From the farms of Trinidad to the forests of the American West, the tale of Rosa Rendón is hard yet engrossing ... The various strands of the story come together to illuminate how power and race can warp a life ... A sad, compelling novel about a woman of color who fights against society’s expectation, Francis-Sharma’s novel...is an excellent choice for book groups.
Francis-Sharma...offers fascinating characters across the broad sweep of the American continent at a time of great tumult, warring colonial powers, the spread of slavery, and expansion West. This is a compelling saga of family bonds, ambitions, and desires, all subject to the vagaries of powerful historical forces.
Francis-Sharma...delivers a satisfying and perceptive transnational family saga ... In this masterly epic, the pleasure lies in piecing everything together.
Francis-Sharma...forges a persuasively researched account so richly evocative of a relatively obscure corner of history as to make it seem almost phantasmagorical. Still, as enchanting as Francis-Sharma's writing can be, especially in its re-creations of Trinidad and the characterizations of Rosa and her family, the book occasionally hits patches when too many complications and details clog its forward momentum. Sometimes you get impatient for the story to hurry back northward to the frisky, jaunty pace of Rosa and Victor’s harrowing adventures. Some illuminating history and vivid set pieces emerge from a frustratingly cluttered narrative.
