Reaching Rocky Mountain Jim, A Novel Based on the True Life Stories of James Nugent and Isabella Bird

It has been a long time coming. Ever since booklovers started reading Isabella Bird’s famous 1879 travelogue, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains,readers have been curious about the character of James Nugent, better known as Rocky Mountain Jim. Yet, only a trifling has ever been written about him.Reaching Rocky Mountain Jim, A Novel Based on the True Life Stories of James Nugent and Isabella Bird brings together little known facts about the man while expanding on the compelling relationship that develops between two people who could not be more opposite.In 1873, Rocky Mountain Jim is a hunter and trapper in Estes Park, a settlement just forming in the Colorado Territory. Scarred not only physically from a vicious grizzly bear attack, but emotionally from previous war experiences, he now lives alone in his cabin.When strong-willed Englishwoman, Isabella Bird, visits the area, and Jim acts as her guide in a treacherous ascent up Longs Peak Mountain, an unlikely but undeniable attraction develops between the two. Complicating Jim’s life further is powerful Lord Dunraven, who schemes to turn the region into his own private game preserve. Jim struggles to keep Estes Park safe from Dunraven’s greed while fighting for a commitment from Isabella.Reaching Rocky Mountain Jim is historical fiction that completes the story between Jim and Isabella, told amidst a stunning, rugged landscape and a frontier that is just beginning to learn its potential.