The Vengeance of Mothers by Jim Fergus is the second book in the "One Thousand White Women" series. Both deal with the transfer of one thousand white women to the Cheyenne Nation as part of the "Brides for Indians" program in 1873. This book deals with the people and the relationships that were bonded in this program. You can only imagine the treatment and disdain that was shown to these women by the society of that time. Many of the women were supposedly women who were "unspeakables", convicts, prostitutes, insane, etc. I loved the first book and I enjoyed the second book. I think that it would be a worthy addition to anyone who is interested in learning more about the U.S. and their relations with Native Americans during that time in history. Recommended for those who love Historical Fiction.

The Vengeance of Mothers by Jim Fergus will be available September 12, 2017 by St. Martin's Press. An egalley of this book was made available by the publisher in exchange for a honest review.

I thought that this was a really good book. I had read One Thousand White Women a few years back. This book is a continuation. Not only do we meet a second group of women sent to be brides, we get to learn what happened to the first group. A good read.

It is less common than you think for an avid reader such as myself to find a book that has you so hooked on the story that you read until the wee hours of the morning just to finish it.-- The Vengeance of Mothers is so amazingly well done it will keep you interested (and dumfounded) by things that the government has done to get, or get rid of, something they wanted to be gone or made easier. Treatment of Native Americans was absolutely horrendous, but this story is much more than the history. It is in turns history and love story, Its about family and justice, At the heart of The Vengeance of Mothers is, at its core, about family and the fact that sometimes family is not just what you are born in to but what you make out of a group of people you love. This is a story that NEEDS to be read.

Having read the advertising blurb once again, I am struggling to match it with the book I read. The blurb talks about great passion - I found the whole book quite unemotional & it certainly failed to evoke passion in me. The blurb also talks about exploring the relationships between wives, husbands & children in an outcast society which I have to say passed me by totally.

As you may have gathered I struggled with this book. It is predominently written as a series of journals - some by two barely educated Irish/American sisters and the others by an American woman with better education. Unfortunately I found little difference between the two sets of journals - the styles didn't seem to change and the uneducated sisters seemed to have the ability to use an extensive vocabulary which I found rather at odds with the description of their extremely poor education. The women's personalities did not come through & i never felt that I got to know these women. They do describe each other but the journals do not reflect the personalities of the supposed authors.

I did not find this book particularly gripping. In fact I found myself scanning pages rather than reading them properly which is a sure sign that I have lost interest. I noticed this about 30% of the way through the book & it continued for the remainder. I like historical novels and chose this book as I was interested in the Brides for Indians programme of which I had never heard. The details were scant and I never really understood what drove either side to such an agreement.

I didn't find the passion nor the relationship development as mentioned in the blurb. Maybe this developed more in the latter part of the book & I missed it because I had lost interest by then and was skim reading. However, I am inclined to say that if a book hasn't grabbed my interest by the time I am 30% of the way through it is unlikely to do so.

There are some good descriptions of the land within this book. Although I didn't feel passion, there are some interesting insights into the native Americans but not of any real depth.

I am afraid that this book just didn't work for me on so many levels.

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

Almost twenty years after the publication of One Thousand White Women, Fergus returns to his “Brides for Indians” story. While the United States government did not have such a program (that I know of), Fergus imagines that it did, and in its arrogance offered Native Americans the opportunity to assimilate into white culture by marrying a white woman and having children that would be considered “U.S. citizens”. In return the U.S. government would be given 300 horses, and the women, many “soiled doves” might have a chance at happiness, or at least freedom from the society that persecuted them. This story is the “journal” of Meggie Kelly, dated 1876, who tells the story of herself and her twin sisters assimilation into the Cheyenne Nation and the ultimate destruction of all they have come to love and hold dear by the American government. I loved One Thousand White Women and I’m so glad that Fergus wrote a follow-up. It’s every bit as good, as heart-breaking and thrilling as the original