The premise of this story hooked me right away, despite the fact that I did not love a good number of the characters. I immediately felt for Cloris, the 72-year-old survivor in this story. Perhaps that’s a function of my perspective as I age—love to see a story of grit and determination from an unexpected source. Her story was compelling and distracted me from some other less-credible storylines. The atmosphere of the story was so well-developed that the mountains and surrounding forest were almost as compelling a “character” as the others. Reading some other reviews, I tend to agree that the crew of rescuers that I would normally describe as quirky may be better described as motley... Regardless, Cloris’ story will provide hopeful, gripping drama.

I did not finish this book because it impressed me as thinly disguised pornography and lacking other attributes to make me stick with it;

Gripping story of survival.A strong older woman Clauds out for a plane ride when they crash.Claudis a tough strong woman is the only survivor,and The ranger a troubled woman who comes to the rescue. So well written each character comes alive and the story kept me involved.#netgalley#littlebrown.

Cloris is a great narrator in this story about wilderness survival after a crash. She's one tough old bird who wants to live. On the other hand, Ranger Lewis could use some help. I'm amazed that she and the oddball crew managed to rescue Cloris. I'm ambivalent about this book, Its an okay read.

When reading Kingdomtide by Rye Curtis two words come to mind: dark and gritty.

I liked that the main character was a 72-year-old woman, not expected in books, and I always seem to enjoy books where survival is a key element. Debra, the park ranger is someone with a host of issues that makes her very real and human. Who doesn’t have their own issues to overcome in life?

The sole survivor of a plane crash, seventy-two-year-old Cloris Waldrip is lost and alone in the unforgiving wilderness of Montana’s rugged Bitterroot Range, exposed to the elements with no tools beyond her wits and ingenuity. Intertwined with her story is Debra Lewis, a park ranger struggling with addiction and a recent divorce who is galvanized by her new mission to find and rescue Cloris.

As Cloris wanders mountain forests and valleys, subsisting on whatever she can scavenge, her hold on life ever more precarious, Ranger Lewis and her motley group of oddball rescuers follow the trail of clues she’s left behind. Days stretch into weeks, and hope begins to fade. But with nearly everyone else giving up, Ranger Lewis stays true until the end.

I didn’t love some of the other quirky characters in this book but I was turning the pages, eager to see how everything played out. Cloris tells this story from in the future so we know she survives. I wonder how the story would have been if we didn’t know ahead of time that she makes it out of the wilderness?

This book is out now! Get it here.

I think the thing I'd like to most heavily emphasize is how strongly this novel gave me Twin Peaks vibes - if you love that show, pick it up, because it captures the atmosphere of that show *so well* that I wouldn't doubt the author is a fan. Movingon to the review, this tale about Cloris Waldrip, an older woman lost in the wilderness, and Deborah Lewis, the park ranger who intends to find her, is a haunting mixture of quite a few genres. The quiet and discomfort of the Montana wilderness, the characters and their eccentricities, the eeriness of Cloris's plight in the woods and her rescuer - it all blends into a very interesting take on what makes us, well, us, and how experiences change us and how stagnation changes us as well. There's a lot of rumination on how humans tick, which often comes across profoundly, but doesn't always land the mark, along with many questions into what is right and what is wrong, especially when it comes to the hunt for Cloris and how tightly Lewis clings to it. I enjoyed the characters and their parallels of likability/unlikability, which made them for real. Without spoiling it, there were some unsavory bits at the end that bumped this book down to a 3/3.5 star read for me, as well as a bit of dragging with the plot. But to summarize, if you're into stranger fare in literature, pick this up.

I was intrigued by the synopsis but it took me a while to finish the book. There were parts I really enjoyed and then parts I had to force myself to get through, I grew tired of Lewis saying GD and drinking merlot the whole time. I also didn’t like how she just leaves and we don’t know what happens to her. I liked the Cloris parts the best. I don’t think I would want to read this one again but I do look forward to seeing what else Curtis writes,

This is the tale of a plane crash in Montana and the sole survivor, Clovis, 72-years-old, and Forest Ranger Debra Lewis. Their lives intersect due to the search and rescue mission that ensues.
That is about all they have in common.
The tale is retold some 20 years after the crash by Clovis while residing in a residential care facility. She pieces her life and crash together and all her life-long beliefs are questioned.
Debra's tale is mostly told in the "now" of the crash and search efforts. She has an assortment of incredibly odd people around her. She is a drunk to the extent her teeth are stained by her ever present Merlot.
I was drawn to the story via Clovis' winding tale of survival and the mystery man with whom she comes into contact. The rest of the story was just a painful descent into the absurd. Ultimately, this wasn't the book for me.
ARC was provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45730891-kingdomtide

*3.5 stars rounded up.

August 31, 1986: Seventy-two year old Cloris Waldrip and her husband are headed to Missoula, Montana on vacation when the small plane they are flying in crashes in the mountains in the Bitterroot National Forest. Cloris is the sole survivor.

'If you are not a Methodist of a certain age likely you have not heard of Kingdomtide. It is meant to be a season of charity and unity in the Kingdom of God observed after Pentecost and before Advent. For me, it has turned out to be a season of considerable hardship and grief.'

Cloris is recounting this tale of her odyssey and survival in the wild some twenty years later from her home in assisted living in Vermont. How in the world did she survive this ordeal?

But another part of this tale is the story of the troubled park ranger, Debra Lewis, who believes Cloris somehow survived the crash and leads the rescue mission to find her, going against the advice of her boss. The only problem is that Lewis, who has been deeply disappointed in love, is quite the wino.

Interesting, deeply-flawed, all-too-human characters and a beautiful but harsh landscape make this an unforgettable read.

I received an arc of this debut novel from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinions. One criticism: I have to admit I was fairly annoyed by the lack of quotation marks. They have been the custom for a reason, Mr Curtis!

Even as I got to the halfway point of this book, I was like, “How the heck am I going to review this?!” Here is what I have boiled my feelings down to: This was a very compelling book. I wanted to know what happened and kept reading for that reason. Cloris was an interesting character in that she is not like most characters we see in popular fiction: she is elderly. I think her characterization as a Texas church lady definitely added to her depiction. Now on the other hand, Ranger Lewis is one of my least favorite characters I have experienced in a long time. She made no sense to me as she made some very odd choices. And the rest of the characters in this novel we very very odd. They were not relatable at all. Plus there is a lot of “GD” cursing and some uncomfortable open door sex scenes that I would have rather avoided. If this story didn’t suck me into wondering what had happened I would have probably DNFed it. I wavered between giving it a “meh” and “liked” rating but as I would not recommend this at all, I landed on “meh”.

Kindomtide is strange, but believable. Rye Curtis leads the reader down several roads until we reach end.

Two very different redemption/survival stories woven together. The author is able to tell an exciting adventure story even as the characters are fully developed. A great example of a book in which shifting narrative points of view adds depth and meaning.

Beautiful writing carries this story inhabited by flawed, yet intriguing, characters. Cloris interested me the most, and she tells her own story, looking back on it after 20 years. She reflects on her life before the airplane crash that is the catalyst for this story, while also telling the story of her struggles after surviving the crash. I found some of Debra's story more difficult to get into. Her relationship with Bloor was creepy. Definitely worth the read.

I enjoyed this book. I think it's because I identify so much with Cloris, the lone survivor of an small airplane crash. She is in her 70's and isn't ready to die. When she, her husband and a pilot take a sightseeing trip over the rugged Bitteroot mountains they crash. One park ranger is determined to find the crash site and rescue any survivors. This is the journey that both women take.
Set in the late 1980's it's a look into search and rescue before satellite phones and GPS locators.Well written with accurate descriptions of the wilderness and perseverance. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Kingdomtide by Rye Curtis is an odd book -- brilliant, uneven, depressing and beautifully written. The setting (the hostile, magnificent Bitterroot Mountains of Montana) is rendered in particular detail, and yet it is overshadowed by the idiosyncratic cast of characters.

It's an odd criticism, but the book offered almost too much of too many things: wilderness geography, flora and fauna; myriad sexual pecadilloes; and uncountable human pecularities, with so many oddball personalities I felt like I was immersed in Katherine Dunn's Geek Love.

When I say "uneven," I mean that some sections flowed easily and other stuttered along in fits and starts. The first-person narrative by Cloris Waldrip, a 72-year-old who survived a plane crash on an isolated mountaintop, had momentum. Her counterpoint was Debra Lewis, a forest ranger in charge of the search for Mrs. Waldrip. Lewis's third-person narration was bizarre, with the words "goddamn" and "merlot" used in nearly every paragraph.

But the writing! The language was reflective, poetic and insightful. Of the many passages I highlighted, here's the one I'll surely remember and quote again and again: "A person is too many things to be the one thing that we all want them to be for our convenience."

I strongly recommend this book. It's like nothing else you've read, or likely will read for awhile. Think of it as a literary Rorschach, or perhaps a mirror to reflect back some of the things we seldom ponder.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance readers copy.

I’m sorry but I did not care for this book. The story line following the plane crash survivor was compelling. The ranger and the characters in her story line were just too odd - I was not engaged by them or their story line. I found myself speed reading those sections to get back to the old lady story line.

My guess is that the only reason this is set in the pre-cell phone era is that the author couldn't figure out a way to not use the technology without simply not having it exist. That's a cop-out, because in the area in which this takes place cell phones might not work well - and a 70something woman might not be comfortable carrying one everywhere (let alone the fact that over a long period it wouldn't keep a charge). So from the start I had questions about the book.

Then there are the main characters, none of whom are particularly likable or sympathetic. Cloris' being so very much of her era doesn't help, without even a quirky inner monologue to give readers a reason to care. Debra's merlot addiction made me think that she'd watched Sideways too many times. And the others? Who cared? The opening is so drawn out, and with no reason to want to care about what's going on, any "good" came too late.

eARC provided by publisher.

From the description, this sounds very intriguing. An elderly couple take a small airplane ride into the Montana wilderness, but the plane crashes. The woman, Cloris, survives and begins to wander around the mountains. A forest ranger, Deb Lewis, hears about the crash and begins to look for Cloris. However, the book begins to become about Deb's self-loathing (if we had a drinking game and you had to drink every time the book mentions "merlot" you would be dead) and a few other characters that are quite weird. (A search and rescue guy that puts chalk on his hands and tends to pinch Ranger Lewis - WHY?) I HATED that Lewis had to say the word "GD" in every sentence. It almost made me put the book down. I did enjoy the relationship between Cloris and her "angel" and thought that was an interesting story line; however, there seemed to be some acceptance of perversion (you are born how you are and you can't help it when you act on your impulse). I'm not sure if that was meant to be serious or tongue-in-cheek but it's enough to make me dislike the book even more.

Thank you to Netgalley for the Advanced Copy in exchange for the honest review.

Cloris Waldrup and her husband are on a sightseeing flight over Montana’s Bitteroot Mountains when the plane goes down. The 72 year old woman is the only survivor and she doesn’t have the skills or supplies to survive. Debra Lewis, a park ranger who’s coping with the end of her marriage by self medicating, is in charge of looking for Cloris. Debra believes finding the woman alive is her best chance of starting over. The novel is set in the 1980’s, before cell phones and GPS, making the search almost impossible and as days turn to months, and both women become more desperate, the outcome seems inevitable