Monday, September 19, 2011

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel by Deborah E. Harkness

This entertaining book has something for everyone . . . history, alchemy, intrigue, witches, and vampires. Author Deborah Harkness uses her background as a professor of history at the University of Southern California and writer of an award-winning wine blog to place well-rounded characters in vivid setting. You will find yourself waiting impatiently for volume two of this trilogy!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Pomme de Terre - A Novel of the Minnesota Uprising by Candace Simar

Pomme de Terre, is the story of a newly married young couple from Burr Oak, Iowa, who set out to homestead in Hutchinson, and then Pomme De Terre, Minnesota. During 1862, however, soldiers were sent to fight in the Civil War, leaving the Minnesota frontier largely unequipped to protect settlers from the Great Sioux Uprising. Government agents refused to distribute food stores promised by the treaty agreements. Unable to hunt the lands now “owned” by the settlers, the Sioux were starving and desperate. The story follows Gust and Serena as they use their limited resources to cope with the challenges of marriage, illness, farming, fear, and loss. Candace Simar has done extensive research to support the context of the novel, and she is unusual in that she has also represented the experience and viewpoint of the Sioux Indians. Simar is an author from Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. This is her second historical novel.