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Queen of Swords by Sara Donati
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Queen of Swords (edition 2007)

by Sara Donati

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6991532,447 (4.12)13
Fiction. Literature. Romance. Historical Fiction. HTML:It is the late summer of 1814, and Hannah Bonner and her half brother Luke have spent more than a year searching the islands of the Caribbean for Lukeâ??s wife and the man who abducted her. But Jennetâ??s rescue, so long in coming, is not the resolution theyâ??d hoped for. In the spring she had given birth to Lukeâ??s son, and in the summer Jennet had found herself compelled to surrender the infant to a stranger in the hope of keeping him safe.
To claim the child, Hannah, Luke, and Jennet must journey first to Pensacola. There they learn a great deal about the family that has the baby. The Poiterins are a very rich, very powerful Creole family, totally without scruple. The matriarch of the family has left Pensacola for New Orleans and taken the child she now claims as her great-grandson with her.
New Orleans is a city on the brink of war, a city where prejudice thrives and where Hannah, half Mohawk, must tread softly. Careful plans are made as the Bonners set out to find and reclaim young Nathaniel Bonner. Plans that go terribly awry, isolating them from each other in a dangerous city at the worst of times.
Sure that all is lost, and sick unto death, Hannah finds herself in the care of a family and a friend from her past, Dr. Paul de Guise Savard dit Saint-dâ??Uzet. It is Dr. Savard and his wife who save Hannahâ??s life, but Dr. Savardâ??s half brother who offers her real hope. Jean-Benoit Savard, the great-grandson of French settlers, slaves, and Choctaw and Seminole Indians, is the one man who knows the city well enough to engineer the miracle that will reunite the Bonners and send them home to Lake in the Clouds. With Ben Savardâ??s guidance, allies are drawn from every segment of New Orleansâ??s population and from Andrew Jacksonâ??s army, now pouring into the city in preparation for what will be the last ma
… (more)
Member:obenskid
Title:Queen of Swords
Authors:Sara Donati
Info:Bantam (2007), Mass Market Paperback, 720 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:*****
Tags:None

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Queen of Swords by Sara Donati

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» See also 13 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 15 (next | show all)
This series is on my lifetime top ten. This is the 5th book in Donati's Wilderness series and I have loved every minute.

This is the saga of the Bonner family which started in 1792 with book 1 and Elizabeth Middleton coming to America from Britain. She arrives in the mountains of New York and takes over the schooling of the children and attracts the attention of Nathanial Bonner. Through the next 4 books we watch as their love story grows and they face the good and bad of what is put before them, all the while building a family.

Book 5 has us on adventure as two of the children of Elizabeth and Nathaniel search for their wife and cousin, Jennet, who has been abducted. Their search takes them from the New York mountains to Hati, to New Orleans. In the Big Easy, The Battle of New Orleans is gearing up and they find themselves caught, unable to return home.

Donati's writing and research are pitch perfect.

I have the last book [b:The Endless Forest|5292764|The Endless Forest (Wilderness, #6)|Sara Donati|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1262375790l/5292764._SX50_.jpg|6450953] ready to go. However, I hesitate as I know I will be sad to leave this family. ( )
  JBroda | Sep 24, 2021 |
I really liked this book, but it has been the least favorite of the series so far as the setting is New Orleans during the War of 1812 and far removed from Lake in the Clouds in upstate New York where the rest of the Bonner family reside. Am looking forward to reading the last book in this wonderful series! 576 pages ( )
  Tess_W | Nov 2, 2019 |
After finishing the fourth book in Sara Donati's Wilderness series, which ended with a cliffhanger, I couldn't wait to start the next book.

Fire Along the Sky ended with Jennet Scott Huntar, the Bonners' distant cousin from Scotland, being kidnapped near a British prison for Americans captured in the War of 1812 - just as Jennet's love, Luke Bonner, helps his younger half-brother Daniel Bonner escape the prison, with the help of his half-sister Hannah Bonner.  All Jennet is able to leave behind as clues are a couple of tarot cards, one of which is the Queen of Swords.  (It's never explained what message Jennet was trying to send, but it is pretty clear to me that Hannah is the Queen, and she is the major character in this book.)

Queen of Swords begins nearly a year later, with Jennet's rescue in the French Antilles in August 1814.  Jennet gave birth to Luke's son, Nathaniel, while in captivity, but sent him away, supposedly to safety, with a man called Honoré Poiterin.  Stopping first in Haiti and then in Pensacola, Florida, the Bonners learn Poiterin and his formidable grandmother are claiming Nathaniel as his own, and have taken him to New Orleans.  So of course the Bonners go there, setting up the story to intersect with the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815.

Other than a few letters, and an appearance by a couple at the end, the Bonner family back in Paradise, New York, and in Montreal play little part in this book.  Jennet and Hannah both endure assaults, and Hannah reunites with an old friend from her New York days, Dr. Paul Savard, and meets his half-brother Ben, of mixed race like herself.  You can probably predict where that goes.

Nevertheless, it's an exciting book, and I learned a little about the Battle of New Orleans and some of the real people connected with it, who appear as characters in this book:  Andrew Jackson, Edward Livingston and his wife Louise, and Jacques Villeré and his son Gabriel.

I'm looking forward to the final book in the series, and finding out what happens to the rest of the Bonner clan and their friends.

© Amanda Pape - 2017

[The book was borrowed from and returned to my local public library.] ( )
1 vote riofriotex | Jan 14, 2017 |
Book 5 in the Into the Wilderness Series - In this installment of the series, we get to know all of the 2nd generation of the Bonner's more intimately. Hannah's unwavering courage. Luke's unwavering love for Jeanette with her own survival story. Nathaniel and Run from Bears voyage to help bring them all home again. Love Love Love this series!! ( )
  booklovers2 | Sep 10, 2016 |
Well written implausible melodrama. ( )
  Clueless | Jul 8, 2013 |
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Queen of Swords: A woman possessed of keen logic and intuition. Forthright is she in manner, and well-armed
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Dedicated to the good people of New Orleans
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In the mornings she went walking while the men slept.
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Fiction. Literature. Romance. Historical Fiction. HTML:It is the late summer of 1814, and Hannah Bonner and her half brother Luke have spent more than a year searching the islands of the Caribbean for Lukeâ??s wife and the man who abducted her. But Jennetâ??s rescue, so long in coming, is not the resolution theyâ??d hoped for. In the spring she had given birth to Lukeâ??s son, and in the summer Jennet had found herself compelled to surrender the infant to a stranger in the hope of keeping him safe.
To claim the child, Hannah, Luke, and Jennet must journey first to Pensacola. There they learn a great deal about the family that has the baby. The Poiterins are a very rich, very powerful Creole family, totally without scruple. The matriarch of the family has left Pensacola for New Orleans and taken the child she now claims as her great-grandson with her.
New Orleans is a city on the brink of war, a city where prejudice thrives and where Hannah, half Mohawk, must tread softly. Careful plans are made as the Bonners set out to find and reclaim young Nathaniel Bonner. Plans that go terribly awry, isolating them from each other in a dangerous city at the worst of times.
Sure that all is lost, and sick unto death, Hannah finds herself in the care of a family and a friend from her past, Dr. Paul de Guise Savard dit Saint-dâ??Uzet. It is Dr. Savard and his wife who save Hannahâ??s life, but Dr. Savardâ??s half brother who offers her real hope. Jean-Benoit Savard, the great-grandson of French settlers, slaves, and Choctaw and Seminole Indians, is the one man who knows the city well enough to engineer the miracle that will reunite the Bonners and send them home to Lake in the Clouds. With Ben Savardâ??s guidance, allies are drawn from every segment of New Orleansâ??s population and from Andrew Jacksonâ??s army, now pouring into the city in preparation for what will be the last ma

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