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…

The setting: a dual time line. Oklahoma 1909 and 1990.

1909: 11-year old Olive Augusta Radley, "Ollie" "...knows that her stepfather doesn’t have good intentions toward the two Choctaw girls [Hazel and Nessa] boarded in their home as wards." When Hazel disappears, Ollie takes Nessa and they flee into the woods in the Winding Stair Mountains where they "...form an unlikely band with others like themselves, struggling to stay one step ahead of those who seek to exploit them . . . or worse." Thus begins the older timeline. I found a striking resemblance to the corrupt men of Killers of the Flower Moon who took advantage of the Native American population by swindling them out of their land.

1990: NPS Ranger Valerie Boren O'dell, a single parent with a young son, still grieving the death of her husband, begins a new job at the Horsethief Trail National Park. No sooner than she starts, a teenage hiker has gone missing and a long-hidden burial site of three children deep in a cave is uncovered. The Choctaw tribal Police are cooperative, but no one else is and she faces an uphill battle in her new job and environs.

Enter in a cast of other characters in both timelines and you are reading a novel rich in historical fiction and a plot that kept drawing me back. I loved Ollie and her drive and determination. [In fact, I enjoyed the1909 timeline much more than the 1990 story].

1909: Kate Bernard, 1909, who took up the plight of the "orphans" and perservered in righting the wrongs. Mrs. Grube, Mr. Brotherton, a newspaperman. Some of the kindly people along the way [but MANY not so nice! and the bad were BAD!!].

Spoiler alert: I did not see the full circle coming [though others might] and the neat and tidy ending--only a slight derailment.

Be sure to read the author's note.

Solid 4,
Well-researched and very interesting/plot driven.

Lisa Wingate does it again!! I LOVED her novel Before We Were Yours so I just knew I had to check out Shelterwood.

I absolutely love the dual timeline of 1909 and 1990. This historical fiction was based on true historical events as well and you can really tell Lisa took the time to really research these events.

I absolutely adored the air of mystery as well. Lisa Wingate will be an autobuy/autoread author for me always.


Thanks to NetGalley, Lisa Wingate, and Ballantine Books for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is an unusual book with dual timelines and points of view., take place in eastern Oklahoma, in the Winding Stair Mountains. This historical fiction story is told from two timelines, 1909 and 1990, based on true historical events. 1990 Valerie is beginning her job as a Park Law Enforcement Ranger in Oklahoma. Valerie working alongside Curtis, head of the Chocktaw Tribal Police, also have a job to protect and bring justice to the land from those who would want to take from it. In 1909, an eleven year old girl and her family’s six year old Choctaw ward run away from her stepfather, a man who had evil intentions. Trying to get to her parents' old cabin, they encounter other children living wild and form a community. It was a bit difficult to get involved in but once I was invested it was definitely worth the read. I did become more invested in both stories for the second half. And Wingate does a good job of bringing the stories together. My personal preference is to have historical fiction that teaches me something and Wingate does deliver. This is a complex story. Painful at times because it involved the rights and lives of children. And the corruption. Especially to the Natives, their land and their children. When reading a heart-wrenching story of this nature, readers are reminded of a time not learned in our history books, one that must now, not be forgotten.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher

I was attracted to this book because the author, Lisa Wingate is the author of "When We Were Yours", which I enjoyed. This is a well researched story of a period of Oklahoma history which I was quite unaware of. It toggles back and forth between 2 timelines ( Oklahome
1909 and Oklahoma 1990). 1909 tells the story of Ollie & Nessa who leave an abusive home life to find their way back to their original home in the Winding Stair Mountains. The struggles of many, many children who were taken advantage of by 'conservators' or legal guardians at this time in history was something I had never considered or read about ...although the inclusion of Native American land swindles is reminiscent of what happened to the Osage tribe (see: Killers of the Flower Moon). Bringing us forward into 1990 is Val and her son Charlie. Val is struggling with the recent loss of her husband and the fact that she is one of very few women who is a Ranger/Officer with the National Parks Administration. She has moved from Virginia to Oklahoma to work at Horsethief Trail National Park in the hopes of giving herself and Charlie a new start. She becomes embroiled in a missing persons case that ultimately leads back to Ollie & Nessa's story.
This book carried me along and the details of the early days of Oklahoma statehood were very interesting. Also the info provided regarding the National Parks and land grabs strongly held my interest. The end was perhaps a bit too"pat" but I am willing to forgive that since the storyline was a good one and the varying timelines were handled in a deft manner.
Recommended for those who enjoy American History, Native American history and women's history

It is 1909, and Ollie is only eleven years old. Her beloved father is dead, and her mother has married an evil man. He lives with Ollie, her mother, and two Choctaw girls who were taken in. When the older of the Choctaw sisters disappears and Ollie finds that her new step-father wants to do inappropriate things to Ollie’s six-year-old Choctaw “sister”, she decides she must take the little girl and run away.

Meanwhile in 1990, Valerie, a park ranger, has moved to Horsethief Trail Park in Oklahoma. As soon as she begins her new job, she is forced to confront many problems. After investigating the problems, Valerie uncovers some dreadful secrets from the past.

This is a well-written story that parallels two separate plots: one that occurs in 1990 and one that takes place in 1909. Eventually the two story lines merge, revealing a bitterly sad time in Oklahoma’s history.

This well-written tale is populated with realistic characters who take the reader on an unforgettable journey.

This was outstanding historical fiction. There are two timelines here, 1909 and 1990. The story is based on true historical facts of Oklahoma. I noticed that it seemed like the two timelines were coming together. Names from the first part were appearing in the second. It was beautifully done. I found I was reading rather slowly to take in everything. It broke my heart that there were so many abandoned and abused children.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Lisa Wingate’s Shelterwood is set in Oklahoma in the early 20th century as well as 1990, and is the tale of several “lost” children: orphans in 1909 who must fend for themselves while trying to stay safe from adults who neglect them at best and abuse them in terrible ways, and a modern-day discovery of three sets of juvenile human bones in a national park—along with some teenagers who don’t have it much better than their 1909 counterparts did. In both time periods, compassionate women find themselves getting too involved in the situation. A story of resilience and a reminder that, sadly, some things never change. (Netgalley review; available June 4)