CALEB'S CROSSING by Geraldine Brooks, 2011.

Beautifully written and carefully researched, Brooks has penned an eloquent story concerning the little known Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a Waupanaug Indian from Martha's Vineyard, and the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Told from the point of view of the spirited Bethia Mayfield, daughter of a Calvinist missionary preacher, life on Martha's Vineyard during the seventeenth century was often harsh and hard, even though the island itself held wonderful natural beauty. Bethia meets Caleb, the son of a chieftain, unexpectedly one day when they are both children, and because of the strictness of the times, continue meeting in secret as they become young adults. Bethia learns much from Caleb about the wonders of the island, and Caleb, offered the opportunity of tutoring with Reverend Mayfield along with Mayfield's son Makepeace and another native boy, Joel, sees a chance to become a missionary to his people through education. This opportunity, as well as the minister's mission work, disturbs the island's medicine men, and a struggle over the old and new ways ensues in which Caleb becomes the prize...Caleb eventually finds himself at Harvard, studying Latin and Greek alongside scions of colonial leaders, and Bethia, who longs for an education herself, is summoned to go to Cambridge along with her brother and support his efforts at Harvard. As Caleb undergoes the struggle of trying to find his place in this new arena, Bethia tries desperately to find her own destiny in a rigid society in which few women have a voice. Brooks writes wonderfully well, providing excellent period details of the two cultures, using language of the time period, and keeps her storylines seamlessly interwoven. My only complaint is that because so little facts are known about Caleb and Brooks chooses to have Bethia tell the story, I never felt truly involved with Caleb or that I knew him as a person. Perhaps if Caleb had been the narrator it would have been more meaningful. Even so, overall, I found this a thoughtful, interesting, and provocative story of one Native American's hope of living peacefully with the colonists and his own people through education and faith in God.

THE WOLVES OF ANDOVER by Kathleen Kent, 2010.
Kent's first book, The Heretic's Daughter, was a much better read for me than this one. Here she relates the backstory of Thomas Carrier (aka Morgan) and Martha Allen, both of whom were major characters in the previous novel. Set during 1673, Thomas is indentured to a farmer cousin of Martha's near Billerica, Massachusetts. Martha meets Thomas and comes to know and love him while she is attending her cousin Patience's difficult pregnancy. Unknown to Martha (and most of the others) for most of the book, is that Thomas is a regicide, that he in fact wielded the axe that decapitated King Charles I in 1649 under Cromwell's orders. Along with other participants in the execution, Thomas escaped to Puritan New England and has been living there under a different name and has been protected from those who seek to avenge the dead king. However, King Charles II, bent on rounding up those who murdered his father, has sent more assassins after the regicides, and once Martha learns Thomas' secret, she realizes that she and all those near Thomas are also in danger. Part mystery, part romance, and part thriller, Kent does an excellent job with historical details, showing the dirt and filth, the political turbulence and violence, everyday customs, hunting, threshing fields, fashions, foods, and hard life during the seventeenth century. As interested as I was to know more about Thomas and Martha and their story, I found this rather tough going--just not as compelling as their lives during the high drama of the Salem witch hysteria. Simply a personal preference, in reading this it felt like something was lacking in this effort. Not a bad read, just not as good as it should have been.

Finished two books recently:

NINTH DAUGHTER: AN ABIGAIL ADAMS MYSTERY by Barbara Hamilton (2009), and ST. SIMONS MEMOIR by Eugenia Price (1978).

Ninth Daughter is the first in a projected series in which Abigail Adams (yes, that Abigail Adams) turns her hand to solving mysteries. In this story, set in Boston in 1773 on the eve of the Boston Tea Party, Abigail literally stumbles over a hideously slashed female body in the kitchen of a friend, Rebecca Malvern, who has disappeared. When the body turns out to be that of a spy, and Abigail's husband, John, is implicated, she uses her prowess and Yankee ingenuity to ferret out the real murderer. In the process, she finds an unlikely ally in British Lieutenant Coldstone, who is assigned to the case. Suspects abound, including members of the Sons of Liberty, neighbors, and British sympathizers, and the author does a credible job of keeping the reader wondering. Plenty of period detail, but the pacing might have been a bit faster. Interesting premise, though, be curious to see what happens next with the series.

St. Simons Memoir is the story of how Eugenia Price discovered St. Simons Island, Georgia, by accident in 1960, moved there, and came to love it as her own. Determined to become a novelist after a career as a nonfiction author, she found St. Simons while on a trip, discovered what became the germ of her first novel, and ended up moving permanently to the island. The book is full of her discoveries there: her acceptance by the people there, the friends she made, and the stories she found, the information she gathered about the people who became the characters in her novels, the historic sites she came to know, all of which became a part of her St. Simons Trilogy of novels. A very interesting memoir of a writer living and working in the place she writes about. It's a very heartfelt tribute to the inspiration Price received from all those who became like a family to her and aided her in so many ways during her career writing historical fiction. The St. Simons novels, particularly New Moon Rising, have been favorites of mine since high school, so I was interested in reading about Price's discovery of this island and her many experiences there.

Finished last night:

BLINDSPOT by Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore, 2008.
Written by two historians, this novel is set in Boston in 1764, a time when the British are beginning to irritate the Colonials with various taxes to pay for their wars with the French. An undercurrent of rebellion exists, much talk of liberty and equality. The two main characters are Fanny Easton, a young woman of quality who has fled the home of her abusive father, and a recently arrived portrait painter, Stewart Jameson, who has fled London and is one step ahead of his creditors. Fanny has disguised herself as a boy and gets herself hired by Jameson as an apprentice under the name of Francis Weston; meanwhile, Stewart is trying to drum up business to pay off his creditors and needs Francis to help. Stewart, older, attractive, and attracted to both sexes, finds himself becoming attracted to his serving boy (and fighting it); they both become involved in the case of a prominent man being poisoned; Fanny is concerned about her young half sister (a slave); plus she is having her own feelings for her master; then the arrival of Stewart's old friend and lover Dr. Ignatius Alexander, a well educated, cultured free black, adds extra spice to the plot. Great detail and feel for the period, but at times the story drags from too much information. Could have used some more editing, I think; a good story overall, but at times it was slow going.

Finished on 7/8/08:

BOUND by Sally Gunning, 2008.
A thoroughly entertaining and researched novel concerning a girl named Alice Cole, who at 7 years old, arrived in Boston with her father in 1756, after losing her mother and brothers to death while at sea. Her father sells her as an indentured servant to work for Mr. Morton for 7 years, then disappears from her life forever. Morton treats her well, raises her with his own daughter, Abigail. But when Nabby marries Emery Verley, Alice goes with them as a gift, is sexually abused and humiliated by Verley and mistreated by Nabby, and finally runs off, stowing away on a ship in Boston harbor. She ends up in Satucket on Cape Cod, taken in by Widow Berry and Mr. Freeman. The novel explores Alice's further trials and tribulations, including the consequences of running away, an unwanted pregnancy, attraction to the widow's grandson, alleged murder, and the unsettled political climate of the times. Great detail, interesting, informative narrative, an intriguing heroine, and about a topic that is probably often overlooked: indentured slavery. Recommended.