Queen of Swords

by Sara Donati

Book Overview

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 Luke's wife and the man who abducted her. But Jennet's rescue, so long in coming, is not the resolution they'd hoped for. In the spring she had given birth to Luke'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-d'Uzet. It is Dr. Savard and his wife who save Hannah's life, but Dr. Savard'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 Savard's guidance, allies are drawn from every segment of New Orleans's population and from Andrew Jackson's army, now pouring into the city in preparation for what will be the last major battle of the War of 1812.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 055358278X
• ISBN13: 9780553582789
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 720 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 4.3" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Great book series!

This is an awesome addition to the series, catapulting you into another time and place.

Love this series!

If you like historical fiction, you will like this series. Also it’s recommended by Diana Galbadon! Book 5 is hard to put down because when bad things happen to your favorite characters, you want to get to the part where they’re ok again!

Different, but excellent edition to the Wilderness Series

This fifth book in Donati's excellent "Wilderness" series takes us to a new setting in the Caribbean and New Orleans and focuses almost exclusively on Hannah's development and story. Donati has created a complex and courageous heroine in Hannah, as she struggles to serve both her family and personal needs in her journey with best friend Jennet and brother Luke. Donati is a great story-teller, combining just as much passion as realism in her imaginative series based in a young America. More stark and heartbreaking, this edition perhaps represents a maturing in Donati's writing which is exciting in and of itself...to consider the direction she takes with such beloved characters. I highly recommend the entire series which is originally based on the offspring of Hawkeye and Cora from "Last of the Mohicans". You will get lost in their world and fall in love with this family.

The Battle of New Orleans

The title of this book, Queen of Swords, denotes a Tarot card which depicts a strong woman who is a very capable leader and this is exactly what two of the Bonner women are..born leaders who are emotionally strong beyond the expectations of the day. The scene shifts from Lake in the Clouds in New York State to New Orleans where the infant son of Luke Bonner and Lady Jennett has been kidnapped and secreted away. Luke joins forces with his sister Hannah, a half Mohawk doctor and together they battle incredible forces to wrest Jennett and the baby from the clutches of the evil Creole family who are holding them prisoner, before the city is under seige from the British. Hannah meets the man who seems to be her soul mate, Jean-Benoit Savard, a man of mixed Indian, African and French races who aids Luke and his family to escape the city with the women and children and who obviously will play a large part in the next, and possiblt final, book.It's another big, beautiful and exciting read.

perfect novel

If there were more stars to give I would. I read this book for seven hours without stopping, because I just could not put it down. You don't just read this book as an outsider looking in, you are pulled into living it. Sara writes so that you can hear it, taste it, smell it and feel what the characters are feeling. It pulls you away from reallity and takes you on an adventure. I love the strong female characters of all races that define the story, and at the same time teaches you a great respect and admiration for the males of this era. There is an obvious and coherent main plot, but Sara perfectly weaves in fascinating, wonderful and sometimes surprising subplots that make this story so rich. The attention to historic detail and languages and people is amazing. I could go on and on about this book, and the other four novels in this series are just as incredible!

Queen of Swords

Queen of Swords is the fifth book of the Into the Wilderness series, where Sara Donati continues her historical fiction account of the Bonner family. Fans of the series will not be disappointed. However, you do not have to read the first four novels to get the most from this sequel. It is fresh with new setting and new characters and the author brings up what is important to know for you to understand and enjoy the novel. Luke and Hannah's search for their beloved Jennet, who has been abducted, takes them to New Orleans during the war of 1812. Through their adventure you will have your emotions stirred up by the situations created by war, racism, prejudice, dominating power and slavery. The setting is so well described, that you can just close your eyes to picture it. The characters are good, convincing, strong and likable. The author is very skillful in keeping the story intriguing, suspenseful and interesting. Very well written and leaves space for readers to imagine the details. It is a great book. I highly recommended it.