Queen of Swords

I decided to do an audiobook reread of this fifth book in the Wilderness series by Sara Donati. If my memory serves me correctly, it was one of my favourite books in the series. Queen of Swords is the continuation of the Bonner family saga but in this book, the story shifts from the original couple Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner to their children Hannah and Luke and Luke's wife Jennet in a story that is filled with adventure. 

Readers witness a lot of problems thrown at these three characters which include being taken away from the comfort and support of their family in rural New York state/Quebec. The story takes the characters to Pensacola, New Orleans and Haiti which are vividly described and give readers a look into Creole culture, the variety of races in the Caribbean and how they were treated, and historical references like the ongoing War of 1812. 

There's a great sense of adventure in this book - there's kidnapping, war, sham marriages, and a powerful New Orleans family readers will love to hate. As for the Bonner clan, I missed Nathaniel and Elizabeth who were very peripheral in this story, but through their letters readers keep up on what's happening back in Paradise, NY. 

This change in scenery also helped to progress Hannah and Jennet's characters who each come into their own. I particularly enjoyed getting to know Hannah better - we see the toll her experiences and losses have taken on her as she finds her strength and rediscovers who she wants to be. I also loved seeing how this book connects with Donati's Waverly Place series.

This was a good read, but it took me longer to feel fully immersed in the story - despite the adventurous energy. The audiobook didn't hold my attention well this time out, but the series remains one of my favourites and I eagerly look forward to the final book which I remember being a perfect ending to this wonderful historical fiction series.  

My Rating: 4 stars

Author: Sara Donati

Genre: Historical Fiction

Series: #5 in the Wilderness series

Type and Source: eAudiobook from Audible.ca

Run Time: 21 hours, 6 minutes

Narrator: Kate Reading

Publisher: Random House Audio

First Published in Print: 2006

Book Description from Audible.ca: It is the late summer of 1814, and Hannah Bonner and her half brother Luke have spent more than a year searching the islands of the Caribbean for Luke’s wife and the man who abducted her. But Jennet’s rescue, so long in coming, is not the resolution they’d hoped for. In the spring she had given birth to Luke’s son, and in the summer Jennet had found herself compelled to surrender the infant to a stranger in the hope of keeping him safe. 

To claim the child, Hannah, Luke, and Jennet must journey first to Pensacola. There they learn a great deal about the family that has the baby. The Poiterins are a very rich, very powerful Creole family, totally without scruple. The matriarch of the family has left Pensacola for New Orleans and taken the child she now claims as her great-grandson with her. 

New Orleans is a city on the brink of war, a city where prejudice thrives and where Hannah, half Mohawk, must tread softly. Careful plans are made as the Bonners set out to find and reclaim young Nathaniel Bonner. Plans that go terribly awry, isolating them from each other in a dangerous city at the worst of times. 

Sure that all is lost, and sick unto death, Hannah finds herself in the care of a family and a friend from her past, Dr. Paul de Guise Savard dit Saint-d’Uzet. It is Dr. Savard and his wife who save Hannah’s life, but Dr. Savard’s half brother who offers her real hope. Jean-Benoit Savard, the great-grandson of French settlers, slaves, and Choctaw and Seminole Indians, is the one man who knows the city well enough to engineer the miracle that will reunite the Bonners and send them home to Lake in the Clouds. 

With Ben Savard’s guidance, allies are drawn from every segment of New Orleans’s population and from Andrew Jackson’s army, now pouring into the city in preparation for what will be the last major battle of the War of 1812.