 Dawn on a Distant Shore
I wasn't as taken with this book as I was the first one. While it promised to have a lot of action; kidnappings, rescues, etc., it was actually kind of boring. As a recap (and possible spoiler) the first book covered Elizabeth, a teacher who came to America and fell in love with outdoors man Nathaniel Bonner. Together they secretly elope so they can restore a piece of land to its rightful owners.
We are first taken to Canada where Nathaniel has gone to rescue his father and a Native American friend of his, Otter. Unfortunately he is unsuccessful and ends up locked up with them. They manage to escape, with Elizabeth on the way to help them, but then her newborn twins are kidnapped from them by a devious servant of a relative in Scotland. This uncle wants them to come there so they can claim inheritance and he can keep the land out of the hands of his enemies. They have to enlist the aid of a pirate ship to get their babies back and then deal with all the deviousness of the Carryck relative and try to get back home.
The majority of this book was spent on the boat. And honestly, while there are some things that happen on the boat, it certainly didn't warrant as much space in the book as it did. Overly lengthy descriptions actually seemed to take away from the book.
Usually Donati is pleasant to read but it this book since they are headed to Scotland, there was a lot of Scottish dialogue. Normally this would intrigue me but I don't speak Scots and it made the story very hard to follow. I feel like I lost a good bit of the plot that was told through stories from Scottish speakers and I felt a bit lost as a result. I admire her attempt to be linguistically correct but it would have been extremely helpful to include a dictionary if she was going to be that authentic. The rest of the writing, however, was in an enjoyable style and easy to understand. The book was told in the third person.
Overall the book wasn't bad, but it wasn't near as good as the first. I'll keep reading to find out what happens but I hope the next book is more interesting.
Dawn on a Distant Shore
Copyright 200
463 pages
 Donati drops the plot in this second book
Sara Donati's second book in her `Wilderness' series starts with Elizabeth Bonner's dramatic labour to twins Lily and Daniel. It's a wonderful opening chapter in which Elizabeth's step-daughter, Hannah, has to deliver her half-siblings because a storm has kept Nathaniel away.
From there the pace only gains momentum as Nathaniel is forced to travel to Montreal and rescue his brother-in-law and father from gaol and the clutches of a conniving society darling.
But the rescue doesn't go according to plan, and Elizabeth is forced to cart her twins, step-daughter and friend, Curiosity Freeman, across the Canadian wilderness to Montreal to retrieve her husband and assorted family members.
Things are made even more complicated as an English lord is likewise on the hunt for the Bonner men, Nathaniel and his father Daniel, to ensure they claim their rightful Scottish inheritance.
This book felt a lot like Diana Gabaldon's third book `Voyager'. A lot of `Dawn' takes place on the high seas, to eventually make port in Scotland. It was very reminiscent of `Voyager'; just in the fact that pirates and privateers pepper the cast, there's a lot of ship-swapping to keep up with and hidden agendas to keep track of.
I was ultimately disappointed with this second instalment. Donati came close, but never quite met my expectations in `Dawn'. For one thing, in this book it felt as though Donati was skirting around certain issues and topics. The perfect example of this is in Giselle Somerville. Ms. Somerville is a woman from Nathaniel's past, a Montreal society darling who seduced Nathaniel when they were both 17. Giselle was taken by Nathaniel's Mohawk savageness, and since his departure from her bedchamber, Giselle has bedded a cachet of Indians and navy-men alike to satisfy her lustful curiosities. In `Dawn' Giselle has turned her attention's to Nathaniel's brother-in-law, Otter, and Nathaniel is forced to travel to Montreal to recover the lad.
There's a lot of unspoken baggage between Giselle and Nathaniel - both Nathaniel and his father, Daniel think on the affair... but they never *talk* about it. Elizabeth is especially intrigued by Giselle as a woman of her husband's past... but she and Nathaniel never *talk* about her. It is very, very frustrating. And the lack of conversation serves to put distance between Elizabeth and Nathaniel. I started wondering why they weren't being open and honest with one another - it may be an uncomfortable topic to discuss, but asking your significant other about their first loves and past relationships is a big and necessary conversational obstacle.
I do still love Nathaniel and Elizabeth - despite feeling a chasm of difference between them for everything they *didn't* say, I still like them. In this book we glimpse what Elizabeth's life could have been had she not left England for New-York, and it works to illustrate how much she has gained from Nathaniel.
As much as I still loved the romance in `Dawn', Donati literally `lost the plot' in this second book. My biggest complaint was that a lot of the action seemed to take place off the page. There's a big revelation half-way through the book that Giselle gave birth to Nathaniel's son all those years ago. Nathaniel learns of his estranged child, and resolves to tell Elizabeth about the boy, Luke, and to decide with her whether or not he leaves the boy be or tracks him down. But we never read the scene in which Nathaniel breaks the news to Elizabeth that he has an illegitimate son. It is in the final pages that we read a letter claiming that the Bonner clan tracked Luke down, and bought him back to Hidden Wolf in New York for a time. It is an absolute travesty that we don't get to read these scenes, that they are recounted to us in summary instead of scene. It is such a waste of intense dramatic scenes and a deplorable case of `telling, not showing' and as a reader I feel terribly ripped-off by Donati.
I will continue with this series, but I have a touch of resentment toward Donati for dropping the ball with this second novel.
Dawn on a Distant Shore
This book is the sequel to Into the Wilderness, which I read late last year and really enjoyed. The story picks up right where it left off with a gripping series of scenes in which Elizabeth gives birth to twins at home on Hidden Wolf with only the help of her ten-year-old step-daughter. Meanwhile Nathaniel is trapped in the village by a blizzard, desperate to get home to his wife, whom he thinks is only having one baby. A good way to draw the reader into the story and what follows does not disappoint: an adventure with a long, twisting, turning plot with many characters and viewpoints, romance, danger and surprises.
The Bonners travel to Canada and Scotland, through wilderness and by sea. Ms. Donati writes very descriptively, and there's no doubt she brings settings and details into vivid life, but sometimes I felt like there was too much attention paid to detail and conversely there were several instances where I felt like not enough attention had been paid to the meat of the story. All of the storylines come to a head in the last few pages and thus the climactic scenes felt rushed and conclusions to a couple of storylines were not thoroughly fleshed out; I didn't feel completely satisfied. One example: near the end Nathaniel has to make a startling revelation to Elizabeth, but the reader is not privy to that conversation or to her reaction to the news.
Some of the plot twists were a little over-the-top, but I once read that if you can write great characters, your reader will go along with anything you throw at them, and Ms. Donati has a real talent for writing characters that are complex and realistic and that readers become attached to. A large chunk of this book is devoted to Hannah, Nathaniel's tender-hearted half-Indian daughter, who struggles to come to terms with the cruelty and bigotry of others, and to find her place in the world as a child of two races. I was glad to get to know her so well and my heart ached for her. She is much changed by the end of their journey and there is a very fitting and meaningful rite of passage at the end for her.
Overall I enjoyed this sequel. I've grown attached to the characters and I'm moving right along to the next book in the series, Lake in the Clouds.
 review
I felt the first book in the series started off a little weak and definitely grew in strength as the novel progressed. However, I enjoyed "Dawn on a Distant Shore" from start to finish and went on to purchase the other titles in the series right away. My only complaint is that this book did not have a Kindle edition.
good story
Second in the wilderness series and very enjoyable. Good story line and strong characters. A book I couldn't wait to get back to.
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