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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780345445551
ISBN number: 0345445554
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 512
Printing Date: November 23, 2004
Publishing house: Ballantine Books
Release Date: November 23, 2004
Sale Popularity Level: 277904
Studio: Ballantine Books
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Product Description:
A bestselling master of historical fiction, James Alexander Thom has brought unforgettable Native American figures to life for millions of readers, powerfully dramatizing their fortitude, fearsomeness, and profound fates. Now he and his wife, Dark Rain, have created a magnificent portrait of an astonishing woman–one who led her people in war when she could not persuade them to make peace.
Her name was Nonhelema. Literate, lovely, imposing at over six feet tall, she was the Women’s Peace Chief of the Shawnee Nation–and already a legend when the most decisive decade of her life began in 1774. That fall, with more than three thousand Virginians poised to march into the Shawnees’ home, Nonhelema’s plea for peace was denied. So she loyally became a fighter, riding into battle covered in war paint. When the Indians ran low on ammunition, Nonhelema’s role changed back to peacemaker, this time tragically.
Negotiating an armistice with military leaders of the American Revolution like Daniel Boone and George Rogers Clark, she found herself estranged from her own people–and betrayed by her white adversaries, who would murder her loved ones and eventually maim Nonhelema herself.
Throughout her inspiring life, she had many deep and complex relationships, including with her daughter, Fani, who was an adopted white captive . . . a pious and judgmental missionary, Zeisberger . . . a series of passionate lovers . . . and, in a stunning creation of the Thoms, Justin Case–a cowardly soldier transformed by the courage he saw in the female Indian leader.
Filled with the uncanny period detail and richly rendered drama that are Thom trademarks, Warrior Woman is a memorable novel of a remarkable person–one willing to fight to avoid war, by turns tough and tender, whose heart was too big for the world she wished to tame.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Rated by buyers 
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I was very disappointed by Warrior Woman. I had read Thom's Panther in the Sky, and it is one of my favorite books. This one didn't even come close. It was boring and soooo frustrating to note Warrior Woman constantly waiting for the white man to keep his promises.
Rated by buyers 
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My heart was filled with sorrow and pain at the many difficulties
Nonhelema faced as she struggled to fight for peace between the Long Knives and her people. It is excellently written, but I wonder at the title. There was only one scene in which she was a warrior. In truth her main efforts were devoted to peace. Somehow, I feel the title, Warrior Woman, misguides the reader who is picking the book. Time and time again, even when she has to go against her people, Nonhelema choses to speak to white people, asking for peace. Even when she sees family members killed, she clings to a belief in Christian beliefs of peace. It is only at the very end, when she is near death, does she come to realizations that were part of her life long before missionnaries came to these shores... James Alexander Thom and Dark Rain Thom have taken historical information and written a novel of rare understanding and beauty.
Rated by buyers -
I told Dark Rain that it would be hard to read yet another Shawnee story, because it inevitably ends in tragedy, and I come away depressed. "Ah," she said, "but Warrior Woman ends on an uplifting note."
More like bittersweet, I think, after reading the life story of Nonhelema, the Shawnee woman chief and warrior. But the story is irresistible, as all Thom historical fictions are. Action combined with deep emotion, love and peace juxtaposed on a canvas of prejudice and war, all in that fascinating period of American history, the 18th century Old Northwest.
Nonhelema was a remarkable woman who gave up everything--her material wealth, the respect of her Shawnee people in the Ohio Valley, and many of her loved ones--all in the name of peace. "Blessed are the peacemakers," she read in white man's bible. The words touched her heart and, like her famous brother Cornstalk, she dedicated her life to being a peacemaker.
Warrior Woman follows Nonhelema through her life, delving into her deep faith in Jesus, her love affairs with prominent white men of the frontier, her family dynamics, and her exasperating relationship with Brother Zeisberger, a missionary at Gnadenhutten, the fateful home of the "praying Indians." As a village chief, Nonhelema is responsible for leading her people in their ancient ceremonies. She wants her people to stay together and preserve their ways, yet she also wants to be written in God's Book of Life. Zeisberger torments her, claiming she cannot have both. She must renounce all her so-called heathen ways, or God will never claim her as one of His children.
She works as an interpreter for white men at the fort at Point Pleasant, along the Ohio River. Some of her people call her a traitor, and they no longer trust her. Repeatedly she is betrayed by those white men she helps, and repeatedly her beloved family members fall victim to the white man's violence and hatred. Yet not until her life nears an end does she decide to never again help the white Americans do anything.
Throughout the book, I want Nonhelema to wake up, to realize the treachery around her, the way white men were using her as a means to their own end. Especially Brother Zeisberger, with his pious, self-righteous platitudes and the way he constantly shames her into compliance. But for much of her life, Nonhelema seems confused. Eventually she ponders, "When war and the Jesus God got mixed up together, nothing much makes sense."
Finally, though, she does see the truth about those around her, and she no longer has a need for Zeisberger's approval. I love her best when she goes to him after a near-death experience and, when he complains that her promiscuous ways have taken a toll on her "comely" appearance, she tells him, "My `promiscuity' always made me radiant. What has `ravaged' me is peacemaking." She puts what remains of her mangled hand before the missionary and says, "Our American soldier friends did this when I tried to prevent them killing my uncle. Such have been the rewards for peacemaking."
Nonhelema's life is far more complex than I can express in these few words. Dark Rain Thom and James Alexander Thom have created another rich narrative, this time a story whose Shawnee protagonist lends a rare female voice to the tumultuous 18th century American frontier. Uplifting? Maybe not. But we're all adults here, and most of us have long ago stopped expecting fairy tale endings. We gain so much more enlightenment from the courageous exploits of real-life figures of our history. Or herstory.
Rated by buyers -
One cannot read this exceptional biographical fiction of the famous grenadier squaw without feeling like one of its characters, Justin Case, who while cowardly crouching in the bushes experiences an epiphany to see the remarkable Nonhelema
in battle and hear her voice. That's exactly what happened to me! What a brilliant and courageous and tragic figure she is. Betrayed by the Long Knives. Betrayed by her own. The real gift of this book is the forgotten education we have all missed, no, an IGNORED history that the Thoms now bring to us. Women warriors? Were you ever introduced to a native woman warrior in your history classes? And she lived; she is not invented. She is our provocative American heroine. And she was born right here in Oldtown, Maryland. So beautifully rendered and historically accurate. If the film industry doesn't grab this one, they're crazy!
Rated by buyers -
I just finished reading "Warrior Woman". I could not put it down, finally a book about true native life told from a native point of view and about the normally forgotten native woman!! Exceptionable, husband/wife team writting!Reading this book makes me want to revisit these places again and say a prayer of thanks, that there lives & efforts were not in vain. Thank you Jim Thom & Dark Rain for making this book come alive with our heritage, the good and the bad.
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