“Points North” will be, sadly, Howard Frank Mosher’s last book. A fitting finale to a wonderful writing career, the 10 stories in “Points North” are fond farewells to the wonderful people and places of Kingdom County, the fictional embodiment of Mosher’s beloved Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, and a lasting gift to all of us who have enjoyed his twelve novels and two memoirs over so many years.
The woods and rivers, the villages and baseball fields, the school and newspaper office, and the farmhouses and camps are all revisited to tell the last tales of love and longing,  joy and sadness, and to resolve some mysteries and unfinished fates of the characters from earlier books.
Each story is a gem. Mosher really knows how to spin a yarn, and he has put his heart into what he knew would be his last book. As he says in one of his stories, “In the end, stories and love are what we were left with,” and indeed, he has left us with the gift of both.
Editor’s Note: Howard Frank Mother passed away Jan. 29, 2017 in Irasburg. The Vermont Book Shop will host a commemorative event for this book, with local authors reading, and community members invited to do so also, Tuesday, Jan. 30 at 6:30 p.m.
— Reviewed by Grant Novak of The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury.