Where the Fire Falls Review

Title:  Where the Fire Falls 

Author: Karen Barnett 

Series: Vintage National Parks book 2 

Chapters: 29

Pages: 344

Genre: Christian Historical fiction 

Rating: 4 stars 

Publisher: Waterbrook

Where the Fire Falls by Karen Barnett is the second book in the Vintage National Parks series, and even though it's the second book in a series it can be read as a standalone novel.  This book is set at Yosemite National Park in California in the late 1920s.  Olivia Rutherford is an artist running from her past and Clark Johnson is back country guide at Yosemite also running from the mistakes of his past. 

I loved learning about a national park that I haven't been to and learning about the history of the park. While I didn't love this one as much as the first book in the series but I still enjoyed reading this book and I look forward to finishing the series and reading Karen's backlist. 

The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn review

Title:  The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn

Author: Lori Benton 

Pages:400

Genre: Christian Historical fiction, Christian Historical Romance 

Rating: 5 star 

Publisher:  5 stars 

The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn is the third book by Lori Benton that I have read, and I have to say that it is my favorite that I've read.  Tamsen is a woman whos determined to save herself but she also knows when she needs help though it is hard for her to ask for help.   Jesse Bird is by far one of my new favorite historical fiction heroes. Lori Benton even pens one of my favorite lines from a book to describe him ”A knight in greasy buckskin" and I have to say it suits him.   He's a man who doesn't know his past he was captured by the Shawnee as a child adopted, and then lost his Shawnee home and has since been raised by Cade a half Delaware half white man. But there's more to that relationship than Jesse knows. 

I was hooked from the first sentence of the audiobook of the book. I wanted to find out what happened but on the same note, I didn't want the book to end.   I loved the North Carolina setting especially the mountains.  As well as the brief trek into what would eventually become modern-day Tennessee.

I look forward to catching up on the rest of Lori's books but I don't think any others will top this one.

I recommend this book to fans of Christian Historical Fiction and Christian Historical romance. As well to fans of Laura Frantz's Courting Morrow Little. 

Review of Burning Sky

Title:  Burning Sky 

Author: Lori Benton 

Pages: 416

Genre: Christian Historical fiction 

Rating: 4 stars 

Publisher:  Waterbrook

Burning Sky is the second book that I've read by Lori Benton that I've read and it is her first book.  Willa Obenchian who was renamed Burning Sky when she was abducted by the Mohawk has returned to the New York Frontier that she called home before she was kidnapped. Along the way, she rescues Neil MacGregor and his dog.  However, not everyone is happy that Willa has come back from the dead so to speak.  Many of her former friends see her as ruined goods from her time among the Mohawk.  Others still want her father's land and will go to any means to get it.

I enjoyed this one but I didn't like it as much as I did the first book that I read, but I did like the fact that she wrote about the Mohawk and other Natives in a truthful and respectable way.  Not many historical fiction writers do that.  They seem to want to make the Natives the villain of the story from the get-go even if actual history wasn't that black and white. There were a lot of gray areas. History can't be tied up in a neat little bow even if we would want it to.  

Most readers might think that there's a slight love triangle in the novel, but to me, there wasn't one at least not from Willa's point of view. 

I look forward to reading other books by this author.