The story is better than expected. I liked the detailed tribal stories and the close family connections. The characters had strong personalities and opinions that played well off each other. I enjoyed the book.

Strong Heart starts in a straightforward manner. A company wants to exercise its mining rights on property in the Pacific Northwest wilderness, and the locals are concerned about the mining’s impact on local residents and the fishing industry. A rebellious girl is shuffled around between family members before being dumped on her grandfather’s doorstep. A man wants to visit his father’s gravesite and return a relic to the wilderness. But if this relic turns out to be a significant archaeological finding, then the mining could not take place. Sounds like a fairly straightforward nature vs. business struggle until the girl gets lost in the wilderness and comes back with an extraordinary story to share.

I was quickly drawn into the basic plot points with the vivid descriptions of the characters and settings. The Native American mythology and culture are carefully brought into the story so that the girl’s unbelievable story fits. The character development is profound but makes sense given how her experience impacts the others in her hiking group.

I haven’t read much Native American folklore, but I quickly appreciated the beautiful canvas Charlie Sheldon created. I’m not familiar with Native American mythology but Sheldon’s carefully crafted tale drew me in anyway.

Strong Heart is the first book in the series. I’ve grabbed a copy of the second book, Adrift, and am looking forward to reading it. I want to spend more time in the setting Charlie Sheldon built in Strong Heart. I’m going to grab a blanket and hot tea, then curl up and get swept back to the Pacific Northwest wilderness.



Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of the book.

Wow! Every second of this book was amazing. The story-line is fantastic and so unique. You can learn so much from this book about native America and the debate about when man first came to North America. This wonderful fiction book is so informative and very well researched. From the very first page I knew I was going to love this book. I was hooked and I love books surrounding the northern region of North America. It was extremely well wrote and lead to me being enchanted by this tale. The characters were amazing and I quickly became to love or hate many of the main characters. There was so much action, adventure and mystery surrounding the story that I had to read on. This book is a real page turner with a air of magical realism. The ending was great it really left you extremely excited to read book two of this trilogy. I loved the age range of the characters so it lead you to really understand the importance of the story from different eyes. It was very interesting to find out the importance to each character to find the evidence needed to protect this historic site from the evil grips of the miners. The story really captures the interactions between the native Americans and the corporate Big wigs owho are only interested in their bottom line. It also looked into the local issues and how they impact different people.
So much praise to the author and publishing team for bringing us such a delightful book for us all to enjoy.
I can't wait to read and learn more from this author. Already posted on goodreads will be posting to retail sites tomorrow

I'm a bit lost for words with this book. I expected more and it fell short in my opinion. There was a lot of talking but nothing concrete. Nothing that kept my interest. At times the author seemed to talk just to fill the pages.

I'm not saying it's a bad book. Just could have been a shorted book.

I find the American Indian culture fascinating especially the vision quests. That is what this book is about. Now it's up to you the reader to either accept or question the quest.

If you have an interest you may find this better than I would I recommend it? I'm going to sit on the fence. All because it wasn't my cup of tea doesn't mean it's not yours.

Enjoy!

Strong Heart by Charlie Sheldon was a compelling read that I thoroughly enjoyed. The main characters of Sarah, Tom, William and Myra were likable and well developed. Sarah, Tom’s teenaged grand daughter, shows up just as the adults are about to hike into the mountains. She accompanies them and the magic unfolds. Native American themes are beautifully interwoven into the plot. I enjoyed this book. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Strong Heart by Charlie Sheldon was a bit ragged to read but I got so engrossed in it I had to finish it in one sitting to see what happened. Maybe because of the characters in the book, the raggedness was deliberate. A very interesting debate on human origins is part of the appeal of the story. I do hope there is a second one to find out more about the characters.

0 stars. None. Zilch. Nada. This book was a hard no from me. The writing was incredibly choppy in every sense of the word. The dialogue was entirely underdeveloped, there was literally no inner dialogue or any other way to surmise how a character was truly feeling. The sentences themselves were short and ended abruptly. There were ZERO segues between topics and a severe lack of timeframe for the story. I really just did not enjoy this one at all, it was painful to get through. To sum up the story, three adults have a hiking trip planned when one adults granddaughter (that no one knew existed) was dumped on his door step. They all decided to take this surly, skinny, epically “teenager” young teen on an arduous hike. The teen gets lost and an ancient short faced bear was part of the storyline I guess. I really don’t think this author has met a teenager before and I seriously cringed when the grandfather says he will “put her over his knee” if she did something, I don’t even remember. 10/10 do not recommend this book, no thank you. But…thank you to @netgalley for providing this book to me for free in exchange for an honest review. #bookstagram #netgalley #netgalleyreads #netgalleyreview #speedreader #donotrecommend #bookworm