we could be headed for a repeat of this background.
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Mary D Warf
4.0 out of 5 stars Fear and Courage in the Village
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2015
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This is an interesting account of the German occupation of Italy during World War II. It tells the story of a family and their experiences when a group of German officers come and occupy their home. The father defects to the mountains when the Germans plan to send him to the front to fight for Germany. A young daughter is left in charge of her younger siblings. She is forced to cook and do laundry for the Germans occupying their home. She is able to get a message from her father and decides to go up the mountain in hope of finding him. A young man has been assigned the task of bringing her up the mountain and she is reunited with her father for a short time. and there arises a strong attraction between her and the young man, but she knows that her brother and sister she left behind need her, so she returns to take care of them.
The senior German officer is very kind to her, but she makes an enemy of a junior officer when she resists his advances. He will prove her undoing until the end of the war when the Americans enter the village. This is a griping story of love and war.
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WRB
3.0 out of 5 stars A very easy, but interesting read ---
Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2013
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The story begins in 2011 - Benedetta, an Italian from Casalveri, is now living in Florida. She has known great joy in her life, but also tragedy. Benedetta has just buried her husband of fifty one years and she begins to reminisce on her life many years earlier. 1943 - the Second World War came to Casalveri, a small village in Italy. The Germans arrived one fall morning and took control of the village without a single shot being fired. The Germans would be taking over small villages along an East and West line across Italy. And the story begins ----

Benedetta has become the head of the household when her father leaves them to find a hiding place in the mountains. Their home has become the headquarters for the Germans. She has two younger siblings to look after and she prepares meals for the Germans.

The Germans did not consider the Italian people human. In their eyes they were lower beings. They forced the Italian civilians into the hardest, most dangerous jobs on the front, carrying ammunition, gasoline, and retrieving the wounded. They saw the Italians as a good way to conserve their own forces. Better an Italian die on the front then a German. The Italians were told that for every German soldier who dies, ten of them (Italians) would be executed.

There is a lot of intrigue in the storyline during the German occupation of Italy. But, it read like a YA novel - just a very easy and interesting read (although I wouldn't recommend it for a young teen). I stayed engaged from the beginning and throughout.

A couple of negative comments: The characters had very little depth. I didn't connect with them. Also, the story ended very abruptly, almost like the writer ran out of steam. For that reason I rated this book 3.5 stars.
7 people found this helpful
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Pippin606
5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I've read in a long time!
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2015
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I was captivated by the book from beginning to end. It is based on the true history of when villages in Italy were occupied by German forces in WWII. This takes place in Casalvieri. Dan Ames had really good insight into the mind of a young woman, teen actually. In those days girls married young and took care of households at a young age. I loved this Italian village and their simple way of life. You can vividly imagine the shock of suddenly German soldiers are going to live in your house and you are going to wait on them and they are going to eat your food. However, the leader of this particular group was a good guy with a heart. The story moves pretty fast and is interesting all the way through. I thought it was too short but succinct. There are a couple of shocking, violent scenes, but that was reality. Dan is a crime novelist and that came through in these scenes. I felt for the German soldiers even, because they were part of a machine that made them suffer and starve like the rest of Europe. The widespread lack of food was well emphasized in this book and what it would really look and feel like to go through that. Enough! Love, love loved it!
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Bonnie N. Tilton
4.0 out of 5 stars Very good novel with believable characters and situations.
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2015
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To Find a Mountain was a very good novel. I think it actually deserves a Plus 1/2--not quite a five, but more than a four stars. I think it could have benefitted from being a little longer with the people in it being fleshed out a little more. It was riveting and exciting and believable. The author really is a good writer. And I imagine it was very easily fitted into its place at the end of the war.
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Katiecreates
5.0 out of 5 stars Her treatment of the Germans recognizes that good men can be trapped by war in positions that ...
Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2014
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A fictional recounting by an octogenarian Southern matriarch, Benedetta, of her life in a small, German-occupied Italian village during WWII when she was 16-17 years old. She has a marvelous voice and there is no doubt that this woman gracefully and resourcefully survived all the challenges of her life. Her telling is manner-of-fact with little overt emotion. There is no hyperbole and therefore she is a very reliable narrator. She does not pull back from the horror that she endured, but neither does she editorialize. She just tells her story. This serves to clearly and starkly define the atrocities of war suffered by truly innocent victims. She leaves it to her audience to provide the emotional responses.
Her treatment of the Germans recognizes that good men can be trapped by war in positions that cause them to behave in ways that shred their souls. She also demonstrates that war can attract and create monsters.
At it's root, this is a very sweet story of the breathless joy and paralyzing insecurities of young love. Despite the dehumanizing circumstances of their lives, the residents of Benedetta's tale powerfully demonstrate that the key to survival is to shelter one's dignity and humanity by living as fully and honestly as possible. A good read.
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Top reviews from other countries

Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A very good read
Reviewed in Canada on May 3, 2015
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I really enjoyed reading this book. I will highly recommend this book to all my friends. I will read it again in the future.
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Mrs C
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyed, would recommend.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 15, 2016
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Good telling of historic events. Simply but nicely written picture of how the arrival of the Germans into a little Italian mountain village near Monte Cassino in WW2 changed the lives of the poor inhabitants. This is particularly interesting to me as my mother-in-law lived though these events in a neighbouring village to the one described and, as the eldest girl and just a year or so younger than the main character in the book, had to clean and cook etc in the same way for the soldiers who took over her parents' house.

Enjoyed the book and would recommend, though could have been expanded a little to include more social interaction between the villagers and families.
3 people found this helpful
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Lynette
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable and enlightening
Reviewed in Australia on October 27, 2014
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I really enjoyed this book. Had some tension in this war drama with a bit of romance. The story is not about the fighting but about the village that has been occupied by the Nazi's and its effect on the village. It gave me an insight as to hardships suffered by the people living there.
2 people found this helpful
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Lee W
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Read
Reviewed in Australia on November 12, 2016
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Well written saga of life in a small Italian village during the German occupation. Gives a good insight into the life and terrors of the period. Worth the read.
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Fred Bear
5.0 out of 5 stars Pleasantly surprised at how good a read this was.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 2, 2016
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This was not my usual sort of book but I really enjoyed this book. It is the story of life in Italy at the time in WWII when the allied forces were advancing north and the German army was defending their positions. The Italians suffered severely at this time.
Although that's the background to the story, it's not primarily a story about war, but about hardship and resilience, about working together, about family and about love. Not fluffy love but gritty love. Love of a father for a daughter, love of that daughter for her father and for her younger siblings (her mother died before the war), love for a few close friends and yes there is just a little of romantic love of that daughter for a young man, who's hiding from the Germans in the hills.
There is some brutality of things that happen in wartime but it's not gratuitous, just necessary for the storyline. But there is also something of shared humanity as well.
Altogether a fairly gentle good read.
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