Down the Rio Grande, 1829

American Sisters #4

by Laurie Lawlor

Running away from her family to escape an arranged marriage, sixteen-year-old Rosita Treviäno, along with her younger stepsister, Maria Alvarez, leaves Mexico aboard a steamboat from the colony of Texas heading toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical

182 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Laurie Lawlor grew up in a family enamored with the theater. Along with her five brothers and sisters she spent summers in a summer stock repertory company in a small mountain town in Colorado that was run by their mother (costumer, cook, accountant, and resident psychiatrist) and their father (artistic director).

Reviews

[Kessa]

It was ok once I got into it.

[Rebecca]

On the southwestern frontier in 1829, stepsisters Rosita Trevino, sixteen, and Maria Alvarez, fifteen, both dream of better lives, but they do not realize how much they have in common. They're more strangers than sisters. On the same day an American named Austin sails down the Rio Bravo to their home town of Guerrero, Rosita's father brings home a rich old man who choses to marry her! Desperate to escape, Rosita runs away, boarding Austin's steamboat. That very night, Maria sneaks aboard, disguised as a boy! Rosita discovers Maria was just as miserable as she. Along the difficult and near deadly journey down the river, they face an attack by bandits and a fire. But it's when they are kidnapped and held for ransom when they must truly work together. This was not one of my favorite American Sisters books but readers who like the series should enjoy it.