Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper Review

Reviewed by Rachel Legg

I don’t want to give too much away so I am not going to go into too much detail with regard to the specifics of the story.

Ghost Hawk is split into 4 distinct parts, the first detailing the life of a Native American boy, Little Hawk, on the cusp of manhood and the trials he has to partake in to become a man in the eyes of his tribe. The second follows John, a young lad growing up in what is now New England amongst the exceedingly strict puritans settling the North American lands. The book highlights the plight of the Native American tribes trying to stick to their traditional ways but being faced with European diseases, weapons and deep seated hatred, and the relationship that grows up between the two main characters. The latter parts of the book touch upon the wars between the settlers and the tribes that result in the decimation of thousands of individuals and the tribes being forced out of their lands onto reservations.

I enjoyed the book, it is a fairly easy read and covered a subject I was not that familiar with, it is a novel based around factual events, the main protagonists being fictional but the liberal preacher Roger Williams and Yellow Feather, the leader of the tribes, are true historical figures. I found the lifestyle of Little Hawk and his family fascinating and the extremely rigid Christianity of the settlers quite uncomfortable and disconcerting at times, some of the characters being downright nasty. The authors sympathies lie most obviously with the tribes which is understandable, but at times I felt the view painted was rather simplistic, in the main the tribes were all good and the settlers all bad, with only a couple of exceptions. Unfortunately the central premise of the novel , that of the relationship between the two main characters jars slightly and at times it seems to be a bit contrived, but the story is decently told.

In conclusion it is definitely worth a read, I finished it in two sittings which says quite a lot and I may well be looking out for some of her other books to have a nosey at.

Rating: 4/5

RRP: £7.99 (Paperback) / £2.49 (Kindle)

Available to buy from Amazon here.