This
was Henke’s first novel, published in 1986, and is book 1 in the Old California Couplet (Love Unwilling is the other). The eBook
version (which I read) may have changed slightly from the original since I know
Henke is updating her backlist titles as she publishes them in e format. No
matter the edition you read, it’s a grand story, impeccably researched and well
told.
The story begins in 1848 as 19-year-old
Esteban Santadar views the devastation from war torn Mexico City where the
forces of Santa Anna have lost to the Americans. Wounded, he goes home to
Sonora to heal and to resume his life among his aristocratic family. At the
same time, 13-year-old Amanda Whittaker’s father dies on a wagon train headed west,
leading her mother to marry a hard man just to survive. Four years later, Esteban
is coming into his own as a merchant trader and horse breeder working with his
Irish uncle but being pressured by his family to take a worthy Mexican bride. A
world away, Amanda is raped by her stepfather and she flees to San Francisco
where she goes to work in a brothel, first as a maid and then, under pressure
to help another, as one of the prostitutes. Amanda hated it, and at the first
opportunity, left to find a better life.
One night in the brothel Amanda had
seen a man (Esteban) who captured her young heart. Years later, when Amanda has
been freed from the bordello and adopted by a rich German as the daughter he
never had, she encounters Esteban once again, this time in connection with his
beautiful golden palomino horses. He is taken by Amanda’s beauty and her
ability with horses, and, of course, he pursues her. She tells Esteban lies
about her past, even as she knows his family and his culture would insist he
take only a pure bride. She doesn’t want a man to accept her as a “reformed
whore” (her words), so she marries him even as her friends tell her she is
building a house of cards that will one day fall.
I love that Henke brings you into the early
days of San Francisco and the different cultures and attitudes that came
together in that amazing city. I wasn’t too keen on the rape and prostitution
of the heroine, but Henke did a good job of redeeming her. Amanda is a very
likeable heroine, and while I could understand her not wanting a man she loved
to know of her past, it was clear the lies she told would eventually lead to
her downfall. Henke brought us to that point in masterful fashion, as she did with Esteban's change of heart. There are also
some wonderful secondary characters, too, including Esteban’s Irish uncle and
his wife, the old man “Hoot” who helped the runaway Amanda, and of course the
German who made her his daughter.
It’s a great story and I recommend it.
No comments:
Post a Comment