HF Book Tours: Blood Moon: A Captive’s Tale by Ruth Hull Chatlien

Title: Blood Moon: A Captive’s Tale
Author:  Ruth Hull Chatlien
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Amika Press
Publish Date: June 14, 2017
Source: HF Virtual Book Tours

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Southern Minnesota, August 1862. Smoke fills the horizon and blood soaks the prairie as the Sioux fight to drive white settlers from their ancestral homeland. Sarah Wakefield and her young son and baby daughter are fleeing for their lives when two warriors capture them. One is Hapa, who intends to murder them. The other is Chaska, an old acquaintance who promises to protect the family. Chaska shelters them in his mother’s tepee, but with emotions running so high among both Indians and whites, the danger only intensifies. As she struggles to protect herself and those she loves, Sarah is forced to choose between doing what others expect of her and following her own deep beliefs."

My Two Cents:

 "Blood Moon" is the story of Sarah, a woman who had a very tough early life and was thrown out of the house for not sins of her own but the sins of her stepfather. When she marries a doctor after being abandoned by her family, she finally thinks that the rough part of her life is over. On the frontier of Minnesota, there is still danger all around as Sarah and her children are taken by warring Native American tribes. Sarah will once again have to use her mental toughness to survive and to help her children survive.

The characters in this book are all well drawn and fascinating. Our main character, Sarah is especially interesting. While other white captives seem to fight the Native Americans every step of the way, Sarah strongly believes that showing kindness and respect to her captors is the way to ensure her life and the lives of her children are not taken. This will not make her many friends among the other white captives who begin to see Sarah as a traitor who actually cares for the Sioux that have taken them. I found the juxtaposition between how Sarah treats her captors (and how they treat her back) and how the other captives act (and how the Sioux treat them) absolutely fascinating. Yes, this book is about the Sioux wars of the mid-1800s but it also has a more universal message, which I really enjoyed.

I will admit that I didn't know much about this time period and the events in the book. I really liked how much historical detail the author packed into the book. I loved reading about the home life of the settlers as well as the Native Americans. The author does a great job of bringing both the characters that fill this book as well as the vast settings to life. This is a good book that brought me to a new time and place!