Wildwood Creek by Lisa Wingate

Wildwood Creek by Lisa Wingate is a novel once again set at Moses Lake of, "If you're lucky enough to be at the lake, you're lucky enough" fame.  There are 4 books in this series but these are definitely stand alone books.  In this book particularly the people who live at Moses Lake are only slightly mentioned as they drive through the community on the way to Wildwood Creek settlement.  This book is told in the present day--there is a casting call for a docudrama reenactment movie being filmed of the settling of Wildwood Creek in 1861 and Allie Kirkland and her best friend, Kim get parts for the show.  In addition, the novel tells the story of 1861 when Bonnie Rose and her 9 year old sister Maggie Mae come to Wildwood Creek with a group of settlers to start a school for the community children.  Bonnie Rose O'Brien is a soiled woman by the day's standard because she and her sister had been captured in a raid by the Comanche and taken into the lodge as little better than a slave woman and she carried the scars on her neck of the rope they tied her with to make her run behind them. Maggie had fared a little better by being adopted by a woman who had just lost her baby.  They had been rescued and then educated but still Bonnie carried the shame of first being Irish and 2nd being a soiled woman.  The man who offered her the job made her drop the last name and she became only Bonnie Rose.  The history is vague and requires much research so in the reenactment Allie and Kim rely on Stewart from the library to help research the times.  The only thing that they know is that in the settlement people start to disappear and there is a ballad that the locals sing which seems to blame Bonnie. As young women they are looking for excitement and they certainly find it in this summer adventure/job.
I really liked this book.  It is a love story but that is just in the background of the true nature of the mystery of the settlement of Wildwood Creek.  Anyone could read this but I think it is mostly a women's novel for those of at least middle school age.  There is no sexual content nor language problems for the young.  There is some of the slave talk which is written phonically so would possibly be difficult reading for the younger.
I received this book from Bethany House for this review.