Thursday, September 3, 2015

Beyond The Cherokee Trail - Lisa Carter

Beyond The Cherokee Trail
Lisa Carter
Abingdon Press, Sep 1 2015, $14.99
ISBN: 9781426795466

In 2018 the Prairie N--- members claim the attack at the Trail of Trails Interpretive Center in Cartridge Cove, North Carolina.  They warn the staff to shut down the festival commemorating the 180th-year since the tragic forced march or else burn.  Linden Birchfield, who recently arrived from Raleigh, refuses as she believes in the importance of this event.  She becomes further animated when she finds a journal from a volunteer Trail of Tears’ marcher.

In 1837, Nurse Sarah Jane Hopkins accompanies the beleaguered Cherokee on their forced march from Georgia to Oklahoma in order to help the sick and injured.  Reading Sarah Jane’s odyssey encourages Linden to remain resolute though someone wants her and her program dead.  Though he has doubts about a relationship with Sarah Jane, Walker Crowe knows he loves this obstinate woman though he loathes her festival.

Beyond The Cherokee Trail is a fabulous drama due to the journal that brings alive the harrowing ordeal of the forced trek by someone who did not have to go.  The well-written romance surprisingly enhances the historical subplot because in spite of the man she cherishes and others demanding the gala aborted; Linden finds strength in what Sarah Jane willingly did.


Harriet Klausner

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