This is Mellie and Law Pickett’s story. In 1855, they travel from San Francisco to a Northern California valley where he had established a cabin for them but little else. They have a few neighbors far and few between and neighborly Indians. This may have been the Maidu tribe who were nicknamed Digger Indians because they supplemented their diet with edible roots. The journey was harder on Mellie than on most as she was about five months pregnant with their first child. They are both hard workers out of necessity. Law is a proud man and refuses their neighbor’s help. However, when Mellie is ready to give birth, she wants a woman by her side and choses an Indian woman she had befriended. Mellie calls her Bahé – the Indian term for the Pepperwood tree they used for shade. Thus develops their close friendship that lasts and endures through much conflict and racial strain.

It’s a story that is disturbing about our own history and greed – greed that caused a slow death for many of the Indians who had lived in that area in peace for thousands of years. In addition to man-made issues, nature is harsh and many lives are lost. Death took both young and old and it was not racially biased. The chapters alternate between characters. Mostly it is Mellie’s point of view. Mellie’s chapters are told in her first person account whereas the other chapters are third person. This felt a bit disrupting, but it purposely showed the ownership of the story to Mellie. I did also have a difficult time following the conversation of Bahé. It slowed down the flow of the story as the reader ponders her meaning. I rated Rush of Shadows at 3.5 out of 5.

First line: May 1855 – Mellie

“It was a beautiful country, though I hated and feared it, coming over the mountains with the wagon staggering on a gimpy wheel, black crags towering over the track, the sky blue and thick as a flatiron, and the vultures turning and turning on the hot wind, waiting for somebody to die.”

http://www.fictionzeal.com/rush-shadows-catherine-bell/ ( )

Rush of Shadows follows a newlywed woman named Mellie as she moves out West with her husband in the mid-1800s. Mellie finds herself developing a strong bond with a Native American woman who lives in the area surrounding the town. Unfortunately, while Mellie wants to learn more from this woman, not all of the settlers feel the same way. The book follows both Mellie's life and the politics of the town as it grows. It sort of works as a focused view of what was happening on a macroscopic level throughout the country during this time period.

From the beginning, it was very clear that Bell was a more than capable writer, which I was grateful for. I found myself feeling tied up in the lives of the two women and was emotionally invested in the outcome of their relationship. One of my only complaints was that the action felt too subtle. Sometimes I wouldn't realize something shocking was happening until it was already over. The pace didn't seem to pick up when it should have. I also felt my interest rose and fell a lot. Originally I enjoyed the story quite a bit, around the middle I got bored for a bit, and at the end I was trying to flip through the pages fast enough to finish before my lunch break ended. Thankfully, I felt pretty satisfied by the ending. It seemed like Bell had been building us toward this the entire time and it was done well, in my opinion.

Overall, I'd give it 3/5 stars and would recommend it to anyone interested in the genre. I think it's possible that part of my disinterest/boredom stemmed from a lack of experience with historical fiction, so take this review with a grain of salt! ( )