Redheaded Reviews: Keowee Valley by Katherine Scott Crawford

Quincey MacFadden, twenty-five, lives in Charlestown, South Carolina with her grandsire in 1768. They had been grieving over the loss of her cousin to a band of Shawnee Indians when a man shows up with his ring saying that the Shawnee still hold him alive but not for much longer. Quinn's grandfather cannot leave his business affairs to make the journey into the Blue Ridge Mountains to barter for his life, but Quinn can. Moreover, Quinn plans on using her dowry money to buy land and stay there where she can be free to be who she is: a woman who reads rides horses astride and cares not a whit for society.

Though her grandfather is against it, Quinn and the man with the information head out with a local preacher as chaperon and her worldly goods and stuff to trade for land and for Owen's life. When they arrive at Fort Prince Georgie they discover that the soldiers are abandoning the fort and that the trapper that they are looking for, Jack Wolf, to help her find her cousin isn't there. They do come across two Cherokee and they agree to take her to Attakullakulla the head of the Cherokee to barter for land. Attakullakulla agrees to see the mad woman who wants to barter for land rather than just take it or marry into it. He swaps for 400 acres with the agreement that the Cherokee can use it to hunt on and that Cherokee and those they are friends with will have safe passage across it.

While waiting for Jack Wolf to show up, she has already sent out the word that she is looking for homesteaders. The Cherokee take her to her land and soon people begin to arrive looking to work the land in exchange for a home on it. They seem surprised when she doesn't charge them for the land. Some families come as well as an ex-slave named Hosa and a former lord named Harris. They begin to build homes on the site starting with hers first.

Then Jack Wolf arrives. The half Irish half Cherokee man captivates her from the start as she does him. He tells her its way too dangerous for her to go after her cousin. That he'll go and get him for her and the voice in her head that is part of her Sight, of which she sometimes sees things to come and things that have passed, tells her to trust him, so she does. It isn't too long before her cousin is returned to her. She had hoped that he would stay and live with her, but he has had his fill of wilderness and wants to go home to boring Charlestown and work for grandfather.

Ridge Runner, Jack's half-brother hunts with him and the two would leave food for the people of the settlement. At first, his presence caused unease but gradually those that found him unsettling warmed up to him. He named the wild Arabian horse Quinn tames Fire Eater and he gives Quinn her Cherokee name Rides-Like-A-Man.

Jack wants to marry Quinn but she doesn't want to give up her land or her freedom to some man, even though he assures her he has no interest in her land and he would never dream of curtailing her freedom. On top of that, both Quinn and her cousin have both had visions of a war to come and neither knows which side the Cherokee play in it. Where she lives she should be safe from the fighting as far as they know which is why he intends to send her his soon-to-be wife at some point in the future.

This is a totally fascinating read with great characters and a fantastic storyline. The descriptions are so vivid of the lands and the people populating them. There's the ever stoic Ridge Runner who will surprise you when he does show his feelings. The wild and free Quinn who does as she likes to make the world fit her rather than the other way around, even though it probably can't last forever. The mysterious Jack with the lilt in his voice and an easy smile on his face who can always sneak up on Quinn. You might have to make some leaps of faith in the storyline like when the homestead seems to magically come together and have no problems whatsoever. But the plot goes by so fast that such plot holes can be easily overlooked. While it's a bit of a bodice ripper it's still a historic novel at the same time that illuminates a time, a people, and a place with such precision. I really enjoyed this book and I cannot recommend it enough.

Quotes

“A Duke overpowered by a woman,” Owen scoffed, tucking his hands in the pockets of this jacket and raising a rust colored eyebrow. “Why does he allow his own mother to rule over him?” Grandfather reached out, popped him lightly on the back of the head. “We’re all ruled by women, boy—you’re just too much the bantam rooster to recognize it.”