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Tarfumes.com - Follow the River
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List Price: $7.99
Our Price: $7.99
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780345338549
ISBN: 0345338545
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: 1986-11-12
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: 1986-11-12
Studio: Ballantine Books
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Editorial Reviews:
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Mary Ingles was twenty-three, married, and pregnant, when Shawnee Indians invaded her peaceful Virginia settlement, killed the men and women, then took her captive. For months, she lived with them, unbroken, until she escaped, and followed a thousand mile trail to freedom--an extraordinary story of a pioneer woman who risked her life to return to her people.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: loved this book!
Comment: A friend told me this was the best book she'd ever read, so I had to buy it. I couldn't put it down from the first few pages. My 18 year old daughter picked it up and started reading it when I had already read 50 pages and by then I couldn't agree to let her read it first (despite her pleading). I have already ordered 2 of Thom's other novels and can't wait until they arrive tomorrow! I've discovered I am a big fan of historical fiction.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Follow the River
Comment: I originally submitted a review but withdrew due to reviewing
the wrong item.
I had some problems with this purchase. I did not receive a tracking number so when my purchase did not arrive I had trouble locating.
That said, when I did inquire, I got toprate service from customer service. I did finally get my purchase. So alls well that ends well.
I would be happy to purchase other items from this seller.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An historical novel not to be forgotten
Comment: Just a few days ago I finished reading Follow the River, written by James Alexander Thom. It is a novel set in the mid 1700's, chronicling the true and horrific ordeal of Mary Ingles, which begins as she and her two young sons are kidnapped by Indians. The bulk of Thom's writing is devoted to her escape and return to her family in Virginia - a story of immense courage and strength.
Honestly, the book kept me gasping. From the 4th page or so, I knew it would evolve in to a book I'd never forget. Thom's writing seemed stronger with each turning of the page. How in the world the author ever managed to to create such an event-dense novel without getting muddy, I'll never know. There were only a couple of very short drifts into somewhat trite dialog somewhere in the first 1/3 of the book, but otherwise it was sterling. A magnificent book and a magnificent main character. Absolutely unforgettable.
Ummmm, I'm guessing that some folks reading this will think that I simply have no sense (even that I may be a little mad) when I tell you what I've done. But I just cannot get Mary Ingles out of my mind. I live in the same state as did Mary and in approximately the same sort of climate and having a similar sort of landscape. Keep in mind that what she accomplished, she accomplished at this time of year - late fall.
Actually, in the late fall and winter there is no place in Virginia that can be considered in the least to be comfortable. It is either cold or frigid. Most of Mary's hardships transpired when she had no shoes and was wearing no more than a neckline hem from which strips of ragged, filthy cloth blew in the wind. I doubt if she had even that at the end. She was thus clothed (or unclothed) day and freezing night - night after night, week after week, trudging and crawling through the harshest of terrain along the Ohio River and the raging New River. While the author depicted Mary's ordeal the best a person possibly could, in all honesty, when one thinks seriously about where she was, the distance she traveled and the time of year involved, it probably would not have been possible to have exaggerated - no matter what he might have written.
It was with this in mind that I decided to test myself - although I can hardly call it a test when I consider Mary's extraordinary accomplishment. Last night we got 4" of snow. Today the temperature is just below freezing, and there is a biting light wind. In just my cotton short-sleeved nightgown and no shoes, I took my three doggies out to potty this morning, and if my numbed mind properly took note of the time, I remained outside walking in the frozen air and snow 6 minutes.
In just 6 minutes I can truthfully say that if I had been alone in the wilderness with not a shelter in site and no hope of one, it is very possible (no, probable) that I would have found a nook, curled up and simply died.
I cannot express adequately how my feet throbbed with pain. Best to say, the pain was excruciating, yet at the same time my feet were numb. As I hobbled back to the house, I had no physicial sensation of our deck being directly beneath my feet. The agony was immense, so great that I had no awareness of the stinging, bone-chilling, nearly paralyzing cold the rest of my body felt when I'd been outside ....... when the minutes passed as slowly as if they had been hours. Upon entering the house, and when I was finally able to make myself look at my feet, they were bright red and puffy. I mention my mere 6-minute trial only to contrast mine to Mary's.
Do I regret my decision? No. I'll leave it the reader to decide the why.
I am humbled. I will absolutely never forget that woman. She will always be the standard of courage to which I compare myself. Because of her, I can see myself pushing to accomplish more than I thought myself capable - though I can never hope to reach anywhere near Mary's level of valor and courage.
Customer Rating:
Summary: CAPTIVATING
Comment: This book was impossible to put down....I felt the fear, the uncertainty, the tears and even at some points the laughter....A must read!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Tedious
Comment: If the author's goal was to make the reader feel as if he had spent six weeks without food or fire reading this book, he was successful. The story is compelling, but all known details of the ordeal would fill only a few pages. The rest of the 400 pages is conjecture, hokey attempts at dialect (used inconsistently in both conversations and characters' thoughts), and an excruciating description of side creeks in three states. Especially hideous are the repeated descriptions of Ghetel; she is not drawn as a person with any positive qualities besides the occasional warmth from her disgusting body. Mary's sympathetic treatment of her is not believable. Did Mary really climb naked in snowfall through water and over rock faces for whole days, after starving for 6 weeks? She was obviously a very tough person, but human physiology has some limits.
If you want to know this story, my advice is to spend 15 minutes on the internet reading the known facts, and spend the time you save with your kids, who presumably have not been kidnapped by savages.
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