Elisa’s 'mountainous' body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone-and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra-can save them. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs.

Anderson’s appendix offers much additional historical detail in the form of responses to questions.Ī strong conclusion to a monumental tale of the American Revolution.Īdventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.Įlisa-Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle-has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. Isabel’s voice is strong in this first-person narrative though the war is the backdrop, this is her personal story, her meditation on family, loyalty, slavery, freedom, and the principles behind the Revolution. Curzon has become a believer in the patriots’ dream of creating a new nation conceived in liberty, but Isabel reminds him that “we’d been enslaved by both Patriots and Loyalists, and that neither side was talking about freedom for people who looked like us.” And they are both shaken by news that “self-liberated people” are being imprisoned by the American army and delivered back into slavery. Curzon and Isabel have known each other since trilogy opener Chains (2008), when Isabel saved him from certain death in a British prison, and they have experienced much together. Isabel’s journey in the first two novels took her from New York City in 1776 to Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-1778 now she’s gone to Yorktown in 1781, in search of her younger sister, Ruth, who had been separated from her and sent south from New York City.

The Seeds of America trilogy concludes at the Battle of Yorktown as Isabel and Curzon, along with the emerging new nation, grapple with the meaning of liberty.

Ashes book laurie halse anderson