Although a work of fiction, Never Summer is based on real events. The novel breathes life into one of the most colorful episodes in Colorado history, the epic battle over Bowen Gulch. In the story a handful of gutsy activists take on the state's powerful logging industry. Their desperate fight to save one of the last great places generates plenty of friction in a tale loaded with action and suspense. The young hero, Tom Lacey, just out of college, finds himself torn between the work he has grown to love and a dawning awareness of issues bigger than himself. The delicate intersection of real history and the imagination makes for a powerful coming-of-age story, embellished with an exquisite love affair and some hilarious hi-jinks. The events are set in the late 1980s, before cell phones and the consolidation of the US media; which explains the story's nostalgic appeal. The novel spares no effort to accurately portray the state's ecology and the logging culture of the day, down to t