Customer Reviews

Ghost Fox

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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Ghost Fox is the story of a young girl taken far from home by raiding Abnaki warriors. Living in a culture entirely alien from her own, she dreams of escape. She is taken into the tribe as a slave. After escaping and being returned to the tribe, she discovers she likes her new way of life, and that it is possible to hold a place in the tribe other than slave. She falls in love, has a child, and is taken again by English soldiers who slaughter the tribe. How she returns to her biological family, and subsequently her surviving Indian family, makes a great story.

It's an amazing saga about fear, hate, love and war. The heroine, Sarah, is abducted from her colonial home by Abnaki indians. At first she fears them but after a while she learns to understand them. I have read this book several times (both in Swedish and English) and now I have my own copy of it - and I love it!

This is a captivating story that will appeal to those who love well-written historical fiction. The author has a decided flair for epic storytelling, as the reader will be riveted to this wonderfully told tale of abduction, slavery, and love. It is the story of Sarah Wells, a seventeen year old settler from the colony of New Hampshire, who is forcibly captured by a party of Abnaki Indians, sympathetic to the French, during the time of the French and Indian Wars.

Taken to their village where she is made to live the life of a slave, Sarah develops a loving relationship with Taliwan, the gentle son of the old Abnaki Indian woman to whom she had been given in slavery. It is her relationship with Taliwan that would eventually become a pivotal one in her life.

The book is rich in the details of her life with the Abnaki, ground in the context of the times and the French and Indian Wars. It is the story of two worlds and the ways that Sarah Wells finds to straddle both. She ultimately must choose, however, one over the other. It is a choice that will eventually be a test her love.

This is an action packed story that will keep the reader turning the pages of the book until the very last. I loved this book when I first read it about twenty five years ago. In reading it again, time has not diminished this wonderfully told story.

"Ghost Fox" is a well-written, thought-provoking story of Native American and colonial settler's lives. More vivid than most books of its type, it does a wonderful job of drawing comparisons between the cold, stark, unforgiving New York wilderness winters giving way to seductive springs and the harsh, hard-working and judgemental colonial American existence giving way to the nomadic, sometimes fierce but often gentle Indian life. I felt despair, joy, emptiness, love and the bite of a New England wind as I sat reading "Ghost Fox" in my Florida home.

This is a captivating story that will appeal to those who love well-written historical fiction. The author has a decided flair for epic storytelling, as the reader will be riveted to this wonderfully told tale of abduction, slavery, and love. It is the story of Sarah Wells, a seventeen year old settler from the colony of New Hampshire, who is forcibly captured by a party of Abnaki Indians, sympathetic to the French, during the time of the French and Indian Wars.

Taken to their village where she is made to live the life of a slave, Sarah develops a loving relationship with the Taliwan, the gentle son of the old Abnaki Indian woman to whom she had been given in slavery. It is her relationship with Taliwan that would eventually become a pivotal one in her life.

The book is rich in the details of her life with the Abnaki, ground in the context of the times and the French and Indian Wars. It is the story of two worlds and the ways that Sarah Wells finds to straddle both. She ultimately must choose, however, one over the other. It is a choice that will eventually be a test her love.

This is an action packed story that will keep the reader turning the pages of the book until the very last. I loved this book when I first read it about twenty five years ago. In reading it again, time has not diminished this wonderfully told story.

I read this book in Highschool and loved it and have searched for it for many years! When I finally remembered the title and ordered through Amazon I was so excited! Upon reading a second time, it caught me again, and I still love it! The book is written so well and the tangled relationships that go on between the characters will suck you in. A classic and one I will read over and over again!

Reviewing a book with this cover, people are bound to expect it's just another one of those lurid 1970's/80's bodice rippers filled with heaving white girl breasts and turgid manly Indian members swelling to the beat of tribal war drums.

And this book is so NOT that. In fact, "Ghost Fox" could more easily be compared with another fantastic work of fiction based on true events: "Follow the River" by James Alexander Thom. Writer James Houston must have surely used some of the same non-fiction source material as Thom for this novel set during the French and Indian War. His fictional heroine Sarah Wells' escape from Indian captivity with another female captive mirrors (on a smaller scale) the journey of real life heroine Mary Draper Ingals in Thom's novel. Of the two books, I prefer Thom's because it is based on real events, but that in no way diminishes how good a novel "Ghost Fox" was for it's realistic yet grisly portrayal of life on along the New England/Canadian wilderness in the 1750's.

This is not a book for the squeamish. It has several instances of scalpings, burnings, torture and running the gauntlet. However, unlike many books, Houston shows both sides of the conflict from the European and Indian perspective, and he neither fully demonizes nor glorifies either race. We see the story unfold through the eyes of 18 year old Sarah Wells, a farm girl kidnapped by Abnaki Indians after a raid on her homestead. Sarah is marched north into Canada and begins a life of capitivity with these people. She slowly begins to adapt and appreciate their way of life, even though she abhors some of their rituals and practices. She escapes with another captive, and finds her way back home after a few years. Home, however, and her old way of life, is now foreign to her. The final chapter is the best of all, and is probably the reason I kept this book for 30 years. Sarah makes the decision as to how she will live the rest of her life, and it is bittersweet and perfect.

An older book, and probably not easy to find, but worth the read if you can find a library copy or an inexpensive copy through a used book store.

I picked up this book at a yard sale...out of curiosity. It was a super read. Lots of history and vibrant characters. If you like historical fiction, especially dealing with the First Americans...you will love this book. I could actually FEEL the cold the characters felt. Very well written. Enjoy!

This is a captivating story that will appeal to those who love well-written historical fiction. The author has a decided flair for epic storytelling, as the reader will be riveted to this wonderfully told tale of abduction, slavery, and love. It is the story of Sarah Wells, a seventeen year old settler from the colony of New Hampshire, who is forcibly captured by a party of Abnaki Indians, sympathetic to the French, during the time of the French and Indian Wars.

Taken to their village where she is made to live the life of a slave, Sarah develops a loving relationship with Taliwan, the gentle son of the old Abnaki Indian woman to whom she had been given in slavery. It is her relationship with Taliwan that would eventually become a pivotal one in her life.

The book is rich in the details of her life with the Abnaki, ground in the context of the times and the French and Indian Wars. It is the story of two worlds and the ways that Sarah Wells finds to straddle both. She ultimately must choose, however, one over the other. It is a choice that will eventually be a test her love.

This is an action packed story that will keep the reader turning the pages of the book until the very last. I loved this book when I first read it about twenty five years ago. In reading it again, time has not diminished this wonderfully told story.

I too read this book years ago, in the first flush of youth, some 20 odd years ago. The story has stayed with me ever since. It's a wonderful, wonderful book with memorable characters. I have often thought it would make for a great film but then again, what do I know? Do read this book, you won't regret it.