31. Flight of the Sparrow by Amy Belding Brown

listened to audio/Audible
narrated by Heather Henderson
Unabridged audio (11:00)
2014 NAL
368 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction (based on a real person)
Finished 2/16/2020
Goodreads rating: 3.96 - 811 ratings
My rating:  4
Setting: 1676+ Massachusetts Bay Colony

First line/s:  "Later, Mary will trace the first signs of the Lord's displeasure back to a hot July morning in 1672 when she pauses on the way to the barn to watch the sun rise burnt orange over the meetinghouse."

My comments:  Historical fiction, based on a factual person, Mary Rowlandson, who was captured by Indians in the Massachusetts Bay colony in the 1670s.  Though loosely based on the facts, we get a good glimpse of King Phillip's War and Puritanism in the New England in this time period.  Such harsh religious fervor!I would've never made it living in this time period without being beheaded.  I enjoyed listening to this, though I think there were many repetitious segments that could have been deleted.  I've been enjoying some well written historical fiction lately, and I hope I'll be able to continue to find more.

Goodreads synopsis:  She suspects that she has changed too much to ever fit easily into English society again. The wilderness has now become her home. She can interpret the cries of birds. She has seen vistas that have stolen away her breath. She has learned to live in a new, free way.... 
          Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1676. Even before Mary Rowlandson is captured by Indians on a winter day of violence and terror, she sometimes found herself in conflict with her rigid Puritan community. Now, her home destroyed, her children lost to her, she has been sold into the service of a powerful woman tribal leader, made a pawn in the on-going bloody struggle between English settlers and native people. Battling cold, hunger, and exhaustion, Mary witnesses harrowing brutality but also unexpected kindness. To her confused surprise, she is drawn to her captors’ open and straightforward way of life, a feeling further complicated by her attraction to a generous, protective English-speaking native known as James Printer. All her life, Mary has been taught to fear God, submit to her husband, and abhor Indians. Now, having lived on the other side of the forest, she begins to question the edicts that have guided her, torn between the life she knew and the wisdom the natives have shown her.
          Based on the compelling true narrative of Mary Rowlandson, Flight of the Sparrow is an evocative tale that transports the reader to a little-known time in early America and explores the real meaning of freedom, faith, and acceptance.

8. Crow Hollow - Michael Wallace

read on my Kindle
2015, Lake Union Publishing
335 pgs.
Adult historical fiction
Finished 2/18/17
Goodreads rating: 3.65 (7156 ratings)
My rating: 4
Setting: 1676 Massachusetts - Boston west to Springfield

First line/s: "James Bailey stared down from the main deck of the Vigilant as it eased up to the wharves, a knot of excitement forming in his belly."

My comments:  This was quite a satisfying historical fiction novel.  Puritan Boston/New England has always fascinated me ever since, years ago, I studied the history and artwork of some of the first cemeteries in eastern Massachusetts.  Most easily accessible narration about the time period, however, is based around the Salem witch trials, of which I'm quite tired.  This is the story of Englishman James Bailey who, in December 1676, is emissary for England's King Charles, who has come to Boston to find out why Benjamin Cotton, the King's man in charge of Boston, has been killed in Indian uprisings.  Here he encounters Prudence Cotton, widow of Benjamin Cotton, who has written an account of her capture and imprisonment by the Nipmuc Indian tribe and has some questions of her own.  The story kept me interested throughout, and I learned quite a bit about the time, place, and history of the time.

Goodreads synopsis:  In 1676, an unlikely pair—a young Puritan widow and an English spy—journeys across a land where greed and treachery abound.  
          Prudence Cotton has recently lost her husband and is desperate to find her daughter, captured by the Nipmuk tribe during King Philip’s war. She’s convinced her daughter is alive but cannot track her into the wilderness alone. Help arrives in the form of James Bailey, an agent of the crown sent to Boston to investigate the murder of Prudence’s husband and to covertly cause a disturbance that would give the king just cause to install royal governors. After his partner is murdered, James needs help too. He strikes a deal with Prudence, and together they traverse the forbidding New England landscape looking for clues. What they confront in the wilderness—and what they discover about each other—could forever change their allegiances and alter their destinies.

47. Caleb's Crossing - Geraldine Brooks

2011, Viking
306 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction
Goodreads rating: 3.77
My Rating:  3

Setting:  1660's Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
OSS:  Bethia Mayfield tells of her life's travails from the time her twin brother was killed at age 7, through the friendship she made with Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, and following both their lives 'til the end of each.
1st sentence/s:  "He is coming on the Lord's Day.  Though my father has not seen fit to give me the news, I have the whole of it."

I stopped reading this at page 150, saying enough is enough...death, sadness, pompous Puritanism. But I picked it up the next day and then the next and finished it. The second half was much more interesting and intention-holding than the first part, though there was still plenty of death, sadness and pompous Puritanism. I'm glad I finished it, though.

This is the fictionalized story based on historical records of two native Americans who made in through Harvard College in the late 1660's.  One's American name was Caleb.  However, this is the story of Bethia Mayfield, daughter of Martha's Vineyard's Puritan preacher in the 1660's.