I was anxious to read Burning Sky because it had mopped up three awards at the Christys which is an unheard of honor: Best First Novel, Best Historical, and Best Novel of the Year 2014. In addition, it won a Grace Award in 2013, and was on the 2014 INSPY Short List for Authors although it didn’t win. When I hear such acclaim, I can usually count on not liking the book. However, Burning Sky was a wonderful exception! The book is beautifully written, suspenseful, educational, and romantic.

The plot: woman captured by the Mohawks comes back to her original home after losing her Indian husband and two children to smallpox. She finds her parents gone and much of their farm destroyed, reputedly from an Indian attack. However, on her way there, she comes across an injured man, makes a travois and drags him with him to her destination. How she nurses him back to life, survives the discomfort and downright antipathy of some of the settlers in the nearby village, and becomes once again her pre-captivity self, is one of the greatest reads I’ve had in recent years! I won’t tell you more except that the journey Burning Sky makes to becoming Wilhelmina Obenchain again in the New York of 1784 is one that you won’t want to miss taking. You can bet I’ll be reading her next novel, too. Five stars from me, too!