Crossing the Valley — Terry Ray

With grief, apprehension, and a new writing assignment, Marty Chapman returns to Montana. He is not alone this time. For the first time in his life he has fallen in love. Ginny Allen is a soft-hearted, straight-talking, very strong young woman with a girlish sense of humor, who not only loves Marty but provides him the courage he has always lacked. Without Ginny, Marty would not have had the strength to return to this frightening place where he had come perilously close to losing his mind. She is open, trusting, and unafraid while Marty is skeptical of all things and all people and he lives with an ever present sense fear, yet, somehow, they have found what they need, in one another.

A defrocked preacher, a paroled killer, a Canadian misfit, a female business magnate, a dysfunctional trial lawyer, a retired philosophy professor, a high-priced prostitute, and a gay survivor of a suicide attempt, also follow Marty to the magnificent mountains. They believe in the impossible that Marty cannot allow himself, and all have been mysteriously drawn to make this journey.

Not all of them survive the experience.