At The Wind's Edge

Dakota Series #1

by Kathryn Lynn Davis

French nobleman Antoine de Vallombrosa is lured to the Dakota Badlands by a fierce determination to build an empire in a forbidding frontier of rolling hills and fiery sunsets. By his side is his new wife, Medora, a New York heiress who shares his vision. But it isn't long before the violent forces of nature and man will test their ambition, their will--and even their love for each other...

Genres: Fiction

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Jenny Marboe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because it's about the Marquis de Mores and his wife, Medora, and the founding of the town he named after her. Medora has been a huge part of my and my family's lives and I never feel that the people behind the name of the town ever get as much recognition as they deserve. I realize that it is a work of fiction but it is based on real people and real events, and I was disappointed at the great liberties the author took with the characters. I am incredibly skeptical that there was ever any sort of infidelity in the marriage of the Marquis and Medora and the addition of that to the story does an injustice to the reality. To my knowledge, the Marquis never had a son by a married French woman who came to live in the badlands. Medora gave birth to Athenais in New York and she had her second child, a son, also in New York, but he does not make an appearance in this book and with the book ending in summer 1885, you would think there would have at least been mention of her being pregnant by then as he was born sometime in that same year. The liberties taken with the true story were just too much for me. That, coupled with the author's excessive use of analogies and tendency to switch between characters' viewpoints multiple times on the same page, made this a two star rating for me. Medora's real story is so much more interesting than this book gives her credit for, and it continues well past the point where this book ends. I would love to read a more true-to-life account that also includes the Marquis' murder in Africa and Medora's quest to reclaim his body. He was a stunning combination of the wild West and French finesse and she was a remarkable woman who hunted side-saddle and killed a bear; this book just does not do them justice.

[Barbara Wellnitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and a new (to me) perspective on the Badlands about which I remember visiting but that's about it!