"Excellent historical novel"
In 1802 escaped slave Selah Voyager arrives in Paradise
near Half Moon Lake, New York. The ailing Selah seeks
Curiosity Freeman, but runs into Elizabeth Bonner and her
stepdaughter Hannah instead. Because Selah is sick, Hannah
a healer insists on helping the runaway slave regain her
health. On Selah's tail is bounty hunter and former Paradise
resident Liam Kirby, who Hannah loved when they were
children. Though Liam's appearance tosses her heart for a
loop and avaricious neighbors see reward money for turning
in Selah, Hannah believes she must follow her values and do
the right thing for the runaway slave. Though her actions
are noble, Hannah's endeavor places herself, her school
teaching father, and her stepmother in danger. Fans of historical novels need to read LAKE IN THE CLOUD, a
tremendous early Americana tale that brings alive the first
decade of the nineteenth century as few books have
accomplished. Though rich with interwoven detail, the
intelligently and exciting plot contains era issues that
the strong cast enables the audience to comprehend
including how courageous the Bonner family is. Mindful of
the great works of Van Reid, Sara Donati continues her epic
adventure (see INTO THE WILDERNESS and DAWN ON A DISTANT
SHORE) with another winner. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted July 12, 2002
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In her extraordinary novels Into the Wilderness and Dawn on
a Distant Shore, award-winning writer Sara Donati deftly
captured the vast, untamed wilderness of late-eighteenth-
century New York and the trials and triumphs of the Bonner
family. Now Donati takes on a new and often overlooked
chapter in our nation's past--and in the life of the
spirited Bonners--as their oldest daughter, the brave and
beautiful Hannah, comes of age with a challenge that will
change her forever. Masterfully told, this passionate story
is a moving tribute to a resilient, adventurous family and
a people poised at the brink of a new century. It is the spring of 1802, and the village of Paradise is
still reeling from the typhoid epidemic of the previous
summer. Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner have lost their two-
year-old son, Hannah's half brother Robbie, but they
struggle on as always: the men in the forests, the twins
Lily and Daniel in Elizabeth's school, and Hannah as a
doctor in training, apprenticed to Richard Todd. Hannah is
descended from healers on both sides--one Scots grandmother
and one Mohawk--and her reputation as a skilled healer in
her own right is growing. After a long night spent attending to a birth, Elizabeth
and Hannah encounter an escaped slave hiding on the
mountain. She calls herself Selah Voyager, and she is
looking for Curiosity Freeman--a former slave herself, one
of the village's wisest women and Elizabeth's closest
friend. The Bonners take Selah, desperately ill, to Lake in
the Clouds to care for her, and with that simple act they
are drawn into the secret life that Curiosity and Galileo
Freeman and their grown children have been leading for
almost ten years. The Bonners will do what they must to
protect the Freemans, just as Hannah will protect her
patient, who presents more than one kind of challenge. For
a bounty hunter is afoot--Hannah's childhood friend and
first love, Liam Kirby. While Elizabeth and Nathaniel undertake a treacherous
journey through the endless forests to bring Selah to
safety in the north, Hannah embarks on a very different
journey to New-York City, with two goals: to learn the
secrets of vaccination against smallpox, a disease that
threatens Paradise, and to find out what she can about
Liam's immediate past and what caused him to change so
drastically from the boy she once loved. The obstacles she
faces as a woman and a Mohawk make her confront questions
long avoided about her place in the world. Those questions follow her back to Paradise, where she
finds that the medical miracle she brings with her will not
cure prejudice or superstition, nor can it solve the
problem of slavery. No sooner have the Bonners begun to
rebound from their losses--old and new--than they find
themselves confronted by more than one old enemy in a
battle that will test the strength of their love for one
another. Hannah faces the decision she has always dreaded:
will she make a life for herself in a white world, or among
her mother's people?
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