The Particulars: Historical romance, Harlequin Historical #212, 1994, Technically Book 2 in Dutch Country Brides series although it was first one published, Out of print but self-published eBook available.
Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: Cheryl St. John is an autobuy and this was her debut back in 1994. I was in my first year of college so this one fit the Back In My Day theme this month to perfection.
The Review: Let's be honest, when you take a ride in the Romancelandia WayBack Machine you just never know what you're going to get and y'all I was pleasantly surprised with this one. There's a ton of potential minefields in this story but St. John skirts a good many of them and, in some ways, it's shockingly progressive (more on that in a bit).
Rain Shadow is a white woman with no memory of her family. When she was just three-years-old, her adoptive father, a Lakota Sioux named Two Feathers, found her wandering around the remains of a burned out wagon train heading west. Nobody else survived and Two Feathers knows that this poor child will soon follow that fate once night falls if he doesn't rescue her - so he does. Albeit she has violet eyes, but with her black hair and tanned skinned due to the outdoors, she can pass as Indian (uh, somewhat) and the two eventually land with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. It's the closest Two Feathers can get to a life that is vanishing and, now a single mother to 7-year-old Slade, Rain Shadow plays the role of Indian princess in the show. They're on their way through Pennsylvania Dutch Country to their winter camp site when one of the trains derails. Animals are hurt, as are people - including Slade. In the chaos, local farmer Anton Neubauer rescues Slade, gets the doctor to set his broken leg, and takes him back home until his family can be found. It's Rain Shadow who knocks on his door.
Anton is a widow with a young son, Nickolas, right around Slade's age. His marriage was not a happy one, and his mail-order bride died tragically. He lives on the same land as his father and two brothers (and their families) and they all work the farm together. He knows he needs to remarry, Nicky needs a mother and he needs a wife to keep house, but pickins' are kind of slim and frankly his heart isn't totally in it. Then he meets Rain Shadow who is so unlike any woman he has ever know, well ever - and naturally these two rub each other in all the right and wrong ways.
Romancelandia does not have a great track record with Native characters, but St. John handles the subject with a lot more sensitivity that other writers weren't in 1994. Rain Shadow loves Two Feathers and she knows his way of life is vanishing. She also yearns to learn more about where she came from and wants to provide opportunity for her son (mainly schooling), which means learning to adapt in a white man's world. To that end she's going to enter into a sharpshooting contest against the famed Annie Oakley in the spring. Surely when she bests Annie the notoriety and publicity might lead her long lost family into recognizing and finding her. The only thing she has from that time? A heart-shaped locket that she constantly wears.
In order for Slade's broken leg to heal properly they have to stay put in Pennsylvania, with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show moving on without them. Rain Shadow hates the idea but she'd do anything for her son - so stay they must. As Two Feathers and Anton's father become friends, and Slade and Nicky become inseparable, Rain Shadow and Anton are drawn together - just in time for Rain Shadow's past to come a callin' - and let's just say she's not terribly happy to see the man who seduced her, left her pregnant with Slade, and then dumped her when someone better (and richer) came along.
The romance started out a bit slow and rocky for me given the prickly natures of our couple. Also, to be blunt, Anton has very traditional ideas of marriage and women so someone like Rain Shadow who is hopeless in a traditional white household setting but can hunt, shoot and do men's chores is something he has to wrap his mind around. Blessedly the author doesn't overly harp on this and once our villain shows up on the page, a lot of the needless bristling between our couple moves along in favor of them working together to defuse the threat.
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| Original Cover |
Speaking of progressive, Slade is the result of an affair Rain Shadow had and obviously she was never married. She doesn't lie about this and is very matter of fact. Slade isn't something she's ashamed of so here he is, here she is, go suck eggs if you can't deal. And for his part? While Anton has ideas about traditional womanhood he never looks down on Rain Shadow nor belittle her for the circumstances of her becoming a mother. He sees it as the fault of a villain who seduced a young girl (Rain Shadow was 16 at the time) and then abandoned her.
It all turns out right as rain in the end, with Rain Shadow competing against Annie Oakley and finally finding out more about her birth parents - which is another notable thing about this book. St. John solves the mystery for the reader but doesn't pour on a heavy layer of syrup, which I appreciated. Sometimes less truly is more.
This was a good solid read and if you're a St. John fan I do recommend it. It was her first published romance and all the hallmarks found in her future books (especially the American-set Harlequin Historicals) are present here. After being in a dreadful slump it was so nice to finally pick up a winner.
Final Grade = B
2 comments:
When I first discovered Cheryl St John and went on the hunt for her backlist, this was basically the only book that gave me pause. It did not appeal to me for a myriad of reasons, so I, too, am pleasantly surprised that it was a worthy debut! Its not enough to persuade me to add it to Mount TBR, but knowing that she avoided the terrible cliches of Noble Savage characters *is*. I'm glad you were able to break your slump with a proven winner of a writer!
I chose a book from my birth year, by an author I consider an auto-buy, with one of my favorite tropes: The Makeshift Marriage by Sandra Heath. I enjoyed the first half of it very much. Unfortunately, the Big Mis lingers on far too long in the end, and the H/h are only reconciled on the next-to-last page. It's a good trad Regency, though, and Ms Heath is an author whose backlist I continue to hoard and parcel out as necessary, LOL.
When dealing with a book written and published a good thirty years ago, one must be prepared to either grade on that curve, or have a really bad time--I'm glad with was one of the better ones.
Once upon a time I read a bunch of Ms St John's books myself (when she's on, she's really great!), and so I have a nagging feeling that I've read and reviewed this one too; however, that review, if it ever existed, is not to be found in my blog and now that Karen Scott's blog is gone, I cannot check there, so I'll just have to live with the feeling of almost-but-not-quite familiarity.
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