Carolina Courage

The Holts #3

by Dana Fuller Ross

The saga of the Holt family continues with Janessa and Charley, who are both in Cherokee country using their knowledge of medicine to battle the disease that has stricken the Indians, and who end up fighting for their own lives

Genres: Westerns, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical

368 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Dana Fuller Ross is a pseudonym used by Noel B. Gerson and James M. Reasoner.

Noel Gearson specializes in historical military novels, westerns, and mysteries. He also writes under the pseudonyms, "Dana Fuller Ross.", Anne Marie Burgess; Michael Burgess; Nicholas Gorham; Paul Lewis; Leon Phillips; Donald Clayton Porter; Philip Vail; and Carter A. Vaughan. He has written more than 325 novels.

James Reasoner (pictured) is an American writer. He is the author of more than 150 books and many short stories in a career spanning more than thirty years. Reasoner has used at least nineteen pseudonyms, in addition to his own name: Jim Austin; Peter Danielson; Terrance Duncan; Tom Early; Wesley Ellis; Tabor Evans; Jake Foster; William Grant; Matthew Hart; Livia James; Mike Jameson; Justin Ladd; Jake Logan; Hank Mitchum; Lee Morgan; J.L. Reasoner (with his wife); Dana Fuller Ross; Adam Rutledge; and Jon Sharpe. Since most of Reasoner's books were written as part of various existing Western fiction series, many of his pseudonyms were publishing "house" names that may have been used by other authors who contributed to those series

Reviews

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third novel in “The Holts” series concentrates on two branches of the extended family. Janessa Holt Lawrence and her husband Charlie are sent to North Carolina to apply their doctor skills to a yellow fever outbreak among a Cherokee tribe. Meanwhile, we return to Sam Brentwood’s story, watching him hit rock bottom with alcohol, a failing marriage, coming to grips with deaths in his immediate family, and a decision to move to Hawaii. Both stories are fraught with drama, adventure, political intrigue, and interactions with historical situations, elements that keeps me coming back to this lengthy series (counting the 24 books in the Wagon’s West series and 6 books that take place in the frontier days that act as prequels).

I was happy to see a couple of characters from previous books bite the dust early on in this one. I think they had served their purpose as characters and were getting annoying and close to overstaying their welcome. Probably irredeemable. Their deaths really helped spur the events of this book though. That sort of thing keeps this series thriving in general too; we never know if a main character will survive getting in a tough jam or dangerous situation. Thoroughly unpredictable. And this book gave me the chance to learn a lot about some historical events that I knew next to nothing about, particularly the 1890's era of Hawaii and the issue of annexation.

As always, I was pleased to see cameo appearances by several other characters that have been prominent in recent books. It helps to remind me of where they are at in their lives as well as helps me to be ready for the next book to come. Looking forward to that one, California Glory.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The bits with Janessa were great. The bits with Annie were great. The men were boring.

[Michael Gerardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read the entire Holt saga, from Wagons West up to this volume. And every time, I've learned things about the history of America and other developments. In this one, I learned quite a bit about yellow fever and the Hawaiian monarchy, among other things. I really like this series and plan to complete reading all of the books.

[Barbara Wellnitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historical fiction as well as a love story but family issues as well make for a very good series.

[Shirlene]

Claudia Brentwood, grandmother to Sam and Eden, remarried at 82. to Howard Locke. Sam showed up at the wedding, drunk, to give her away.
Sam Brentwood, son of Alexander and Lydia, was still married to Annie and continued to get drunk every night and run around on Annie. He couldn't handle the fact that she was rich and he was living off of her allowance. One night he came home drunk and brought one of the saloon girls home with him. Annie came home when they were there and walked out on Sam.
Lydia Brentwood tried to kill herself by overdosing with laudanum. She had still not gotten over the death of Franz. Alexander took her to a Dr. dealing with mental illness and he suggested taking Lydia back to Germany to visit the grave. While on the ship, Lydia jumped overboard and Alexander followed her overboard to try and save her. They both drowned.
After his father's death, Sam had to take over his father's business. Sam determined that he missed Annie and he sobered up and took over Brentwood Shipping. Howard was diagnosed with a degenerative heart disease and Claudia and Howard went back to England. Eden was left with Sam. Sam had tried to get Annie back before Eden came to live with him and she had refused. Eden wrote to Annie soon after she moved in and asked Annie to please come back because she needed her. Annie returned to live with Sam and Eden. Sam was not happy running the company from where they were living and made a decision to take the business to Hawaii.
Sam, Annie and Eden moved to Hawaii and Sam used the money he made from selling his dad's business to buy a plantation. Annie became friends with Queen Liliuokalani and Sam became friends with other land owners. The landowners spread lies about the Monarchy being run by a queen that was immoral and worshiped demons and such. They threw the queen out of office and took over with a provisional government. The provisional government applied to the United States government to become their territory. The government sent officials to Hawaii to find out what was going on. Sam's plantation was attacked by a Hawaiian and Sam was nearly killed. He quarreled with those who he thought were his friends and found out that what he thought what they were doing in the best interest of the country was to gain power. He forced the provisional government leaders to take Queen Lily out of what basically amounted to be house arrest and as a result he finally gained back the trust of Annie.
Henry Blake was the government employee that was sent to Hawaii. He took his wife and children with him. They also took Michael with them. Michael wanted to see Eden and they grew more in love with each other during the time they spent together in Hawaii. Mike returned to the states with the family and told Eden that he was going back with plans to learn to make movies with Thomas Edison. Michael was in Hawaii to take video of the queen being released from house arrest.
Janessa and Charley were working for the government dealing with epidemics. They were sent to the Appalachian mountains to deal with the Cherokee Indians who lived there where yellow fever had broken out. They were asked to try and keep the disease from reaching the white people. Janessa found out that this area was where she was born. She thought she had no other family but found out that her mother had fought with her family and left them. She found out from her aunt that she had lots of nephews, nieces and cousins. She also found out that a coal mining company was trying to take the indians land from them. She wrote to her father, now a senator from Oregon, and he sent lawyers to the area to help the indians. The leader for the coal miners, Morton Briggs, hired a couple of local guys to kill Janessa. Joe Cheoh, the son of the guy that Janessa's mother refused to marry, found out about the plan and arrived in time to save Janessa's life. Charley was sick at the time. He had Yellow Fever.
Joe killed the son of the guy who had been hired by the coal company owner to murder Janessa. The owner found out and had Joe arrested. He instigated a mob to attack the jail and try and hang Joe. During the riot, both Joe and Morton Briggs were both shot and killed. The day of Joe's funeral, the first case of the coal company trying to acquire the Indian land came to trial. The judge basically threw the case out of court after everything that had happened. The coal mining company couldn't afford the bad publicity and the Indians kept their land.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very easy read, a page turner and i thought it was a very good book right when i finished it. but that was last week. i now find that i remember nothing about it. it was like a very good soap opera. i do not like soap operas so no 5 here

[Cws]

W Ros