Lakota Love Song Book

++Spoilers++

4,5 stars

I really loved this book. Not quite a 5 star read for reasons I will later explain.

Tales of native Americans are always heartbreaking for me. There is no happy ending for these people. It breaks my heart how this beautiful race of people were treated, and thrown into virtual extinction.

Don't get me wrong, this book does have a HEA for the h & H romantically but I just felt so depressed about Blue Hawks people, even he knew there was no future for Native Americans.

But anyway..

The first half of the book I liked best. I loved reading about what life was like living with the Lakotas. I was so glad the heroine chose her heart and decided to stay with Blue Hawk and his people (if only for a while).

Their love was beautiful, fated. He just lived and breathed her and she him.

They were both vigins and each others firsts, and I have to say this author deserves a tremendous amount of praise on how she handled it. She did it PERFECTLY. How? By not making a big deal about it. For example, in the first loving scene she says to him.."I've never.." and he says "neither have I.. we will find our way together." PERIOD! He's not a virgin because he was tormented, cold, insane, abused, scarred, an outcast.. nor is he overly religious or pious. He just was a virgin. Why is it that authors nowadays feel that being a male virgin means something is wrong with him. I didn't question it at all. I totally accepted it as a reader. I also LOVED that there is absolutely NO mention of past women. In one instance, Kaylee asked.."did you ever court any women?" his answer.... "no." That was it! I Loved it!!! There was no jealousy of ex girlfriends or other women who wanted him or lusted after him. WELL DONE!!! A breath of fresh air!

There was however a question Kaylee asked Blue Hawk about having multiple wives. She asked if his people have more than one wife. He said yes. And basically it was said he only wanted her, and she said she didn't want to share him. He goes on to explain how she could, if she wanted, have more than one husband (not that he'd want it, it was just an explaination of his people's customs). Needless to say, they only wanted each other.

I started getting anxiety when Kaylee (heroine) thought Blue Hawk was dead and decided to go back home with the army. But fear not! All works out in the end. I wont give out too much, so as to not ruin it for you, but no worries. Trust me.

What brought down the stars for me was a combination of things. First, much of the book has the heroine acting exactly as I would have until about 65%. Until she wanted to go home. I couldn't fault her for wanting to make sure her mother was ok, but part of me was hoping they would stay with his tribe. They didn't. In truth, it was impossible, and the H & h knew that. It would have been a life of constant war for Blue Hawk, and as much as I wanted them to go back to the indians, it could have meant him being killed in a fight. So I guess I really can't lower a star because of this, it was logical for them to stay in the "white world." But I HAD to lower a half a star for how quickly the townspeople changed from lynching Blue Hawk to accepting him. It was too fast. I'm glad it was fast and that they did accept him, but it felt unrealistic. I also felt the heroine whimped out by giving into the sherriff. I wanted them to run off together, back to his tribe after escaping him the first time.

Well.. it all worked out in the end anyway.

On a technical note, the story has lots of wonderful history that is interlaced with the story as to not sound like a history lesson. I loved it but others may not. The pace was slow and steady up until about 90% and then we get slammed with all sorts of emotional issues that literally get resolved by the near end. The conflict was pretty good, mild at times but enough to keep me interested.

The epilogue was ok. I would have rather have had a few more chapters than this summary crammed full of what happened 2 years later. All good things! Happiness, babies.. etc.. but I still left this read with such sorrow about how Kaylee and Blue Hawks children will not be raised in indian fashion. The loss of his culture just weighed heavy on my heart, just as it did for him.
But logically he knew the world was changing and his children would have a better life raised in the white world.

Overall I loved this book, I would definately would recommend and will look into more of this authors work.


Safety

Hero-Virgin
Heroine-Virgin
OW-NONE WHATSOEVER
Cursing-No
Violence- Yes. Talk of scalping, mutilating, but not detailed in description.
Rape-No
Adultry-No
HEA- Yes for the romance, no for the Native Americans as a whole. But we already know this.
Marriage-Yes - In the traditional Native American fashion
Babies-Yes