The Captive Heart

Too bad the rating stops at 5. This is definitely a 5 plus star.Five years previously Hannah was courted by an unknown party. Now in 1760 she is married to the British Major Morgan Elway. Yuck!As any good God fearing mistress [as in wife]she looks after any company that shows up - her uninvited in-laws -- the slaves of her husband and his one hundred acre farm.This is a story of survival in a god-forsaken country where the English are determined to beat the French - use the Indians and are arrogantly sure that they are in the right.Men are the ultimately dominating rulers with power -- women have no say in what happens to them and woe be to them if they do not have a protector.The Indians who helped the French were being captured and made slaves or killed, their scalps sold for a bounty. They were mistreated, tortured and starved. Five Killer and his son suffered these attrocities at the hands of Major Elway and his bondman. Hatcher - who of course, wanted Hannah.Maw, the Cherokee war warrior, lost credibility [with me] in going after Hannah instead of following through in killing Major Elway for the lose of his family.I did love the part where Wa-le-li told Hannah that Five Killer did not remember the love spell she worked for him many years ago, after his wife had been brutally killed."The love spells take their own time. ---- But work they do."The story was so excellent that I wanted to deliver the Major up to Maw myself. I was as disconcerted as Hannah when Willoughby showed up -- Was he to be trusted or feared?What a story. So much closer to the reality of life lived in those times than a lot of Historicals written. Absolutely fascinating - hard to put down - hated to see it end.HIGHLY RECOMMENDED + - definitely a keeper!

The Captive Heart brings the reader to another place and time with poignant universal and timeless insights!

I finished this book two days ago and I haven't stopped thinking about it. The story lives in my imagination--I think of it, and it's as if I'm in that time, that place. Hannah and Five Killer are there, real and true. It had everything I want in a book: wonderful writing (this was of the prose so clear I'm not aware of it variety), complex, interesting characters, and a feeling that there is a sensibility at work that is interested in things beyond the thrills of the story itself. In this case, the "something beyond" seemed to be illuminating a particular moment in U.S. history and of relationships--between whites and Native Americans--that ended in terrible tragedy.Cheryl Reavis is a wonderful writer, honest and wise, with a deceptive elegance to her prose. Deceptive in that it's so clear, so clean, so faultless that someone might be fooled into thinking there's no craft there. Elegant *because* it's clear, clean, faultless. I think this book is perfect.

I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE PRIOR REVIEW CAME FROM. SHE OBVIOUSLY DIDN'T READ THE SAME BOOK I DID. THIS BOOK WAS FABULOUS AND I COULDN'T STOP READING. I HAVE READ ALL OF THIS AUTHOR'S BOOKS AND I FEEL THAT EACH ONE JUST GETS BETTER! THE STORYLINES ALWAYS KEEP YOU MESMERIZED--THIS ONE WAS NO EXCEPTION. THE MAIN CHARACTER FIVE KILLER WAS VERY HEROIC. HE WAS ABLE TO SHOW THAT SOMETIMES LOVE IS NOT ALL THAT MATTERS. HIS LOVE FOR HER WAS SO STRONG THAT IN THE END HE WAS GLAD TO BE CAPTURED SO THAT HE DIDN'T HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN HANNAH AND HIS SON. HE WITHSTOOD A LOT OF TORTURE SO THAT SHE COULD BE FREE. PLEASE READ THIS AND ALL OF MS. REAVIS' BOOKS. YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY. SHE IS A GREAT AUTHOR AND I KNOW THE NEXT BOOK WILL BE EVEN BETTER.

Author Cheryl Reavis shines in this compelling tale of life at the edge of the America frontier. Hannah Albrecht thinks her circuit-riding preacher father has won her a prize when he gives her in marriage to handsome British soldier Major Morgan Elway. But the Major soon disdains his American bride, thinking her of little use until he finds himself needing a sacrifice to escape the vengeance of a Cherokee warrior whose family he massacred. When Hannah is "abducted" by Indians on her way to the fort, her father and respected settler Colm McLarn bargain with Morgan to send one of Morgan's Cherokee slave captives to find her. But the man they choose, Five Killer, (who also happens to be Colm's half-Cherokee son, Robert McLarn) has made a bargain of his own. He will look for Hannah and deliver her as a blood-price to the Cherokee, in return for the release of his son whom Morgan also holds captive.Between the man desperate to save his son and the woman desperate to live develops a complex and compelling bond that forces on Five Killer an impossible choice. How can he sacrifice the woman he has come to love? But how can he save her at the cost of his son's life?A vivid depiction of the harsh beauty of frontier life and a fascinating description of Indian lore and customs enhance this richly-textured story, while the award-winning author's elegant prose will assuage any guilt readers of "literary" fiction might feel for laying down their highbrow tomes to enjoy a great story. Bravo, Ms. Reavis!