A Road through the Mountains »

Elizabeth McGregor has held jobs as a patent attorney manager, teacher, and antiques dealer. But it was winning a national short story competition that brought her to her passion for writing. Her previous book The Ice Child turned her life around and established an international reputation, selling in 17 countries. A Road Through the Mountains was written soon afterward. Elizabeth lives with her daugther Kate on the south coast of England, in Dorset, where she is completing her new novel.


From the Hardcover edition.

From Elizabeth McGregor comes an unforgettably moving, richly layered novel with a timeless love story at its core. Beautiful, suspenseful, hauntingly erotic, A Road Through the Mountains tells of one woman's extraordinary journey to a new life with the help of the man she thought she'd lost long ago—a journey that will take hold of your heart.

Anna Russell is a talented painter and single mother. Her daughter, Rachel, is a ten-year-old whose undoubtedly gifted mind is trapped by a form of autism known as Asperger Syndrome. When a car accident leaves Anna in a coma, both their lives—and the lives of all those around them—are changed forever.

Across the Atlantic, David Mortimer receives an unexpected phone call from Anna's mother. The scientist is stunned to learn that he's a father. His long-ago affair with Anna was short and intense; when she suddenly returned home to the States, David slipped into a reclusive life of research, haunted by memories of the girl who'd left him without explanation. Now he knows he must break his self-imposed isolation, go to Boston and the woman he's always loved, meet the child he never knew he had—and perhaps coax them both out of their silence.

But as David attempts to put together the puzzle of Anna's life as an artist, mother, and daughter, he finds himself involved in a relationship with Anna far more intimate than he expected. Why did she leave him so many years before? Where, as she lies in a coma, is she now? And how is it that he loves this woman even after all these years? When he stumbles across Anna's mysterious fascination with the rare flowers that were once their shared passion, he and Rachel, their beautiful, sensitive child, may just have discovered how to help Anna find a way back—a road through the mountains.

Lyric, tender, as fragile and enduring as love itself, A Road Through the Mountains draws upon its author's personal experiences and establishes Elizabeth McGregor as a major storyteller.

The Washington Post - Julia Livshin

McGregor, whose previous novel was The Ice Child, has a real gift for character, and the people here come naturally and vividly to life. (Perhaps the one exception is James, who seems suspiciously like a plot device.) The ending may seem a tad abrupt and tidy, but these are small marks against a remarkably accomplished and poignant book. Not least of its charms are the lovely descriptive passages about flowers (McGregor did research at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston) and the evocative Chinese landscapes that connect Anna to David and are her bridge back into the world.