BLOG TOUR: One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow by Olivia Hawker @LUauthors @amazonpub @TLCbooktours #historicalfiction #bookreview

Set on the prairie in Wyoming in the late nineteenth century, One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow tells the story of two women who must learn to rely on one another for their families to survive in the wake of a terrible betrayal and tragedy. When Cora’s husband catches her having an affair with Nettie Mae’s husband, he shoots him and ends up in prison. Now, with no other neighbors around for miles, Nettie Mae and Cora will need to overcome their differences to make it through winter.

Olivia Hawker’s latest historical fiction novel is a quietly beautiful story of forgiveness.

About the Book

Wyoming, 1870. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other. With no other settlers for miles, it is a matter of survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor, he doesn’t think of survival. In one impulsive moment, a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage and remorse.

Losing her husband to Cora’s indiscretion is another hardship for stoic Nettie Mae. But as a brutal Wyoming winter bears down, Cora and Nettie Mae have no choice but to come together as one family—to share the duties of working the land and raising their children. There’s Nettie Mae’s son, Clyde—no longer a boy, but not yet a man—who must navigate the road to adulthood without a father to guide him, and Cora’s daughter, Beulah, who is as wild and untamable as her prairie home.

Bound by the uncommon threads in their lives and the challenges that lie ahead, Cora and Nettie Mae begin to forge an unexpected sisterhood. But when a love blossoms between Clyde and Beulah, bonds are once again tested, and these two resilient women must finally decide whether they can learn to trust each other—or else risk losing everything they hold dear.

Reflection

Going in, I expected to find it hard to sympathize with Cora. Cora’s loneliness certainly led her to a decision that ultimately ruined the lives of many people. But I didn’t find Cora to be a bad person. In fact, I found the way she handled herself to be filled with a surprising amount of grace. I would like to have seen more about the before Cora. But the Cora we saw was someone who really just seemed to have lost their way.

Surprisingly, I found Nettie Mae harder to love, though as the book went on I really did appreciate her growth. Nettie Mae held a lot of bias. Her perception of Cora was understandable, but I struggled a bit with how she treated Cora’s children—especially Beulah. Nettie Mae has a very limited view of the world and others. This felt understandable given that the life she has known has been very isolated. I liked seeing her learn more about tolerance as the story evolved.

This is definitely a story about survival, tolerance, unrecognized bias, forgiveness, and community. The setting on the prairie was really wonderful, and we got a lot of story elements around how these family survive without the men of the house who had previously done the bulk of the work. I loved how real and flawed the characters were. I also loved the main protagonist Beulah. She was self-assured, smart, steady, and a tiny bit magical.

A beautiful and heartfelt novel that I really enjoyed. Thanks to TLC Book Tours and Lake Union Publishing for my copy.