Caleb's Crossing

As usual, Brooks has a beautiful way with words, giving us sentences that please our minds' ears and help to immerse us in the book's setting. She brings us a sympathetic narrator, whose interactions with those around us, especially Caleb, are very interesting. I enjoyed learning how women (and native Americans) were viewed in 17th century North America.

If I had to pinpoint a problem I had with the book, it was how certain momentous events were trivialized, often by foreshadowing. For example, one characters death is foreshadowed almost from the time the reader picks up the book, but once it occurs, it springs from nowhere and is dealt with in perhaps a sentence of two. If an event is known in advance, all thats left to give the reader is a novel or beautiful way of relating the event, and this was not done here.

Still, a largely engaging story, and most pages were a delight. I'll keep looking for more Brooks.