Jim Fergus, in “The Vengeance of Mothers,” has written a riveting sequel to his 1999 best-selling novel “One Thousand White Women.” The subtitles, “The Journals of May Dodd,” for OTWW and “The Journals of Margaret Kelly and Molly McGill” for his newest, portend of the great journeys to come. I was enthralled by his first effort, and just as thrilled that, in this latest effort, he has maintained his wonderful story, memorable characters, and immense writing skills. This will be another book club favorite.

OTWW, his first book, presented the idea of a government program that sent white women into American Indian villages to intermarry with the natives and assimilate them into American culture. In reality the program was considered but never implemented making Fergus’ story entirely fictional. “Vengeance” is a continuation of that fable but just as realistic in its concept and construction. Here we find, a year later, the women who are now a part of the American Indian family, with husbands and children, some already dead, uniting to fight against the United States that, in its cruel effort to subjugate the original inhabitants, has instituted a program of eradicating or displacing the natives and taking over their land.

Brutal annihilation or imprisonment of entire tribes has taken place. Some of the widowed white women have sworn to seek revenge on the American soldiers that implemented the violence that took their husbands and children from them. New women recruits who have settled into the program, some just arrived from insane asylums or prisons, join them. The book is presented as journals that vividly recount the experiences of life with the tribe and the wars that inevitably affect all of the women. It is not a favorable depiction of the American overseers and their methods.

The characterizations of the author are so fully developed and realistic that the reader can visualize appearances and attitudes of each participant. Every detail is readily apparent, even down to their aroma. Fergus is also a master at recreating the weather, landscape, and culture with beautiful and poetic imagery. The Montana wilderness radiates under his descriptive touch.

This is a not-to-be missed read, made even better if you’ve read Fergus’ first offering.

Genre: Historical Fiction
Pub. Date: September, 12, 2017
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

When I read this historical novel I wasn’t aware that it is a sequel. I did have the feeling that I was missing the first part, but I wasn’t at all confused, meaning one can read it alone. Set in the 1800’s the book begins with the journals of two sisters, the Kelly twins, who were part of the Wives for Indians Program that sent “undesirable” women from prisons and asylums to marry Native Americans of the Cheyenne Nation as a means to encourage assimilation. The Kelly sisters were part of the original story, “One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd.” In “Vengeance” the reader learns that their village is destroyed by U.S. soldiers while they were waving a white flag, in a raid that leaves their children and husbands dead. The title of the novel comes from the sisters’ desire for revenge on the US Calvary. The second journal we read in this story belongs to Molly McGill, another woman sent to marry into the Cheyenne tribe. But when Molly arrives in the West, the program is virtually defunct, and the group of Cheyenne she was sent to meet is now on the run. Originally, this batch of women is held as hostages by the Native Americans. When given their freedom they decided to stay. Living with the Cheyenne would be as equally dangerous and as hard a lifestyle, yet still desirable than to returning to prisons or asylums.

I have learned that the first novel “The Journals of May Dodd,” (also a novel told through journals, which is an enjoyable way to read a book) has been made into a movie. I have also learned via Wikipedia that “the spark for this novel was an actual historical event that occurred in 1854. A Cheyenne chief did request the gift of 1000 white women as brides but the offer was rejected by the U.S. Army.” This sequel is an okay read though obviously written by a man for the author’s generalizations on women falling in love are stereotypical. When Molly realizes she is falling for her Cheyenne captor, I felt it could have been a scene from the 1920s silent movie, “The Sheik” starring Rudolph Valentino. However, I did enjoy learning about the Native Americans’ ways of life. Because of this novel, I intend to read more hoping it all will not be too similar to another movie named, “Dances with Wolves,” where Kevin Costner plays a disillusioned Civil War lieutenant who comes to realize that it is he and his government and not the Native Americans who are the real savages. I say this because I would like to learn something new about the tribes other than that they seemed to be a more decent set of human beings than the whites who destroyed them. I personally agree with that theory but there must be a novel out there that is more history than fiction as I found this book to be.

I read One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus several years ago, so when I saw that he had a sequel out, I looked forward to reading it. The whole premise of the two books is a bit far-fetched, but it’s an interesting story line. A secret government program agrees to send white women to the Indians as brides in order to create a mixed race, in hopes of easing assimilation between the two groups. These are not your “quality” women, but women who have been put in asylums, picked up off the streets, gathered from prisons, and the occasional social outcast that signs up willingly.

At any rate, in this second novel we are introduced to another group of women on their way to the Indian tribes. Before they get there, the train is attacked by Indians. The survivors are taken as hostages and when they arrive at the camp, they meet the other white women who came before them.

The story is told from the journal entries of several of the women. I liked this way of telling the story and getting different perspectives. It also helped to distinguish between the women, except for the case of the Kelly sisters, who were twins and seemed to work as one unit.

By the time the second group of women were sent, Indian relations had broken down and there had been several attacks by soldiers that resulted in the deaths of innocent women and children. The white mothers who lost their children were grieving and out for vengeance against the government.

There are quite a few references to characters from One Thousand White Women, but The Vengeance of Mothers does well as a stand alone. War injuries, rape and abuse are in the book, but not told in very graphic detail.

I enjoyed the story and would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me an advance copy to read and give an honest review.

The Vengeance of Mothers is a must-read for any history buff. This story is based on real events in American history, but told from the point of view of people who, in reality, could not have been there. The combination of real history with fictional events makes for a good read.

The story is told through the journals written by a group of women who were participating in a fictional program called the Brides for Indians program. The book’s subtitle is “The Journals of Margaret Kelly and Molly McGill.” The premise is that the government sent white women who were otherwise outcasts in their own society off to live with the Cheyenne, as a way to “civilize” them.

The journals are brought to the great-great-grandson of one of those participants, May Dodd, by another descendant of the participants, Molly Standing Bear. The journals are delivered to Jon William Dodd III, who is the editor of a magazine in Chicago. He reads them and learns the story of his ancestor, and the other women who were part of this program. Most of the book is devoted to their journals, which tell of historical events as seen through the eyes of participants in those events.

The time period covered by the events in the book is during the last of the Indian wars, when the Army was actively hunting them down to try to exterminate them or move them onto reservations. The journals end just after June 25, 1876, the date of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But, the reader is left with the impression that there will be a sequel to this novel. I won’t give away the ending, but I expect that the author is at work on another addition to this series. The current book is apparently the second one in the series, although I have not read the first one. I plan to do so soon.

I enjoyed the story and was fascinated by the look into life on the Plains during this time. It was a time of rapid change and war and one of the time periods in history that has always interested me. The reader gets a look into life inside a Cheyenne village and we learn some of the ways they lived back then. Sadly, one of the characters reminds us toward the end of the book, that, by the 1870’s, the Cheyenne lands were stolen, the buffalo hunted almost to extinction, the people on reservations, their way of life destroyed; and, a century and a half later, drugs, alcohol, poverty, and violence are taking their toll on the remaining descendants of these rulers of the Plains.

But, for a time, you can immerse yourself in the beauty of the free life they once lived on the Plains, before it was all paved over and built up with roads and shopping malls. You can imagine the warm wind over the prairie and the scent of campfires cooking a meal. I recommend this book because it helps us see what has been lost and that there was beauty and peace, and yes, magic, in that place before it was wiped out by war. It is highly recommended reading, in my opinion.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and the author and publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I read 1000 White Women on the recommendation of someone I'd met at a party. When I saw that there was a second book I was intrigued as I greatly enjoyed the first. I loved The Vengeance Of Mothers. It was great to see the twins again as they were a definite bright spot in the first book and continued to be a bright spot in the sequel. I also really enjoyed the new characters that we were introduced to. It was a fantastic read that I would gladly recommend to others.

I read the first book 1000 white women and thought it was good. However, this book just isn't keeping my interest like that was. I don't like how the characters jump back and forth, it makes the story feel disjointed and messes with the flow. If the author wanted to continue with the story about the Kelly twins, it should have just been about them or made them appear in a book about the new white wives. I had a really hard time with this. Maybe I will try rereading it in the future.

Love the distinct alternating voices of the narrators. Offers a glimpse into the daily life of the Cheyenne and history of the settlement of the West in general.

AMAZING. I felt like I was right there with the women, going through their hardships with them, walking into an uncertain future with them. This book was heartbreakingly beautiful. I can't decide on the ending, though- was it a clever fit or did it just come out of nowhere?

Although I enjoyed this book quite a bit I liked the first book, ONE THOUSAND WHITE WOMEN better. I could've done without the beginning and end parts. Overall I think it was a good story.

It's hard to believe that twenty years have passed since Fergus first penned One Thousand White Women. I loved that book. It was a very strong story and The Vengeance of Mothers matches it, for the most part. Fergus delivers a compelling narrative. It's excellent. I loved all the salty characters, especially Gertie. But the book falters at the end. The ending was a disappointment for me. I disliked it. It also leaves the reader hanging with the question will there be a third installment? The way the ending was written, it's certainly a possibility. However, I hope we won't have to wait another two decades.

It was in 1998 when I first came across One Thousand White Women, the first in a planned trilogy.I inhaled that novel and have spent years pining for the next installment. One does not have to read the first in order to appreciate the second in the series, but it provides so much background that I feel it would do an injustice to appreciating the whole context. The first novel described the mail order bride barter system where the government exchanged 1000 white woman to interbreed with the Cheyenne in exchange for horses. Whether there is an element of truth to this was disputed in the years to come. However, both novels portray the selflessness, courage of the Cheyenne while visit the barbaric treatment of them by our country. The journals in volume II are written by red haired Irish twins who have become Cheyenne natives and a spirited 22 year old woman,Molly, who volunteered to come out with the next group of brides before finding that the program was disbanded. One follows the stories of the 7 women who are taken to the Cheyennes ,and follows their journeys as they band together as a group, becoming stronger and more embolden as time marches on. Vengeance is sought against an Army which meant to subjugate them, kill their children and take away their freedoms. I found myself really attached to the women and not able to let go of their stories.The only caveat was the epilogue which was clearly set up to pave the way for Book #3 but I felt it took away from the strength of the rest of the book and made the ending weaker. That said, I hope I don't have to wait another 9 years for Book #3. Curiousity will be my undoing!!

This was a good sequel, as they go, but not great. The power of the first novel was remembered well but not matched. The ending was non-credible to me, the restoration and use of the antique vehicles to undertake the " urgent" journey was a kind of silly contrivance. Character development was uneven but I do love the method of "journal" entries to add layers to the story.

Thank you NetGalley, Jim Fergus, and St. Martin's Press for the wonderful advance reader copy of The Vengeance of Mothers, by Jim Fergus. This is the 2nd book to One Thousand White Women, which was one of my all-time favorite books. A hard act follow, yet somehow this novel was just as incredible! An unbelievable story of the "second installment" of brides, sent by the American government to the Native Cheyenne tribe, in order to facilitate multiracial babies, for peace. Along the way, the government retracted its treaties and the poor brides were placed in an impossible situation. History mixed in with human values, bonds and friendships, as well as savagery of many kinds, told in a fluid, impossible to put down journals. I loved all of it, the characters, flow of events, as well as the closure it brought to this breathtaking adventure. I highly recommend!

This is the sequel to One Thousand White Women. I had a hard time keeping my attention while reading this book with the main character no longer active in this book. The history in this story is incredible and I did enjoy the story.

This novel has my favorite subject, Native Americans in the Old West, along with a theme similar to mail-order brides, and a social experiment. I expected to read it cover to cover in a few days, tops. However, I keep putting it down and coming back to it. The way it is written - to me, it's a little off putting. I've never liked the artifice of a story that purports to be taken from diaries or historical documents. In the novel "Little Big Man" I loved the pretense because the hero (played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie version) was so clearly an unreliable narrator. It was hilarious. Trag-comic. Plenty of pathos and guilt-tripping heartache, yet it made me laugh.

This novel poses as the pages of diaries written by women in the midst of battle. One lies dying of her injuries yet continues to describe the scene before her last breath halts that narrative. A hundred years later, a woman dressed like a time traveler straight out of Cherokee nation delivers some desiccated old diaries, then does a paranormal shape-shifter thing. Believing Native Americans could do extraordinary mystical things is fine, but in the artifice of historial fiction, it seems over the top to me. Over-kill.

Most jarring to me is the "voice" of prostitutes who left their profession to marry Cherokees under the fictional program launched by the not-fictional President Jackson. Maybe their diary entries really are written in vernacular that would be authentic for the times, but for me it just doesn't ring true.

The amount of research is spectacular. The premise is stupendous. I love it. Love it!

The horrors of history are all too accurate, the bloodshed all too real. This is an honest novel, for all its imagined political machinations, and it's brutally honest. The history lesson is my main incentive for reading.

And that may be the trouble. When I read fiction, I want to be swept into the story and carried away on a current of willing suspension of disbelief. Diary entries from assorted characters who supposedly really lived (but the author confesses he made them all up), and family histories of fictional families, pull me out of the story. "Author intrusion" may be the wrong term for it, but the author does not pull me in and keep me tethered in the illusion of escaping into another world.

I do love the premise and the history and all the effort that went into this novel. (And, yes, I skimmed the first novel, knowing this is a sequel.) I try to avoid "Did Not Finish" as a rating, and I do hope to get back to this novel. For now, it faces too much competition. The list of authors asking me to read, beta-read, critique, or review their work is longer than I can manage.. I've slipped into the next NetGalley novel in my queue, about 24 generations of a Jewish family who escaped the Inquisition of 1492 in Spain, and I'm about to return to it as soon as I hit "send"on this review.

The Vengeance of Mothers, by Jim Fergus, due out September 12, 2017, will make you laugh, cry, and, if your ancestors came to the United States before the 1800s, wish you could change your ancestry. This is historical fiction like no other: a little romance, a lot of history, a sad but telling commentary on the way Native Americans and women were treated by white men. I'm not so sure it is completely fiction. Fergus has created unforgettable characters who initially sought love and acceptance, but were reduced to fighting for their lives against their own people.
 
In this sequel to his award-winning One Thousand White Women, Fergus allows us a peek inside the journals of white women who joined the 19th century "Brides for Indians" program of the U.S. government. The program was intended to take "civilized ways" and the English language to "the savages". These women quickly went from being part of a program to aid assimilation, to being hostile fugitives in the eyes of the government -- and they had done only what they were sent to do.
 
One of these women had escaped prison after murdering her abusive husband who had killed her daughter. One had escaped an insane asylum after her minister husband had her committed when she questioned his religious teachings. Another was searching for her lost lover, Elizabeth Flight, an artist who went west to paint American birds for her book that could have rivaled those of James Audubon, and was killed by soldiers in a raid on an Indian camp. Others simply wanted an adventure, to escape a life of poverty in city tenements, or even to escape slavery.
 
These women, who had witnessed the deaths of their children, caused both directly and indirectly by the U.S. government, repeatedly said, "Do not underestimate the path of a mother's vengeance." After multiple raids on their village, the women vowed revenge on the soldiers, and participated in the slaughter that came to be known as "Custer's Last Stand". I highly recommend this book, especially for those who are serious about their love of history.
 
What Makes This Book Reviewer Grumpy?
 Not a thing!

This title is a sequel to Fergus’s successful One Thousand White Women, a fictionalized journal depicting a foolhardy attempt of the US government to “civilize” Native Americans through intermarriage with less than desirable women (felons, prostitutes, poor, orphans, etc.) from the East.

One day (in modern times) a mysterious woman visits J Will Dodd a journalist and descendent of one of these original white women. She leaves him with a series of ledgers written by Margaret (Meggy) Kelly, one of the original white woman and Molly McGill who arrived on the last train of white women.

Told in alternating voices and perspectives, the situation in the late 1870s has further declined. Margaret, and the survivors of the first wave of women, has witnessed death and destruction brought upon their newfound families and tribes. They seek revenge and retribution. But another voice of hope is also part of this narrative. That is Molly McGill who fled a horrifying family existence in the East. Guided and informed by the original white women, Molly still clings to a future of a promised life among the Indians.

The first half of the book is slow moving with updates and background on both the surviving women and the new arrivals. The second half of the book picks up the action and the voices of the women became more focused and easier to track for this reader. While not as compelling as his first book, this title should appeal to readers who enjoy adventure, historical fiction and romance. No doubt fans of Fergus’s earlier title will want to learn what happened next.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book.

The long awaited sequel to "One Thousand White Women," Jim Fergus immediately picks up his latest book where the first one ended, so make sure you read it first. The premise of the novel is based on historical speculation rather than any concrete proof(just go on the internet to see the great debate that has emerged based on these books). Apparently, Fergus stumbled upon a story that the US government agreed to provide a program of one thousand white women to intermarry with the Native American Cheyenne and Lakota tribes in order to assimilate them. Fergus paints these women as prostitutes, mentally ill, dancers and actresses. A fact that boggled my mind in book one and that Fergus doesn't drop in book two. One of the most ridiculous scenes in this book is when the white women plan a can-can for the Native American warriors

The journals are this time dictated by the Irish Kelly sisters and a new bride named Molly McGill. The women join with their prospective Native American mates and train to wage war on the U.S. Army. I would love to know from where Jim Fergus draws his "research" but there was no author's note so I am left absolutely amazed that this book is being published.

I also must voice my frustration in the way that Native Americans are depicted. They remain the Western European stereotype of the "savage" bloodthirsty and craving the " white man's scalp."

Definitely should not be considered as historical fiction of any kind.

The previous book was great. Interesting, historical, a great read. In order to enjoy this book it is necessary to have read its predecessor. An interesting time in history.