The Fiery Salamander by Will Robinson
The Fiery Salamander: A Tale of Pre-Revolution Carolina by Will Robinson
I’m a big historical fiction fan and was excited to read this book about pre-revolutionary America; specifically an area where land was taken from the Native Americans and thus caused a lot of fighting.
Overall, I enjoyed this novel and the characters introduced as well as reading about this time period. Will Robinson wrote this with a Scottish-Irish dialect that added authenticity and although at times I had to reread in order to understand, I appreciated that it wasn’t in modern terms and grammar. Robinson also did a great job of writing in first person-present tense.
The main character and narrator, James Kirkpatrick is a very well developed character along with several other secondary characters that add to his story. As you read the novel, James grows from boyhood to maturity and is presented with many different situations where his moral code is tested. He is also thrown into many different situations with the nearby tribes while also trying to navigate his life with family, friends and love.
I do wish there had been a few more scenes regarding the tribes and either trying to work with them or some action. The novel starts off very strong describing two nearby tribes; one that is friendly with the transplants and one that is not friendly with neither the transplants nor the other tribe. However, after the first skirmish that sets James’ future in motion, it started to lag a bit. There were a lot of scenes with family, friends or random characters, however based on the description of the book I was expecting a bit more about the struggle between the Native Americans and immigrants. I found myself getting a little bored in the middle until the end picked up again so I think if there were a few more fast-paced scenes in the middle it would have made this novel even better.
I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis: The last gasps of the French and Indian War wreaks havoc on a tight-knit group of families settled on the Carolina frontier. A lone boy, James Kirkpatrick, finds himself facing the wrath of a Shawnee war party looking for revenge against their Catawba enemy. That fateful day shapes the next four years of his life as he strives to survive in a land filled with fire, broken men, restless tribes and rebellion.