Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    To the Far Blue Mountains: The Sacketts
    Unavailable
    To the Far Blue Mountains: The Sacketts
    Unavailable
    To the Far Blue Mountains: The Sacketts
    Audiobook9 hours

    To the Far Blue Mountains: The Sacketts

    Written by Louis L'Amour

    Narrated by John Curless

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In To the Far Blue Mountains, Louis L'Amour weaves the unforgettable tale of a man who, after returning to his homeland, discovers that finding his way back to America may be impossible.

    Barnabas Sackett was leaving England to make his fortune in the New World. But as he settled his affairs, he learned that a royal warrant had been sworn out against him and that men were searching for him in every port. At issue were some rare gold coins Sackett had sold to finance his first trip to the Americas-coins believed to be part of a great treasure lost by King John years before.

    Believing that Sackett possesses the rest of the treasure, Queen Bess will stop at nothing to find him. If he's caught, not only will his dream of a life in America be lost, but he will be brutally tortured and put to death on the gallows.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateNov 22, 2005
    ISBN9780739334430
    Unavailable
    To the Far Blue Mountains: The Sacketts

    More audiobooks from Louis L'amour

    Related to To the Far Blue Mountains

    Related audiobooks

    Western Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      May 23, 2023

      Must See, Must Read
      9 min read

    • Article

      Dice Roll: Madame Mustache

      Apr 2, 2019

      Dice Roll: Madame Mustache
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Well Buried Secret

      Dec 15, 2023

      A Well Buried Secret
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Lives Of War Prisoners And An Ex-spy

      Apr 19, 2024

      Don’t allow yourself to be put off by the cumbersome title because this is a good book. South Africa’s contribution to the Allied cause in the north African deserts and Abyssinia is well known – less so that it resulted in upwards of 100 000 Italian

      2 min read

    • Article

      Spotlight On The Black Country

      Sep 28, 2023

      “BUT LET ME SAY BEFORE IT has to go,” proclaimed Wystan Auden, “it’s the most lovely country that I know.” Which part of England was he describing? Full marks for “the Black Country”. Brought up in Solihull, on the bear-and-ragged-staff side of the s

      3 min read

    • Article

      The King And The Playwright

      Apr 14, 2022

      The King And The Playwright
      5 min read

    • Article

      Great Scott!

      Aug 11, 2021

      Great Scott!
      5 min read

    • Article

      'The Debatable Land' Probes The History Of A Chink In The Scottish-English Border

      Jun 19, 2018

      British historian Graham Robb explores the land that once supported the descendents of the first king of Scotland.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Microsummit 2021

      Sep 27, 2021

      At a hotel in Las Vegas in July Immanuel X, King of Ourania (known better to numismatists as Edessa), graciously greeted His Excellency the Governor General of British West Florida. Later King Alanus of Bermania was seen enwrapped in a presentation b

      1 min read

    • Article

      Inspiring Walter Scott

      Aug 14, 2021

      Inspiring Walter Scott
      6 min read

    • Article

      Emperor Of The Imagination

      Jul 21, 2020

      Emperor Of The Imagination
      4 min read

    • Article

      Fine and Dandy

      Mar 18, 2021

      Fine and Dandy
      3 min read

    • Article

      Haunted King’s Lynn

      Jan 27, 2022

      Haunted King’s Lynn
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Carson City Mint

      Jun 21, 2021

      The Carson City Mint
      8 min read

    • Article

      Boom And Bust In Silver City

      Jan 14, 2022

      Boom And Bust In Silver City
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Coinage Of Alexander II, 1855–1881

      Oct 16, 2019

      The Emperor Nicholas I died suddenly in March 1855 and was succeeded by his eldest son, the Czarevich Alexander Nicolaevich, now to be known as Alexander II. It was an especially bad time for Russia as the Crimean War was then raging in all its fury.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Queen Of The Castle

      Sep 1, 2023

      One evening in the early 1890s, after giving a concert in St. Louis, the Polish pianist Ignacy Paderewski asked his friend George Johns whether the city had “anything novel, anything out of the ordinary, a trifle bizarre” by way of nightlife. Johns h

      8 min read

    • Article

      Carolingian Spectres

      Jun 15, 2023

      Carolingian Spectres
      9 min read

    • Article

      New World Marauder

      Oct 12, 2018

      by nick scott Gangsters aside, pirates are perhaps the most romanticised outlaws of them all. And yet the annals of fiction are packed with larcenous sea dogs whose rakish flair is not so much heavily compromised as non-existent. Robert Louis Stevens

      3 min read

    • Article

      Liar, Liar

      Apr 4, 2021

      Liar, Liar
      7 min read

    • Article

      Queen Elizabeth, Case Buster

      Feb 14, 2021

      Queen Elizabeth, Case Buster
      2 min read

    • Article

      Gold on Cariboo Creek!

      Jun 15, 2023

      No, not that Cariboo. In the mid-1890S there was a brief placer gold rush on Cariboo Creek, which emptied into the Columbia River close to Burton, not far from Nakusp, in West Kootenay. The silver riches of West Kootenay were vast, but silver did not

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Wild Colonial Boys

      Sep 17, 2020

      The Wild Colonial Boys
      7 min read

    • Article

      New World Marauder

      Dec 12, 2017

      Gangsters aside, pirates are perhaps the most romanticised outlaws of them all. And yet the annals of fiction are packed with larcenous sea dogs whose rakish flair is not so much heavily compromised as non-existent. Robert Louis Stevenson’s anti-hero

      2 min read

    • Article

      Gold Fever Goes Global

      Oct 27, 2022

      Gold Fever Goes Global
      7 min read

    • Article

      Life Hacks From History

      Aug 3, 2023

      Life Hacks From History
      3 min read

    Reviews for To the Far Blue Mountains

    4/5

    207 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      In this sequel to Sackett's Land we find our protagonist trying to escape his native England to return to the American wilderness that he loves. On the way he makes friends, defeats enemies, and has several adventures.I liked this installment a little better than the first, but both are enjoyable and engaging reads.
    • 4/5
      I'm mixed with this book. I want to give it 3 stars, because there are some serious glaring problems with Barnabas Sackett in the middle of the book. But then, I want to give it 4 stars, because L'amour seriously toys with your emotions at the end of the book, and I just wasn't ready for it. I'm still not.

      As such, I'll give it 3.5.

      Here were the problems- Barnabas Sackett is written to be a careful man. Full of reason, and logical thinking, strong brute force, good skill with a sword and a ship, and honest to a fault. So what is he doing abandoning his forts (he does this TWICE!) to trade with Europeans?

      I mean, in the first fort, an enemy Indian tribe attacks the fort with the intent to kill everyone. Barnabas successfully holds them off, killing a few Indians. The Indians retreat. Then, later, Nick Bardle, an old rival, comes on the Jolly Jack, fully armed, ready to take Sackett and his fort. Again, Barnabas holds them off and defeats them with his ship "Abagail". Bardle retreats with a damaged ship.

      So, after these two attacks, from two different enemies, and with winter approaching, and a pregnant wife, he opts for going over the Atlantic to trade. Nevermind the dangers, obviously of SAILING THE OCEAN, he comes back to find his fort destroyed and provisions gone.

      And he's surprised? Ugh.

      Then, THE VERY NEXT YEAR, he heads to the coast to trade with ships sailing by, and leaves two farmers- farmers mind you, not fighting men, to guard the fort. When he returns, one is head, and the other is wounded, but heals.

      So, how am I supposed to take this man? One one hand, he carefully navigates politics that would see him hang for an offense he hasn't committed. He takes a ship through mutiny, another through force, and yet a 3rd through careful planning and a bit of luck. He is resourceful, where he can woodcraft, hunt, plant, care for a group of people, and lead with ultimate confidence. Then, on the other hand, he's careless in leaving forts unguarded, and loses everything, forcing to start over.

      Grrrrr.

      However, Louis does something unexpected- he sends Barnabas' wife, young daughter, and aspiring son off to London. He's left alone with his sons (a good 20 years after the 2nd fort burning down). Slowly, one-by-one, everyone he know, befriended, and lead from the fens to now, leaves him for various reasons. Ultimately, he's alone with Black Tom Watkins. The two of them decide to head west, out of Virginia, past the blue mountains.

      Barnabas can't be older than 50, yet you get a feeling that he's very well near the end of his life. He feels old. He almost feels a widower, with his wife, daughter, and son gone, and his other sons scouting the western territories. He and Black Tom Watkins feel like two old guys out on a journey, checking off an item from their "bucket list".

      During their trip, they are attacked by a large group of Indians, and killed. KILLED! And that's the end of the book.

      Wait, what?! Seriously?!

      Being a father of the most amazing daughter on the planet, first I cannot imagine sending my wife and daughter off to England, while I am living in colonial America during the mid-1600s. THEN, I cannot imagine heading west! How would I expect them to find me when they came back from England?

      But it was the death of Barnabas that tugged on my emotions. His daughter will never see him again. As a father, I cannot possibly fathom the emotions that my daughter would feel if she were placed in that situation. Her laughs, her cries, her quirky personalities and behaviors. Her hugs and kisses, wrestling, and playing. All gone.

      Knowing that there are still 15 books in the series, it's hard to believe that Louis L'amour killed of THE main character after only the 2nd book. Then again, he may not have been writing the Sackett series as a series, but just as stand-alone books. Regardless, it's still quite the risk to kill off your main character, and expect your readers to be okay with it.

      As a whole, I think Louis could have done better with character development. Some characters, like Barnabas came through the page loud and clear. Other characters, such as Black Tom Watkins or Jeremy Ring, fell very flat. Some of the pacing was hit-and-miss also. At times, the chapters read very well, and you were hooked. Other chapters crawled, and I was constantly looking at the page number or clock, to see how long I've been reading.

      So, not great, but better than good. Certainly, this is a genre I didn't expect to be enjoying like I am.
    • 5/5
      This book should be read, understood by all Americans in particular for it traces their beginnings yet its visionary qualities apply to all mankind.
      There is also much to be learned and enjoyed of all that it relates to early history, of men like Ghengis Khan and Tamerlane . Louis Lamour excelled in this writing.
    • 5/5
      It is a very interesting story and well researched down to the type of ships that were used at that time. How important that education was to help to develop a person and they to develop a new country
    • 3/5
      An interesting story, and not the usual Louis L'amour tale - this one is filled with pirates, and the settling of the east by a small band led by Sackett before Jamestown. It had some pacing problems which is not normal for a Louis L'amour novel. The characters are more Davy Crockett than Clint Eastwood-esque, which was interesting.
    • 5/5
      This book continues the story of Barnabas Sackett and introduces his sons Kin, Yance, and Jubal Sackett who show up in later books in the series. People familiar with North Carolina will recognize Native American tribe names and landmarks.The story is a good one. I thought the second sight incidents were interesting as foreshadowing. I will issue a tissue warning. Who will like it? It is good historical fiction. If you like L'Amour's Westerns, you'll most likely enjoy this. If you like fiction about historical North Carolina, you'll probably like it.
    • 3/5
      The second Sackett adventure here gives some more of the grand adventure that we saw in Sackett's Land, but with somewhat less impact in my opinion. I thought Sackett's Land left off nicely setting us up for adventures in the New World, and that we didn't need so much another completely Barnabas story. His sons were introduced well here, and I am looking forward to reading more an them.L'Amour seems to like having a large number of characters in Barnabas' periphery, but they all seem to be the same character and usually the only way to tell them apart is by name. I would have liked to see fewer, more distinct characters. The story also seemed to get sidetracked by a mystical element related in a few scenes. This didn't seem to move the story along at all, and the drama we were supposed to feel in it felt forced. Maybe it will be more prominent in the later books, but even so I feel that it either should be integrated more naturally or shouldn't be included here at all.Aside from those complaints, still a fun read.
    • 4/5
      Another great Sackett book. I really enjoy books that take characters you know from previous stories and give you more about them and more about their lives.
    • 4/5
      Second volume of the Sackett series. Finishes the story of Barnabas, the founder of the family. Most of the action involves sailing, pirates, and exploring untouched wilderness. Sets up Barnabas' sons nicely for further adventures.