This one was my book club choice for February. I was fortunate that the meeting got canceled and rescheduled for next week because I just couldn't get into it at all.
A blend of fiction and history, this book tells to story of Charlotte Taylor, the actual great-great-grandmother of the author. Charlotte was one of the first women to settle on the east coast of Canada (in what eventually became New Brunswick) and was a tough cookie. She fled a fairly affluent life in England to be with the man she loved, her family's black butler. They dreamed of a new life together in the West Indies, but that wasn't meant to be. She ended up in what was then known as Nova Scotia, a woman alone.
That was not an easy time or place to be a woman, especially a woman without the protection of a husband or father. But Charlotte wasn't going to let that stand in her way. She is bold, unconventional and fierce. She befriends the settles and the People (how our First Nations were known at that time) which makes it hard for her to be accepted by either group properly.
Yet Charlotte manages to build a life for herself, overcoming many huge obstacles.
As I write this, it sounds super interesting to me. The summary seems good. However, for me, the book itself was just a complete dud. I found the writing style to be very boring (I wonder if it was self-published because I found a couple of spelling and grammatical errors). This is a very timely book, bringing greater understanding to the difficulties faced by our First Nations in the early days of Canada's history, with an incredibly strong female lead character. I just wish I was enjoyed it more.
Maybe it's just my slump talking. I'm taking a break from book club reading to read a book I picked up on my lunch break at work last week. It's by an author I've loved in the past so I'm hoping that will get me excited about reading again.
