by Alethea Williams ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 9, 2016
An involving, richly atmospheric historical novel about the clash of cultures in frontier America.
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The lives of two strangers converge in a 19th-century Native American encampment in this historical novel from Williams (Walls for the Wind, 2015, etc.).
This story is based in part on the experiences of David Thompson, a real-life 19th-century Hudson’s Bay Company fur trader who left behind an account of his adventures. Williams has absorbed that story, mixed it with several other histories of Hudson’s Bay Company’s interactions with Native American peoples in the Rocky Mountains, and produced a richly detailed novel that displays a consistent but low-key authority. The stand-in for Thompson here is 17-year-old Donal Thomas, an indentured servant of the company who’s sent to live with the Pikani (also known as the Naapiikoan) for the course of a brutal winter in order to learn their ways and lay the groundwork for trading relations. He’s surprised to find in their encampment a young woman who’s not Pikani—a healer who’s been living among the tribe for years. She’s Isobel Ochoa y Ramirez, the daughter of Mexican hacienda-owner Don Armando Ochoa, and when she was a small child, Apache warriors captured her and her father; they killed him, enslaved her, and taught her the rudiments of medicine. These were brutal, lonely years in which “she believed in nothing, and loved no one,” and they ended only when Utes tribesmen kidnapped her and eventually traded her to the Pikani. Williams tastefully mines the dramatic potential of his characters’ outsider statuses, and his portrayals of Donal’s and Isobel’s perspectives are pointedly well-done. However, the novel’s greatest strength lies in its evocation of the cultures and political tensions among the Native American peoples it chronicles, from the Apache to the Ute to the Pikani to the Peeagan to the Blackfoot. The personalities and dialogue in these sections bring the old cultures to life—a literary territory that’s been well-marked-out in books by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear. The book fritters away its building tension in the closing act, but in general, Williams has crafted an absorbing reading experience.
An involving, richly atmospheric historical novel about the clash of cultures in frontier America.Pub Date: May 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5327-1056-8
Page Count: 296
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Susan Crandall ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 2, 2013
Young Starla is an endearing character whose spirited observations propel this nicely crafted story.
Crandall (Sleep No More, 2010, etc.) delivers big with a coming-of-age story set in Mississippi in 1963 and narrated by a precocious 9-year-old.
Due in part to tradition, intimidation and Jim Crow laws, segregation is very much ingrained into the Southern lifestyle in 1963. Few white children question these rules, least of all Starla Caudelle, a spunky young girl who lives with her stern, unbending grandmother in Cayuga Springs, Miss., and spends an inordinate amount of time on restriction for her impulsive actions and sassy mouth. Starla’s dad works on an oil rig in the Gulf; her mother abandoned the family to seek fame and fortune in Nashville when Starla was 3. In her youthful innocence, Starla’s convinced that her mother’s now a big singing star, and she dreams of living with her again one day, a day that seems to be coming more quickly than Starla’s anticipated. Convinced that her latest infraction is about to land her in reform school, Starla decides she has no recourse but to run away from home and head to Nashville to find her mom. Ill prepared for the long, hot walk and with little concept of time and distance, Starla becomes weak and dehydrated as she trudges along the hot, dusty road. She gladly accepts water and a ride from Eula, a black woman driving an old truck, and finds, to her surprise, that she’s not Eula’s only passenger. Inside a basket is a young white baby, an infant supposedly abandoned outside a church, whom Eula calls James. Although Eula doesn’t intend to drive all the way to Nashville, when she shows up at her home with the two white children, a confrontation with her husband forces her into becoming a part of Starla’s journey, and it’s this journey that creates strong bonds between the two: They help each other face fears as they each become stronger individuals. Starla learns firsthand about the abuse and scare tactics used to intimidate blacks and the skewed assumption of many whites that blacks are inferior beings. Assisted by a black schoolteacher who shows Eula and Starla unconditional acceptance and kindness, both ultimately learn that love and kinship transcend blood ties and skin color.
Young Starla is an endearing character whose spirited observations propel this nicely crafted story.Pub Date: July 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-0772-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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by Lisa Wingate ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 6, 2017
Wingate sheds light on a shameful true story of child exploitation but is less successful in engaging readers in her...
Avery Stafford, a lawyer, descendant of two prominent Southern families and daughter of a distinguished senator, discovers a family secret that alters her perspective on heritage.
Wingate (Sisters, 2016, etc.) shifts the story in her latest novel between present and past as Avery uncovers evidence that her Grandma Judy was a victim of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and is related to a woman Avery and her father meet when he visits a nursing home. Although Avery is living at home to help her parents through her father’s cancer treatment, she is also being groomed for her own political career. Readers learn that investigating her family’s past is not part of Avery's scripted existence, but Wingate's attempts to make her seem torn about this are never fully developed, and descriptions of her chemistry with a man she meets as she's searching are also unconvincing. Sections describing the real-life orphanage director Georgia Tann, who stole poor children, mistreated them, and placed them for adoption with wealthy clients—including Joan Crawford and June Allyson—are more vivid, as are passages about Grandma Judy and her siblings. Wingate’s fans and readers who enjoy family dramas will find enough to entertain them, and book clubs may enjoy dissecting the relationship and historical issues in the book.
Wingate sheds light on a shameful true story of child exploitation but is less successful in engaging readers in her fictional characters' lives.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-425-28468-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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by Lisa Wingate
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