Widow Walk by Gerard Lasalle

Format: eBook
Pub. Date: 2012
Type: Fiction, Historical Fiction ~ Received free for honest review
Pages: 224
Read: 5/30/2015
Rating: Liked it ♥♡
Widow Walk is historical fiction depicting real and fictional characters and events.

Colonel Isaac Neff Ebey (Isaac Evers in the story) did take a company to the Palouse to fight.

Captain George E. Pickett, who later achieved enduring fame during the War Between the States, almost provoked an international war with his standoff of the Brits at San Juan Island.

The two statements above were taken from the book, I edited them to remove any potential spoilers. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is well written fictionalized account of a historical event. I enjoyed reading it. There were some questions that remained at the end of the book, but there is a follow-up book Isthmus which I haven’t read. I would think some of these unanswered questions will be answered in the follow-up book.

Having lived in the Northwest, the setting of this novel, I have been on Whidbey Island, I have stood on the bridge over Deception Pass so it was fun reading about places I’ve been even though the events took place several generations before my family lived there. I am a little embarrassed to admit I know very little about the history of the area, but it is obvious that Mr. LaSalle has done his research.

The first few chapters introduce us to the main characters, each chapter from the point of view of one person. This allows for excellent character development, it doesn’t take long for us to get to know the characters in the book. At the same time we are ‘meeting’ the characters, we are also learning about the area, and the relationship between the settlers and the indigenous people. There is a good mix of people in this book, good, bad, mentally ill, courageous, greedy and unscrupulous. Mr. LaSalle has done a good job with the people in this book, he does not resort to making them stereotypical characters. You feel for the characters, bad and good, and even though I thoroughly disliked some of them, I understood why they did the things they did.

The history of the actions of the settlers vs the natives is also explored, showing the good and bad on both sides. It is a fact that the whites or “the men from Boston” as they are referred to in this book, tried to wipe out the native population. It is touched on briefly in this book.

I believe this book will appeal to readers of historical fiction, those who are interested in the history of this country.