Deepwater by Pamela Jekel

But what you’ll have instead will be burnished and hardened and battle-proven as this land. And that, to me, is a richer love. It’s a real marriage.

Deepwater is a very chunky book (with tiny font!) set in the Cape Fear region of North Carolina. The story spans several generations, from 1711 through the end of the Civil War and Restoration period. The prologue begins with the lost settlement of Roanoke (including the author’s spin on what happened to those who went missing), and is then broken into three parts. In the first, sisters Tess and Glory Hannock aren’t willing to let something like a marriage separate them when Tess marries a dashing privateer. It isn’t true love forever, but Tess isn’t one to let that stop her and through her experiences we watch the colony grow and prosper until those little disputes with the King over taxation without representation get started…

The second section is centered around Tess’s niece Della (younger sister Glory’s daughter). Della’s been spoiled and travelled abroad, and when she comes home she hones in on wealthy plantation owner Phillip Gage and she’s determined to marry him and become mistress of Deepwater. Phillip is loyal to King George, so you can imagine things get a bit complicated when just about everyone else is on the rebel side, including his wife. The last third of the book begins in 1850 and is centered around Phillips heir, Laurel Gage. Laurel marries a Quaker and owning slaves is not the *done thing* for him, but paying for labor takes its toll on Deepwater and slowly eats away at the acreage and profits.

That’s about all you need to know. This is one of those books that is too difficult to recap without writing a book report, and I’m not of a mind to do it. I liked this a lot, especially as the story focused on the people and the land, there really wasn’t a lot of interaction with real historical characters. Better still, despite the two wars involved in the story, there are no real battle scenes, nor are they touched upon in any great detail – no endless info dumps telling the reader about every major battle in excruciating detail. How refreshing. The only downside that might be a deal breaker is that these aren’t a set of characters you’re going to get emotionally involved with; nor do any of the three women have a great *love story*. If you’re looking for romance, I suggest you keep on looking.

Last quibble, and nothing to do with the book itself, but part of the publisher’s blurb:

Seleta…The wife of a Quaker abolitionist, she saw her beloved land fall to the Yankees. Yet is wasn’t the horror of war that became her greatest challenge…it was her battle to save her young son.

Ummmm, Seleta was Laurel’s daughter and wasn’t a grown woman with children until well towards the end of the book and she was pretty much out of the picture by then.

It’s a good thing you-know-who hasn’t reviewed it. Then we’d finally know whether or not she reads the books 🙂

Our Lives, Our Fortunes by Janice Young Brooks

Tags

North Carolina

Basic setup: Lilia’s father dies unexpectedly without a will and everything goes to a distant cousin who isn’t interested in sharing the money with anyone. With no dowry and not willing to live penniless on another’s bounty, she convinces family servant Rob MacAllister to marry her and they head for the colonies to seek their fame and fortune. They purchase what they believe to be a large piece of land with a home along the Cape Fear river in North Carolina, but it isn’t quite as represented – all they find is a narrow strip of land hotly disputed between the two neighboring plantation owners.

Lilia and Rob aren’t willing to sell, even though their efforts at raising indigo have lackluster results. Tragedy strikes (doesn’t it always?) and Lilia’s left in quite a pickle and she uses her ownership of that land to blackmail wiggle her way into the *cough* loving arms of the Gordon family. Surprisingly to some, Lilia adapts well to her new home, but things are not smooth sailing between she and her new husband and misunderstandings and petty jealousies abound (oh boy, do the petty jealousies abound).

I’ve really enjoyed reading JYB’s books and have a few more on the pile, but this one just didn’t work well for me, especially the latter half. I love a bitch we love to hate as much as the next person, but Nichola was just too OTT and slutty to the point of straining credulity, and the big misunderstandings surrounding her wore very thin after a while. It was also unfortunate that the events leading up to and through the American Revolution mostly happened *off-screen* so the reader only hears about them second-hand, ending up with too much telling instead of showing. Bah. Not recommended.

FTC? A genuine Amazon Verified purchase.

The Rebellion of Jane Clarke by Sally Gunning

   The book begins in 1769 as the Winslows and Clarkes battle over water rights and a horse – was it Jane’s father who whacked off the ears of the Winslow horse?  Jane defies her father and despite the heated political sentiments decides to ship her off to tend to Aunt Gill in Boston.  Jane settles in and cares for her elderly aunt, but her world is soon torn asunder when she witnesses British troops shoot down five civilians (the Boston massacre), inflaming the rest of the town to a heated frenzy. Jane’s brother was shot, but he survived and the two have different recollections of what really happened.

Will Jane’s relationship with her brother survive their disparate testimony at the subsequent trials? Will Jane find more than she bargained for living with Aunt Gill? Will she marry the man her father choses or find love with another in Boston?I’m not sure if it was me or my current mood (life was a bit off-kilter the last week or so), but I never warmed to Jane nor cared much what happened to her. I really had a hard time keeping track of some of the lesser characters, as well as events as related by the author. Perhaps I’m a bit dense but I couldn’t always tell exactly what was going on – the writing was too obtuse for my tastes – and in the end the author just did not suck me into her world. A shame as the massacre and ensuing aftermath should make for gripping reading, but it just didn’t work for this reader – I didn’t feel the crowd’s anger nor the soldier’s fear of the crowd – I didn’t feel anything at all. A good book, just not a great one.

My review is based on an ARC I received through Librarything Early Reviewers.

An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

Tags

historical fiction, North America

Echo picks up where A Breath of Snow and Ashes left off as Claire and Jamie Fraser and Jamie’s nephew Ian leave life at Fraser’s Ridge behind them, head for Scotland to pick up Jamie’s printing press and return to America. Of course this is Jamie and Claire we’re talking about so there is no smooth sailing and the *road* to Scotland is mired with many side-trips and detours as well. Roger and Bree have returned to the present and settled into life at Lallybroch, although they’re also in for a few twists and turns and bumps in the night as well. William is now an adult and an officer in the British army and we see quite a bit more of him – will he and Jamie ever meet face to face? Who is the mysterious man searching for Fergus and what secrets might he reveal about his birth parents?

You’ll find new friends among the old from the previous books (and a couple of very surprising returns), although IMHO there are waaaaay too many new friends as well as waaaay too much of Lord John and characters from his books. I’m not that fond of Lord John as a major character and that’s why I didn’t read the books to begin with and consider it dirty pool to muck up Jamie and Claire’s story with Lord John’s, particularly that little plot twist at the end. Eww ewww ewww ewww ewww. Diana, how could you?

In the end, I’m wondering if I’ve changed as a reader, or has Gabaldon changed and/or got a bit sloppy? I’ve heard many complain about her going on in too much detail in the other books but I was so enraptured with them I wouldn’t have wanted to have seen one word edited out. Not so here, the story just rambles on and on with needless plot twists and characters that go nowhere (for shame what she did with Benjamin Franklin), and as for the overly verbose details – I did not need to know every minute detail of every medical procedure performed by Claire and most especially not the removal of Jamie’s finger.

Worst of all, was the constantly switching point of views (I believe there are seven) leading to a very uneven, choppy flow and I was always able to put this down and walk away from it – frankly half way through I started another book and finished that before coming back to Echo.  Cut a good chunk of the first 2/3 of the book out and flesh out the last and keep it moving a bit more instead of ending it as she did with those maddening cliff-hangers this would be a solid five star read. As it is and I can’t believe I’m saying it but –.