The Wall Street Journal called Howard Frank Mosher "a writer of power and originality"; the Boston Herald called his writings "lovingly forged, understated, and laden with images that surprise and haunt." In Northern Borders, the author of A Stranger in the Kingdom and Where the Rivers Flow North returns with a novel full of the warmth, wisdom, and wry humor that have won him a devoted following among readers, writers, and critics alike.

In the summer of 1948, six-year-old Austen Kittredge is sent by his widowed father to spend the summer with his grandparents on their farm in Lost Nation Hollow, near Vermont's Canadian border, with the hope that he will remain and attend school there. Northern Borders is the story of life in Lost Nation over the next twelve years.

The past and present lives of the Kittredge family, their friends, and their neighbors unfurl like an heirloom quilt: county fairs, game hunting, dam building, one-room schools, family secrets, family conflicts, family tragedies, and family reunions. At the center of the story are Austen's grandparents, whose stalwart pride, fierce Puritan diligence, and sheer cussedness (their marriage is known as the Forty Years' War) embody the spirit of the Lost Nation community.

1. In Northern Borders, Howard Frank Mosher has given us a masterfully crafted story that finds grace, humor, and love in the quiet beauty and sometimes awesome harshness of rural life itself.