I first became acquainted with author Nancy E. Turner from a trilogy she wrote about Sarah Prine, a fictitious Arizona settler, whose stories are based on the author’s real-life great-grandmother. These is My Words, Sarah’s Quilt, and The Star Garden are wonderful books that tell about the settling of the area around Tucson and beyond back in the 1800s through Sarah’s diary.

In the way that sometimes happens when you read as much as I, the author fell off my radar screen until recently, when I learned about the intriguingly titled My Name is Resolute. I won’t kid you; it had a really slow start for me. I drudgingly made my way through nearly 100 pages before the story caught me and didn’t let me go. If you read this book, you will likely ask yourself how on earth it couldn’t capture me from the get-go, and I don’t have a good answer.

The story is filled to the brim with interesting characters and every kind of adventure that you could possibly imagine – Indians, pirates, pioneers, Scottish highlanders, good people, bad people, and soldiers from both sides of the Revolutionary War.

In 1729, 10-year-old Resolute Talbot, her sister Patience and her brother Andrew are kidnapped by pirates from their home in Jamaica. Her parents are British nobility who relocated to that island. Their parents are killed in the attack, and the three begin their life of great hardship and sorrow – being kept as slaves — leading ultimately to adventure and excitement. They eventually land in the New World, first Montreal and eventually Lexington, Massachusetts.

My Name is Resolute is an epic novel full of swashbuckling adventures. Eventually, Resolute settles in Lexington, marries, raises a family, and plays an important role in the years before and during America’s War for Independence.

It’s perhaps somewhat tasteless to describe a novel as full of sadness as this as being fun, but it was, indeed, just that. Resolute is a character that I will long remember, as are the others. Strong-willed and self-sufficient, even as a young girl, the novel allows us to see her grow up to be a strong and independent woman. I loved seeing what the world was like during that period of time.

The author is a marvelous writer, and her words could have been written in the mid- to-late 1700s, they read so true to life.

It is a long book, so settle down for a lengthy adventure.

Here is a link to the book.