Winter in the High Sierra
Robert Brighton
Publication date: October 1st 2025
Genres: Adult, Historical, Romance
November 1899. New York society belle Louisa MacGregor, heartsick after a broken engagement, flees her old life aboard the last westbound train of the season, whose track cuts through the very heart of the steep and forbidding Sierra Nevada Mountains.
When an early blizzard traps her train in a remote mountain pass, Louisa is fast asleep in her luxurious palace car. The big train proves too heavy to make it over the snow-covered summit, and the engineer makes a fateful decision: to lighten the load, he crowds all his passengers into the first two cars and leave the rest of his train behind to the mercy of the elements.
Asleep, Louisa does not hear the conductor’s urgent cries, and she and her palace car are left behind. When she awakens, she finds herself cold, alone, and deserted in the most rugged wilderness on the continent.
She is near despair when a solitary mountain man—whom she comes to know only as ‘Bandit’—locates her abandoned train. The handsome, mysterious Bandit—who seems to carry with him a deep sadness of his own—leads Louisa over the mountaintops and down to his tidy cabin, nestled in a secluded valley surrounded by the towering peaks of the High Sierra.
With no prospect of rescue until spring, Lou and Bandit must find a way to survive the deadliest winter in fifty years. Trapped in a wild mountain paradise that is by turns unspeakably beautiful and utterly terrifying, these two lost people must learn to trust each other—and, perhaps, find the true meaning of life, love, and redemption.
Rich with historical detail, wilderness adventure, and heartfelt romance, Winter in the High Sierra is a sweeping, inspirational, clean love story perfect for readers who enjoy:
Heartfelt clean romances
Nature and healing journeys
Inspirational love stories with grace
Snowbound survival stories
Western mountain wilderness stories
Historical fiction with emotional depth
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EXCERPT:
★★★★★ A beautifully written romance where love, trust, and survival intertwine. Absolute must-read!
What if your second chance came in the form of a snowstorm and a stranger who help you to see your worth before you did?
That’s the heart of Winter in the High Sierra, a powerful, clean historical romance set in the remote Sierra Nevada in 1899.
Louisa MacGregor is used to wealth, comfort, and being told what’s proper, until a broken engagement sends her fleeing west, heart in pieces. Boarding the last train out of New York, she hopes to disappear into the wilderness and leave her pain behind.
But when an unexpected storm traps the train in a mountain pass, Louisa’s car is quietly abandoned. She wakes to an empty train, deep snow, and no hope of rescue.
Then she meets Bandit, a quiet, deeply kind mountain man who offers her shelter in his isolated cabin. With no way out until spring, the two must face the elements, and their own guarded emotions.
Unlike the gruff, brooding heroes found in many survival stories, Bandit is gentle and introspective. He listens more than he speaks, and his kindness runs deep. As Lou finds her footing in this strange, wild world, she begins to rediscover her strength — and see herself through Bandit’s eyes.
Set against breathtaking landscapes and rich historical detail, Winter in the High Sierra blends survival, heartache, faith, and emotional redemption into a story that will leave you deeply moved and enjoying every word. Funny, moving, and a real page-turner. You won’t want to put it down, trust me.
you’ll love this clean, character-driven romance with a slow burn and a strong sense of place.
Don’t miss this unforgettable journey. Grab your copy of Winter in the High Sierra today and let it carry you away to a cozy escape.
Author Bio:
Acclaimed author Robert Brighton is an authority on the Gilded Age, and a great believer that the Victorian era was anything but stuffy. In his immersive fiction books, Brighton exposes the turbulence of the era - its passions, dreams, and disasters - against a backdrop of careful research on the places, sights, sounds, and smells of the time.
When he is not walking the streets in the footsteps of the Avenging Angels, sniffing out unsolved mysteries, Brighton is an adventurer. He has traveled in more than 50 countries around the world, personally throwing himself into every situation his characters will face - from underground ruins to opium dens - and (so far) living to tell about it.
A graduate of the Sorbonne, Paris, Brighton is an avid student of early 20th Century history and literature, an ardent and relentless investigator, and an admirer of Emily Dickinson and Jim Morrison. He lives in Virginia with his wife and their two cats.
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