From Publishers Weekly
Half-Choctaw Rachel LeMoyne tries to make peace between her Presbyterian upbringing and the Choctaw culture in this simplistic historical romance, which travels the Trail of Tears in 1832, visits Ireland during the potato famine and ends with the 1848 Wagon Trail in Oregon. Chosen by the missionaries and the Indian Council to go to Ireland as a representative of the Choctaw Nation, Rachel brings corn to West Ireland, where starvation is at its worst. There she meets 25-year-old millwright Darragh Ronan, a widower who has lost his entire family to the hunger and who is sent to prison for using his landlord's mill to grind Rachel's maize. Rachel smuggles Darragh out of jail by marrying him, and the newlyweds, now in America and pursued by the authorities, travel west as members of a wagon train. Threats from other Indian tribes, snakebite, a buffalo hunt and tensions with a bigoted wagonmaster punctuate their journey, as Rachel and Darragh journey to Oregon, falling in love in the process. The latest installment in Forge's Women of the West series, Charbonneau's (Waltzing in Ragtime) superficial saga is predictable but partly redeemed by its colorful atmosphere and brave, resourceful heroine.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA?This fictional story is based on a footnote from the March 13, 1847, diary entry of Gerald Keegan, an Irish school teacher and victim of the Irish Famine of 1845-1850. Rachel LeMoyne is a mixed-blood Choctaw student in a missionary school in Oklahoma when her teachers select her to accompany them to Ireland to help distribute corn to the starving multitudes. Well researched and beautifully written, the story takes readers from Oklahoma to Ireland, where Rachel meets Darragh, an Irishman who assists in her project and is declared an outlaw by the English. The couple marry and return to America; they journey first to St. Louis, and then across the frontier to Oregon. Along the way, readers learn about the Trail of Tears, the settlement of the West, and the many pioneers who peopled the area in the 1840s and 1850s. Hardships, difficult river crossings, and snakes make for an eventful narrative. This is an engaging, exciting tale with some romance included. Teens will like the array of characters of all ages and backgrounds. This crossing of the continent is one of hope and dreams fulfilled in Oregon.?Linda A. Vretos, West Springfield High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
