This is somewhat erroneously in my "read" shelf. I did not finish reading it, so keep that in mind as far as this review goes. I applaud the author's project - historical fiction disguised as history proper (I tend to love things like that), it is a well-researched story told via the faux journals of a 19th-century white woman who went to live among the Cherokee. My problem with this book is essentially that I did not ever buy the voice in which it is told - this problem has two tiers: First, it is supposedly a 19th-century journal and the author tries to convey the 19th-century-ness by frequent use of vocabulary like "perforce", however what marks an actual primary source from a specific time period is not merely vocabulary but the nature of observation. That is, you know you're dealing with an historical document, often, not merely by how the author tells the story (what words he/she uses) but what he/she chooses to include in the story in the first place. I simply could never forget that I was reading a 21st-century person's somewhat inexpert attempt at what a 19th-century person would sound like in a personal journal and what they'd choose to include. Associated with this is tier two of my general dislike of this book. I could also not forget that I was not reading a woman's journal, but a man's idea of what a woman would write in her journal. Now, I applaud the author for attempting such a thing. I wish more men would try to crawl into the heads of women. I just don't think this author quite was up to the task. "A" for effort, but I could not make myself finish this book.