MANNAHATTA

Ostroff’s historical novel toggles between the present day and the early 18th century.

In Ostroff’s sequel to Caledonia (2019), we meet Hanna Duncan and her fiance, Alec Grant, on an archaeological dig in Panama. She is part of a team exploring the site of the failed Scottish settlement of Caledonia. One of those settlers was her ancestor Anna Rachel Isaacs MacArthur, which prompts the scene to shift to early-18th-century Manhattan, where Anna and her husband, having fled the settlement, will build a life. Life is hard in Manhattan. Anna has lost one baby and left her firstborn, Alexandra, back in Scotland. After many setbacks and skulduggery by very nasty people, plus luck and hard work, they prosper and even manage to get Alexandra to join them. Meanwhile, Hanna and Alec, having escaped from a dire situation in Panama themselves, are back in Scotland, where Hanna is finishing her doctorate. They are trying to come to terms with their future; Hanna was offered a teaching job stateside. Many complications follow for both Hanna and Anna in this jam-packed double story. Ostroff is an accomplished researcher and storyteller. The plot hums along nicely with the requisite cliffhangers, well-drawn characters, and accurate details. Anna is an observant Jew, Hanna just culturally so, but concerns about anti-Semitism amount to a subplot, as do the past’s sending out tentacles to the present and vice versa, a well-handled theme. The archvillain is almost a Snidely Whiplash clone, but we will indulge the author in that because other parts, such as the slave revolt in Manhattan and its horrendous aftermath, are so wrenchingly described as to be almost impossibly painful to read—a credit to the author’s skill. Ostroff tells us in an afterword that she is hard at work on another historical novel.

This exacting, well-written historical novel will delight fans of the genre.