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A Spanish-Texian orphan and an enterprising Spanish-New Mexican rancher forge a romance during the Mexican-American War. Traveling before settling down on his family's Santa Fe hacienda, Felipe meets Alondra, a beautiful dancer. Together with Lalo, a soldier, and Clory, daughter of an American homesteader, Felipe and Alondra make their way back to Santa Fe, trailed by a Mexican captain, Baca, who seeks revenge against them. Their adventures highlight the conflicts behind the official battles.
While Baca plots to steal Felipe's horse and works with corrupt government officials to tax villagers into poverty, the foursome teaches each other their languages, customs, and stories. Their education-infused camaraderie is reflected in the novel's generous and vibrant history lessons, from traditional Southwestern foods to native American herbal remedies to wedding rituals. The group meets Baca's personal and political greed with undying loyalty to each other. Their individual skills work to the group's benefit, shown through their capable and exciting use of their daggers and guns as well as cunning plans.
The author makes each of the four immediately likable. For example, Alondra entices with her dance and the resilience she learns as an orphan. Felipe's gentlemanliness shines through in his treatment of Alondra as an equal. Meanwhile, Lalo's comic reprieve and Clory's can-do attitude cinch the group's ethos and the novel's genre as a Western romance.
In Felipe and Alondra's honorable relationship, the book reaches beyond good guys versus bad guys to the introduction of new traditions. Just as the Texans fight for independence from Mexico, Felipe and Alondra represent an independent unit, united in the hope of what a peaceful coming together of peoples could look like. They fight to stay together despite old family mores about marriage and women's roles. The novel celebrates the progress of feminism and democracy through a compelling love story.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review