Dark Enough to See the Stars in a Jamestown Sky

Connie Lapallo's book is a wonderful read. Not many people outside of Virginia are familiar with the Jamestown story much less the details of what the women and children went through. The story is woven through the eyes of Connie Lapallo's ancestor who survived the starving time. For anyone interested in geneology or Jamestown history this is a must read!

Normally, I am not a great reader of historical fiction books. I usually read the typical suspense thriller or popular romance books; however, I must say I was very pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this book. Shamefully, living near Jamestown in Virginia most of my life, I never quite understood until I read this book the great hardships the early settlers suffered. This book made you feel the waves of the ocean when the main character Joan was in the cargo department of the ship traveling from England to Jamestown, you felt her fear of losing her family, especially leaving a daughter behind, and her hunger during the starving times of Jamestown. The writing and information provided in this wonderful book left you aching for more, my hope is that the author will hurry with a sequel. I think it would also make a wonderful movie.

I finished this book last night, and I have to say that today I'm still thinking about it. It was a bit slow to start and some of the genealogy got a bit cumbersome, but once I got a ways into it I found myself reading "just one more chapter". While I was familiar with many of the events and people in the Jamestown saga from my own research, the details in this story captured me and made my heart ache. How wonderful for the author to know her history with such detail. I'm so glad that she shared her story with the rest of us. Kris Bordessa, author Great Colonial America Projects You Can Build Yourself

I am so sad that I finished this book. It was so good, I could have read on and on. I hear that a sequel is in the making, so I wait for that! I am so grateful to her for stating what was fiction in the book. Having met the author in August at a conference, I was excited to read her book. And Arlington County Library has bought it for their collection!

I was blown away by this one! The research Ms. Lapallo must have done is phenomenal. The story is so real, I feel I've lived it. This beautifully written historical novel will take you back to a time in our history that will fascinate any reader and make them more aware of what the men, women, and children went through to settle in the New World. Then Ms. Lapallo didn't waste any of her research. She included a section in the back that reveals a plethora of information including which parts of the story were actual historical fact, maps, a list of the people and what eventually happened to them, a list of the native tribes that existed in that period, a glossary of terms used that may be unfamiliar to us today, an actual letter penned by one of the settlers in 1629, and a chart showing how Ms. Lapallo is related to the main character, Joan Phippen Peirce.