The Vengeance of Mothers

By: Jim Fergus

Narrated by: Laura Hicks, Erik Steele

Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's Summary

"Laura Hicks renders this imaginative work splendidly. She is vivacious and expressive as May Dodd...Her vocal characterizations, especially of the various immigrant women Dodd encounters, are lively. A work this unusual needs a performance that is versatile and out of the ordinary, both of which have been achieved." - AudioFile on One Thousand White Women.

The stunning sequel to Jim Fergus' award-winning One Thousand White Women.

9 March 1876
My name is Meggie Kelly and I take up this pencil with my twin sister, Susie. We have nothing left, less than nothing. The village of our People has been destroyed, all our possessions burned, our friends butchered by the soldiers, our baby daughters gone, frozen to death on an ungodly trek across these rocky mountains. Empty of human feeling, half-dead ourselves, all that remains of us intact are hearts turned to stone. We curse the U.S. government, we curse the Army, we curse the savagery of mankind, white and Indian alike. We curse God in his heaven. Do not underestimate the power of a mother's vengeance....

So begins the journal of Margaret Kelly, a woman who participated in the government's "Brides for Indians" program in 1873, a program whose conceit was that the way to peace between the United States and the Cheyenne Nation was for one thousand white women to be given as brides in exchange for 300 horses. These "brides" were mostly fallen women; women in prison, prostitutes, the occasional adventurer, or those incarcerated in asylums. No one expected this program to work. The brides themselves thought it was simply a chance at freedom. But many of them fell in love with the Cheyenne's spouses and had children with them...and became Cheyenne themselves.

The Vengeance of Mothers is an audiobook that explores what happens to the bonds between wives and husbands, children and mothers, when society sees them as "unspeakable". What does it mean to be white, to be Cheyenne, and how far will these women go to avenge the ones they love? As he did in One Thousand White Women, Jim Fergus brings to light a time and place in American history and fills it with unforgettable characters who live and breathe with a passion we can relate to even today.

©2017 Jim Fergus (P)2017 Macmillan Audio

Critic Reviews

"[Narrator Laura Hicks] captures the compelling emotions of these desperate women as they escape their former lives of hardship and dare to dream of a freedom they haven't yet known." (Booklist)

Love! Love! Looooove this book!

Such a wonderful sequel to the first. I can't wait to dive into the 3rd book.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Good sequel

Good sequel to 1000 White Women. Both books are easy reads and were hard to put down.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

A truer history of the USA!

This is a story you may never forget and likely to be a history closer to the truth than anything you learned from a high school curriculum. If ever I am asked why I lack any hint of patriotism towards the country in which I live, I will simply recommend this book along with 1000 White Women by the same author. Jim Fergus writes with a refreshingly realistic view of the often white-washed history of the USA. This story captures a time that many Americans wish had ended differently than it did. I for one have always been one to wish for victory to go to the underdogs and I do so in this story too. To bad history is so sad in reality!

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Solid Sequel

This book was a fine sequel to 1000 White Women. I read the first book so long ago and don't remember the details but I remember loving it and feeling a strong emotional reaction. I didn't feel quite the same way with Vengeance but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I actually wish the book were longer.

Fantastic sequel to 1000 White Women

I had 14 hours of driving over two days, and I hardly knew where the hours when while listening to The Vengeance of Mothers. When I first listened to 1000 White Women on CD's , years ago, prior to audible carrying it, I lent the set to anyone who wanted to listen. I remember seeing my husband parked in the parking lot of our business, so spellbound by the book that he would not come into work. We all thought this was a true story until the end but it did not matter. When the book became available on Audible, we purchased it and listened to it all over again. The narration brought the characters to life in a way that many other books could not match. I remember marveling at how this author,Jim Fergus, could have such a profound understanding of women and their responses to life as is depicted in the story. When I learned that he had written a sequel, I could hardly wait to buy the book. As in 1000 White Women, I was transported to another time, with characters that seemed so real, and descriptions of the land and the life of the Native communities so vivid, that I found myself entranced, laughing, crying, and so utterly moved. When the book finished, I found myself driving in complete silence and appreciation for all that was revealed through this book. I am hoping there will be another sequel.

Very enlightening!

Beautiful story! Very much enjoyed!
I learned a great deal about our Native People, and regrettably of their treatment.

Wow, I could not put it down.

this was one of those books that you just can't help but enjoy it. great detail the bound these women built with one another and the heartbreaking live they also had.

a good follow up but not enough

loves the first book and loved this one too however while the ending I could see ended where it did it left mr disappointed that that was it. i am assuming more to come.

great sequel!!

a very good sequel to 1000 White Women!! in some ways it is even better than the first!! highly recommend!!

Disappointed

Loved this book clear up to the ending. I was disappointed that it felt "unfinished".