The Cumberland Bride by Shannon McNear [Review and Giveaway]

My thoughts:  Journeying with one's family over trails - mere footpaths - on foot, with few horses, and no wagons in 1794 ranks at the top of the list of terrifying accomplishments that the settlers of the United States managed and that absolutely astound me. I have long been highly respectful of early people and  how they lived and what they accomplished. The story of The Cumberland Bride is just that sort of account. True, it involves a sweet bride, but that is not the story. The story is one of endurance. A long list of dangers and terrors and accidents that seemed to plague them as they made their way along the trails.

Kate Gruener seems to find trouble or it seems to find her. She, like many of the young ladies during that time, were held to a different set of rules of decorum even through they were in the wilderness and life was vastly different from that expected in towns and cities.

Couple the rigors of actually walking a trail in the forest wilderness for many days and coping with fear of Indians who don't want the white people settling their lands with mind and body numbing accidents and no time or place to recover and you have a story of harrowing experiences.

The author's descriptive skills of the land, the dangers, the troubles, the accidents, the character development, and the action keeps the reader turning page after page consumed with interest and absorbed by the fear they experienced.

I highly recommend this story.

About the book:  Love and Adventure Are Discovered on the Wilderness Road
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In 1794, when Kate Gruener’s father is ready to move the family farther west into the wilderness to farm untouched land, Kate is eager to live out her own story of adventure like he did during the War for Independence and to see untamed lands. And she sets her sights on learning more about their scout, Thomas Bledsoe. Thomas’s job is to get settlers safely across the Kentucky Wilderness Road to their destination while keeping an ear open for news of Shawnee unrest. But naïve Kate’s inquisitive nature could put them both in the middle of a rising tide of conflict. Is there more to Thomas’s story than he is willing to tell? Is there an untapped courage in Kate that can thwart a coming disaster?

GIVEAWAY

2 winners each win 1 copy

Begins October 12

Ends November 2 at 12:01 a.m. EDT

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a Rafflecopter giveaway DISCLOSURE: I received a complimentary copy from Barbour Publishing to facilitate this review of my own opinions which are freely given. Winners' copies are provided by and shipped directly to the winners by the publisher.