Burning Sky by Lori Benton

Burning Sky by Lori Benton is the newest novel by this author.  It is a novel of the American frontier immediately following the Revolutionary War.  Willa Burning Sky, who had been abducted by the Mohawks, the Longhouse People at the tender age of 14, was returning to the Long Knives home of her childhood using only the memory of her father's words in her head.  Willa though kidnapped by the Longhouse People had grown to love them and was grieving the loss of her 2 daughters to the dreaded small pox disease of the white invaders known as the Long Knives.  Upon returning to her home she found that she would have to fight the government for her own farm because her parents before their disappearance were accused of being Tory sympathizers.  She is fighting the love of her Indian brother, Joseph Tames His Horse of which she has no blood relation and the white man, Neil, of whom she rescued during her return to the farm.  This is the story of Willa working through her grief while at the same time fighting for her right to stay on her family farm.
I loved this story.  While it is a love story it is mostly a life story.  It does not glorify the white or the red man's ways but rather looks at both and sees the bad and the good of both of them  It also points out that many of the racist views of both races come from fear and jealousies of our past as well as the new ones that keep cropping up as we all live our daily lives.  This book shows the courage that it takes to be the first of a group to be Christian and learn to love the peole of God no matter their color or thnicity.  This is a book which needs to be read by all but most especially all women to learn to appreciate the freedoms which we now take for granted and should not but rather to appreciate the fight that our foremothers had to fight in order just to live. 
I recieved this book from Waterbrook Press for this review.