SUN OF SILVER, MOON OF GOLD

Author: Maureen Peters ISBN: 9780709084440 2/2008 HISTORICAL Publisher: ROBERT HALE LTD.
Time Period: 1847 America

When Flora is sent off to America to live with her uncle she leaves a home where she has always felt the odd one out. When she reaches her destination she finds her uncle already has a house-keeper who is something more to him and that behind the easy and luxurious life she has entered lay sorrow and racism. For this is the America of the mid-nineteenth century when native American Indians are being driven from their homes onto arid reservations and when the one man whom she begins to love is half Irish and half Indian and is determined not to be caught in the snare of an English girl. How she reconciles desire and duty makes a romantic and exciting story.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

SUN OF SILVER, MOON OF GOLD by Maureen Peters is a poignantly gripping tale of a young woman's assimilation into American life in the mid-nineteenth century. It is honest and well written, a peek into a time when the country still felt growing pains and the way those that peopled it suffered, as well as prospered, for those pains.

Flora arrives at her Uncle Frank's expecting quite a different situation than the one she finds. She adapts to the unfamiliar land, with its strange scenery and diverse population. It doesn't take long for Flora to realize her uncle's been told her family has been saddled with a plain, poor daughter who will surely be a spinster. His generosity and kind heart provide a place for his dead brother's daughter. Flora takes her place and finds a future for herself. She meets Brent O'Brien, a man who, like her, straddles two worlds.

I loved this story, mostly because it is filled with page after page of enthralling storytelling. There is no drag to this tale, no point where I wanted the characters to "get on with it" or move more quickly. I felt as if I had taken a trip back in time, and I loved every moment of the visit. Flora, Uncle Frank and Brent are all interesting but the numerous secondary characters really give this tale depth. The relationships between settlers and native Americans isn't told through rose-colored glasses, and this truthful storytelling brings SUN OF SILVER, MOON OF GOLD to life. Well done!

Kay James