Rogues and Romance: A Robby Hoyt Book Review
It’s not often that a combination of Civil War-era politics,
historical drama, romance and family trauma is found on a bookshelf. For Gar
LaSalle, his Widow Walk series is
one-of-a-kind.
In the first of the series, the reader is introduced to Emmy
Evers, who is a widow with two children: Sarah, 10, and Jacob, 5. Integrated
into the storyline is historical fiction of the Native American and Pacific
Northwest tribes, and the interactions between natives and settlers.
In the second novel, Isthmus,
Emmy, Sarah and Jacob are faced again with tragedy. They are returning home to
Boston from the Pacific Northwest, on the new Panama railroad – the most modern
transportation of its time. Themes of slavery, segregation and expansionism are
concurrent with the storyline of the Evers’ and seep over into the third novel.
The Fairness of Beasts
brings Emmy and her children to Boston at the beginning of the Civil War; a war
that ends up bringing tragedy to more than just its participants. The Evers
family can’t seem to catch a break, even with the help of notable historical
figures such as General Benjamin Butler.
While Emmy is dealing with searching for her fiancé, Doctor
Rory Brett, her children are left with her sister, Kathleen, who wants nothing more
than to be rid of them. After Kathleen decides to make parental decisions on
her sister’s behalf, the children run off and get lost in the wrong part of New
York City. Emmy is faced with a missing fiancé and missing children at the same
time that Sarah is faced with missing her childhood and missing her mother.
“The Fairness of Beasts is a complex, tragic love story about a woman’s journey into the hells of war as she attempts to find her wounded lover, and the emergence of her 14-year-old daughter as the young teen explores the bewilderment that accompanies a first love,” LaSalle said in a press release.
The story jumps to a different character each chapter, from
the Evers family to Rory Brett to Robby Hoyt and more. Although each chapter
jumps not just with characters but with time frames, the flow still makes sense
and doesn’t give the opportunity to confuse the reader.
Much like the first two Widow
Walk novels, The Fairness of Beasts
is no exception to the extended amount of research that so clearly went into
the details of each chapter. Non-fiction
characters interweave with the fictional characters, and places and events of
the war also interweave with the fictional events.
As a man of many hats, LaSalle takes his passion as a
creator and has developed a series that has given his following the chance to
relearn history in a mix of fictional and non-fictional plots. Between being
optioned for a film or TV drama and the fourth and fifth novels in the works,
LaSalle’s Widow Walk journey is far
from over.
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