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Charles Frazier hit the jackpot with his first novel: Cold Mountain won the National Book Award and became a critically acclaimed movie starring Nicole Kidman and Jude Law.
The literary title, about a Confederate soldier who deserts and walks home to the woman he loves, has sold 4.1 million copies.
It has been nine years since Frazier's debut, and second acts are always difficult. But if there is one eagerly awaited prestige book this fall, it's Thirteen Moons, Frazier's follow-up, which goes on sale Oct. 3 with a printing of 750,000 copies.
In a bidding war in 2002, Random House paid $8 million for the novel, a dazzling sum.
Will Thirteen Moons live up to the anticipation and hype?
Like Cold Mountain, Thirteen Moons is old-fashioned, evokes a deep sense of land and nature, and spins a love story.
It spans the 1800s and describes the adventures of an orphan, Will Cooper, who narrates the story. Cooper fights for the Cherokee Indians during the era of the "removal," when Indians were forced to leave their land.
It's based on the true story of William Holland Thomas, a white boy who was adopted by a Cherokee and later lobbied to purchase lands that today are in the trust of the Eastern Band of the Cherokees in North Carolina.
Early praise is rolling in from booksellers and some trade publications. Publishers Weekly gave the novel a starred review and described it as "a bountiful literary panorama." Kirkus called the story "a great gift to all of us, from one of our very best writers."
But Library Journal didn't find anything to like and judged the novel "tiresome."
The sleeper success of Cold Mountain was due, in part, to word-of-mouth campaigns at bookstores. And many booksellers have read early copies of Thirteen Moons.
Borders' Tom Dwyer calls it mesmerizing and notes that "historical fiction is not an easy thing to pull off." Barnes & Noble's Sessalee Hensley says the novel is "as satisfying as Lonesome Dove and as humorous as Little Big Man."
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