Lisa Wingate is a popular author at my small public library and her books are often chosen by our (multiple) book clubs. This one looks like it will be just as appealing

I have read Lisa WIngate's books before and I have enjoyed them. This one not so much. The story takes place in Oklahoma with dual storylines set in the present and the early 1900's. In the past, the reader meets young children who are fending for themselves; in the present, a Park Ranger who has relocated to Oklahoma with her young son. The discovery of burial site of three children brings these two storylines together. I found myself reading this quickly just to get to the end. I will not be recommending this book.

Lisa Wingate does a fantastic job bringing a little-known piece of history to life. Jumping between the early 1900s and the 1990s, she creates female characters who are confident and brave in their own time periods. In my high school library, I will recommend this to mature readers (not necessarily mature for content, but mature in the sense that they can push through a slow start to see the value in a carefully woven tale rather than just needing the plot to move and keep their attention) who are interested in historical fiction.

I loved Before We Were Yours, so when I saw Lisa Wingate had a new book coming out, I was very excited to read it. Reading the synopsis of the book left me intrigued.

This story is told in alternating timelines. Ollie’s tale falls in 1909 and Valerie’s in 1990. I was quickly engrossed in both story lines. As they alternated, it felt like a series of mini cliffhangers, but I wanted to know what happened in both. Wingate has a way of writing that helps you relate to the characters. I appreciate the research she did to write this story and share things that are not talked about a lot. I enjoyed this book from start to finish and it left me contemplating even after I finished it. I would definitely recommend it!

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine/Random House—I appreciate the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

Besides being a great historical fiction novel, this story has wonderful characters that I grew attached to and wanted good things to happen for them. Told in dual timelines, which worked very well for this tale, the history part in early 1900s Oklahoma is well researched and at times heartbreaking. The author creates a plausible ending to draw that early time period into the more current one of the 1990s. Along the way, she creates beautiful word pictures of the mountains and rivers of SE Oklahoma. I guess I just wanted a little more action in both timelines as it was slow going through several parts.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC to read and review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance ecopy of this title. This historical fiction alternates time with each chapter. Ollie is a preteen living with her mother and abusive stepfather in the early 1900s. When one of her foster sisters disappears, she and her other foster sister flee. They meet up with other "elf children" (orphans) in the wilds of Oklahoma in their quest to reach a cabin in the mountains where Ollie lived with her family before her father died. The parallel story involves a federal park ranger, Valerie, who is charged with protecting and enforcing law in this same area of Oklahoma in 1990. Valerie is faced with mysteries on the mountain, and Ollie is faced with difficult obstacles not even an adult should have to face. As their stories mesh together, the abuse of native children by land grabbers in order to steal the riches that land produces/ed becomes evident as much in modern times as the early 20th Century. Wingate seamlessly weaves these stories together, and highlights another sad chapter in American History.

I have enjoyed several of Lisa Wingate's books in the past, but I had a hard time connecting with this book. It takes place in Oklahoma, and is told in two time periods, 1909 and 1990. I had trouble keeping up with the earlier timeline and connecting it to the present one. Valerie's story, told in 1990, resonated with me more and captured my attention more than Ollie and Nessa's. Overall, this book might be enjoyable for some people, but it just wasn't a favorite for me.

I have read many of Lisa Wingate's novels and I have to say that Shelterwood is now a favorite.
This historical fiction is a duel timeline between 1909 & 1990. It is easy to follow, engaging and enlightening. Lisa Wingate
connects them flawlessly in the end.
I am in awe of the research that the author does to bring it all together. I am always learning something new.
I highly recommend Shelterwood.
Thank you NetGalley & Random House- Ballentine Books for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group-Ballentine and Lisa Wingate for the advanced reader copy of Shelterwood!

This book comes out June 4th, 2024…4 stars for me!!

As in Lisa Wingate style, this book started out slow so that the storyline could be set up. It was told in a dual timeline through Olive Augusta Peele (1909) and Valerie Boren-Odell (1990), both in Oklahoma.

Olive Augusta Peele (Ollie Auggie; Hazel) is a runaway. She seems to know that the disappearance of her Choctaw ‘adopted sister’ (loose on adoption), Hazel, went missing because of her stepfather. So, she knows that she needs to get herself and Nessa as far away as possible. Her momma is so deep in the drink and powders after her real pa died that she can’t help them. Olive has a plan to get them to the old homestead in the Winding Stair Mountains. Along the way they would acquire more like them; hungry children, living in the woods and alone. Together they would create a community and ALL make it to Winding Stair, where her pa had a cabin…if they don't get captured first.

Valerie Boren-Odell is starting a new life with her son as a Ranger at the newly minted Horsethief Trail National Park, in Oklahoma. She soon is faced with local controversy over the opening of the park, a hidden burial site of three childrenfrom long ago, a missing teenage hiker and secrets to be uncovered about Grandma Budgie’s land.

How are the two connected? It’s fascinating and a story you never knew you wanted to know about!

I love historical fiction because there is always something to learn! This book I learned about the first woman politician named Miss Kate Barnard. She won without any votes from women because women weren’t allowed to vote until 1918! She advocated for women and children (mainly Native American children) and eradicating unsafe working conditions. She also worked to increase federal protection for the Five Tribes’ members. Eventually she was pushed out by Oklahoma businessmen and officials who convinced the state legislature to defund her office, and her life’s work.

LOVED THE FEMALE STRENGTH IN THIS BOOK!!! Strong story and so interesting!

Shelterwood is an interesting historical fiction story told from 2 viewpoints with alternating chapters. It starts in the early 1900’s with Olive and her six year old “adopted” sister, Nessa who is from the Choctaw tribe. Most likely Nessa was taken without her parents knowledge or approval. The two girls ran away from an abusive step father. The other time frame is during the 1990s where Valerie, a National Park Ranger, and her son Charlie are new to the area. Valerie had previously lost her husband, also a National Park Ranger, in a freak accident and was looking for a new start. The story takes place in the Winding Stair Mountains of Oklahoma. There is quite a bit of history of the Choctaw tribes and abused and mistreated children of the region. The two time frames merge by the end of the story bringing it full circle.
The story is well written and the characters are fully developed. At times the story gets bogged down; at least the part of the elves in the forest was somewhat strange. The book kept my interest and enjoyed how it all comes together at the end.
If you are interested in history; especially the history of Oklahoma you will enjoy this story.

Another fascinating read by Lisa Wingate. Shelterwood weaves a story about our history that few know, dealing with land grabbing, money hungry, folks who exploited children and left them to fend for themselves. The story is told from alternating viewpoints, past and present, and I learned so much about the National Park Service and being a ranger from the main character, Val. In the opposing chapters, reading about and rooting for the children of the future Shelterwood Town, left me on edge and I raced through pages to see them get their fictional Eden. Shelterwood is an amazing story, full of both hero’s and villains, that is worth reading and learning from. Well done, Lisa Wingate!

I expected to like this more, but the middle dragged for me. One timeline focuses on crime mystery and the other on historical fiction, which sounded like a great combo. Thank you to netgalley for the arc!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6429995459

I received this from Netgalley.com.

A hard subject matter and Wingate approached it well. As with most dual timelines I have read, I was much more interested in Olive's story.

3☆

I’m always happy to learn parts of history that were not taught in school. Lisa did a great job researching and putting these facts into two stories that intertwined with the early 1900s and the late 1900s.
Characters were well developed and you could picture yourself in the places they were. I enjoy books that have different characters telling each part of the story.
I give this book a 3.5 star rating. While I enjoy learning the history, I don’t think all the details were important for the story of the “elf children” or the park rangers.

I went into this book not knowing anything and I'm so glad I did.

This is a mystery/historical fiction story with dual time lines. I really loved reading from Ollie's perspective the most. Val was interesting also, but I usually gravitate toward historical fiction and coming of age stories.
It was a slow burn story and the pacing lagged a little at 50%, but it was still truly enjoyable.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in an exchange for an honest review.

Power, wealth, child sex trafficking, abuse, feminism, resistance, police procedure and loyalty shape this novel set in both 1909 and 1990 Oklahoma. After a Native girl living with her family, Ollie, eleven years old, fearful for her six year old Native “sister,” flees with her to escape her abusive stepfather. It’s 1909. How can these two babes trying to stave off starvation, outlaws and the ruthless stepfather find their way up the Winding Stair Mountains? Wingate creates an atmosphere in which you believe you are traveling with the girls along this frightening and dangerous journey. At times, I wanted to scream warnings because I was so engrossed in the story. The historical context shined a light on new information of that time.

Juxtaposed with Ollie’s story, is Valerie’s, set in 1990. Trying to deal with the recent death of her husband and raising her son, Valerie accepts a job with the Park Rangers and is stationed in a remote area amid Winding Stair Mountains. Two events will shape her story, a comment about three sets of children's bones found in a cave on the mountain and a young girl who wants her help finding her brother. Against orders from above, Valerie needs to find out why she has been stymied and solve the mystery. While being told “no” is common in police procedurals, the tenacity and temerity of Valerie makes everything work.

Wngate crafted an artful story of truth and resilience. The characters rang true to their nature. The writing propelled the story forward. While Killers of the Flower Moon showed a broad swath of the time, Wingate shows a slice of life and the effect and aftermath on the people involved. A powerful read.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this ARC.

This long awaited book is by my favorite author, Lisa Wingate. It is set in two time frames. The first is 1909 where we meet a preteen, Ollie Radley, and a six year old Choctaw orphan named Nessa . Their story is one of poverty, abuse, escape and hiding from the men who would treat them badly. The other time frame, 1990, introduces the reader to a female National Park Ranger, She is widowed single parent trying to raise her son Charlie and provide for them. She is assigned to the Winding Stair Mountain area of Oklahoma. Being the only female ranger she has her own set of troubles to overcome as she tries to solve a case in which 3 bodies are discovered in a cave. I really got involved in the story of the Park Ranger and hope to meet her again in future stories. All of the characters and settings are masterfully crafted and both time lines kept me totally involved. I highly recommend this book to history buffs wanting to know about the life of the Choctaw Indians in the early 1900’s and to modern feminist readers as we cheer on the Park Ranger. This is a great book club read and a teenage story as well. It hits in all areas of historical fiction. Lisa Wingate thoroughly researches her stories and both educates and entertains the reader with her magic of storytelling. She never disappoints. This book is well worth the wait. In fact I liked it so much I am now rereading it.

I wish to thank NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine Books Publishers for allowing me to read a copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Shelterwood, a dual-timelines novel that ostensibly explores Choctaw exploitation and land theft, seemed well-researched but was deeply disappointing.

To begin with, the braiding together of the two stories, one set in 1909 and the other in 1990, was unsatisfying. The further I read, the more it felt like a bait-and-switch. By the end, what I was reading wasn’t the story I was promised in the novel’s opening chapters.

The narrative’s back-and-forth nature also interfered with my ability to connect to either of the protagonists. Early on, I found myself very nearly caring about Valerie, the female park ranger facing grief and misogyny in the more recent narrative, but too much was left undeveloped in service to the two storylines.

My biggest frustration with Shelterwood was that too many themes were hinted at and too few developed. Mother/daughter relationships were sketched and abandoned. For example, Val’s relationship with her mother and grandmother, whom she lauds in the epilogue as “the women who built [her],” held so much potential but were virtually ignored throughout the novel. And why was Ollie’s mother, addicted to both alcohol and opium, even a character in the 1909 chapters? Why spend so much time establishing her as tragic only to abandon her to the page with no further exploration or commentary on addiction among women in that time and place? It felt completely gratuitous. Poorly done.

I felt the same frustration with many of the side characters. It quickly became a story with too many players but too few actors. I kept wishing that Wingate had done less and that she'd done it better. As I side-eye Shelterwood as a Choctaw story told through the lens of white protagonists, I can't help but think maybe she should've told a completely different story.

I could go on about other pointless inclusions, about how flat many of the characters were, the 1909 antagonist being perhaps the most caricaturistic (I could practically see him nefariously rubbing his hands together and twirling his mustache during his villain’s monologue), or about how watered down both storylines became, but what’s the point? Reading Shelterwood was, for me, an exercise in frustration. I doubt I'll read this author again.

If you read only one book this year make it Shelterwood. I loved this book from the first page. Set in the Winding Stair Mountains of Oklahoma, the story of mistreated and abused orphans and children is told in alternating timelines; Olive Augusta Radley, 1909, and park ranger Valerie Boren-Odell, 1990. So many historical facts about this area have been included in the book. It's amazing how much research Ms. Wingate put into the writing of this book just so avid readers like me could enjoy reading it. Thanks to the author Lisa Wingate, Random House-Ballantine Books, and NetGalley. I received a complimentary copy of this ebook. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

I wanted to love this! Lisa Wingate authored one of my all time favorite historical fictions, Before We Were Yours, and I was hoping for another touching novel.

Unfortunately, for me it fell flat and I hate having to write this review. I had a hard time getting into the story and never felt fully engaged. It took quite a while for me to actually get through because I was never excited to pick it up after breaks. I was bored and at 75% in I admit to skimming through in order to finish.

Shelterwood is a dual timeline (which sometimes works for me but often does not) and with this it just didn’t flow easily enough. Every time I felt like the story was close to grabbing my attention it would suddenly switch back to the other timeline. There was a lot going on with the back and forth (1909 and 1990’s) making it difficult to become fully invested in either story.

I kept wondering the entire time when it was all going to come together and what the connection was. I wish that would have been made more clear from the beginning because I honestly felt like I was reading two entirely different stories and just couldn’t seem to ever connect the dots. Had this actually been told as two stand-alone novels or separately as part of a series I think it could have been more enjoyable.

With all this said, there is a story to be told (read the authors note for a more in depth look at this interesting and lesser known topic) and, as usual, Wingate did a thorough job with her research.

However, this book wasn’t a win for me due to the slow building plot and the difficult to follow dual timelines. It does all come together at around the 90% mark but by that point it was too little too late for me.

I really dread leaving a less than stellar review because ultimately the author works their tail off writing. Authoring a book is a work of art and just because this book wasn’t for me doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it. As proof, there are already tons of glowing reviews available. More good than bad…