Author: Lori Benton
Publisher: WaterBrook
Pages: 400
GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
As I read A Flight of Arrows: A Novel, I thought about The Wood’s Edge, the previous book in The Pathfinders series, and was once again
reminded of the quiet yet strong faith and the conviction that bursts forth
from the tone of the omniscient narrator in both books. Both books are imbued
with the same strong air of comfort that comes of knowing that our fates are
held in the hands of a loving, forgiving God.
The style that is followed is similar to that followed in
The Wood’s Edge. There are chapters for each of the years from 1776 onwards. Sometimes
though there are multiple chapters in a particular year, written from the third-person
point of view of different characters.
The book begins where the previous one ended. More than a
year has passed since William ran away from home, unwilling to face the truth
about his origins. He has made the cause of the British his own, while Reginald
Aubrey fights on the American side, the side the Oneidas have aligned
themselves with. It is one more wedge that divides them.
For Good Voice and Stone Thrower, and Two Hawks, the sadness
is even more painful, knowing that their son and brother, for who they have longed
all these years, has once again distanced himself from them. This time the
distance is not just physical.
A mountain of agonizing self-doubt and an utter unwillingness
to forgive the man he called father holds him back. Nor can he come to terms
with the fact that he is indeed Indian, he who has grown up believing that he
is white.
And yet, the three will not stop hoping and waiting and
trusting that William, their very own He-is-Taken, will be restored to them.
Anna is equally tormented at knowing that William won’t
return and that Two Hawks and his parents as well as Reginald are denied the
peace that must be theirs.
Meanwhile, Reginald’s refusal to accept Two Hawks as person
or even as a potential son-in-law drives a wedge between him and Anna.
There is Strikes-the-Water, a girl who clearly resents Anna
for her place in Two Hawks’ life.
The characters are all suffering. Reginald, bent under the weight
of William’s refusal to forgive, cannot bring himself to accept forgiveness for
himself. William physically runs away from the truth, only to find that he
cannot outrun the truth, that the truth will find a way to enter his life.
Gradually, and it is a very slow process of realization that
is beautifully handled, William begins to realize that his heart is not on the
British side, that he is called upon to protect his people, Anna and Lydia,
even Reginald, the man he thought of as his father, and his true family, Good
Voice, Stone Thrower and Two Hawks, though he doesn’t believe that he will live
long enough to be united with them.
Once again, I marveled at the manner in which Lori has
married historical fact with fiction. It is after all a tumultuous and
significant time in American history. America, as a nation, is about to be
born.
Much of the book is taken up by the preparation for war and
the actual skirmishes and active combat that takes place between the soldiers
of the British Crown and the rebels who want independence.
While I read the long chapters relating to the battles, it
was the chapters in which William is found and through which the family takes
fledgling steps to one another that I loved the most. Lori has a knack for
relationships, especially filial ones, that tugs at your heart.
The ending is heartrending because even though they escape
relatively unscathed from the war between the British loyalists and the rebels,
the Senecas, who fought on the side of the British, have lost many of their own
soldiers and are demanding vengeance.
They take Reginald prisoner, but Stone
Thrower, with both his sons by his side, mount an exciting rescue mission. How
it turns out is something that you have to read yourself to believe.
This is historical and Christian inspirational fiction at
its best.
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