Waiting for Deliverance

I'm eighteen years old and while this book is clearly below my reading level, I have found myself going back to it again and again. The story is so touching and the characters are brought to life by Urban's capable hand. I felt that I could really delve in Livy and Rising Hawk's life, as if I knew them personally. And Gideon and Shadow and all the rest were equally wonderful. I loved how Livy has the guts to put the blame on herself in the end, and take the shame that her entire community places on her, for Rising Hawk's sake. I loved how she refuses to let Rising Hawk take her virtue, even as she fought back her feelings for him. I loved how even after she had rejected him, Rising Hawk gathers the courage to face another rejection and still goes after her. Waiting for Deliverance is most definately one of my favorite books. I highly recommend it.

This book portrays a vivid picture of life in the 17oo's. At the beginning of the book, the independant Livy and her cousin are being sold at a pauper's auction. They become indentured servants to native american. At first Livy is afraid of them and resents them, but she eventually learns that they are people just like her. As Livy overcomes other fears, she begins to fall in love with her new master's brother, Rising Hawk. By the end of the book Livy has undergone many changes, but she's still herself. And she finally conquers her last fear.

Orphaned at birth, Deliverance "Livy" Pelton has lived all of her fourteen years with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. When her uncle decides to move the family west in 1793, Livy just wants to stay in New England. Her fears are justified: her aunt, uncle, and all of her cousins except for one drown in a river accident. She and her cousin, Ephraim, who is a few years younger than her, are bound out as indentured servants to a homesteader raised by Indians. Livy is supposed to help out his wife and care for the children. But she ends up being sent to educate a village of Indians, the ones that raised her master, how to spin cloth. As the time passes, she begins to wonder if she is falling in love with nineteen-year-old Rising Hawk, her master's brother by adoption. Livy is determined never to marry - her mother died birthing her. But she may have to listen to her heart instead of her head for once. And when her survival depends on it, she may have to trust her life to Rising Hawk. This was a wonderfully written historical novel that I reccomend to teenagers who enjoy stories set in the past.