"Courting Morrow Little" by Laura Frantz

Historical fiction is always a draw for me. This story is set during the late 1700's on the Kentucky frontier. Morrow Little's life was changed at age six, when Indians killed her mother and sister and kidnapped her brother. Now eighteen, Morrow is returning to the wilderness after spending a few years with an aunt in Philadelphia. As glad as she is to see her father again, Morrow is a little unprepared for life away from her aunt's dress shop.

Morrow's father is a preacher and they often travel to a nearby fort for Sunday services, where Morrow is an attraction for many men. As a man of peace, Mr. Little also has ties to several Indians who wander nearby woods, which sets Morrow on edge because of the violence in their past. Mr. Little is sick with consumption, and worries about what will happen to Morrow if she is still unmarried when he passes away.

Not all the men who are interested in Morrow are honorable, and she may be forced to choose someone other than the man she loves in order to ease her father's mind as he grows weaker and weaker. I thought the title was a bit of a misnomer, as Morrow is married about halfway through this book and we follow her journey as a wife and mother in the rest of the pages.

Over the years, both before and after her marriage, Morrow is faced with the threat of being kidnapped by both Indians and white settlers. She deals with various life-threatening physical situations and the internal challenges of trying to forgive the Indians who murdered her family. There was not a lot of personal connection with the main character, because the author doesn't relay Morrow's personal feelings very well. It was almost like "Jane Eyre" in this sense, and this sense only. One of the few things we know about Morrow is that she cries all the time. I'm not saying that life wasn't hard and she did not endure tragedies, and in some ways it seemed more realistic that the author didn't try to pretend Morrow was a super strong woman, but I would have preferred a few less tears.

On the whole, I didn't think this was a very deep story. I read it on vacation, and otherwise I'm not sure I would have finished it. I tend to like historical fiction that teaches me about real historical events, or else is emotionally gripping and relays something about human character. This was pretty fluffy on those counts, although as far as the story goes, it was unpredictable and had interesting secondary characters. Just not my cup of tea overall.