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Shop nowFlight of the Sparrow
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Learn more"She suspects that she has changed too much to ever fit easily into English society again. The wilderness has now become her home. She can interpret the cries of birds. She has seen vistas that have stolen away her breath. She has learned to live in a new, free way."
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1676. Even before Mary Rowlandson was captured by Indians on a winter day of violence and terror, she sometimes found herself in conflict with her rigid Puritan community. Now, her home destroyed, her children lost to her, she has been sold into the service of a powerful woman tribal leader and made a pawn in the ongoing bloody struggle between English settlers and native people. Battling cold, hunger, and exhaustion, Mary witnesses harrowing brutality but also unexpected kindness. To her confused surprise, she is drawn to her captors' open and straightforward way of life—a feeling further complicated by her attraction to a generous, protective English-speaking native known as James Printer. All her life, Mary has been taught to fear God, submit to her husband, and abhor Indians. Now, having lived on the other side of the forest, she begins to question the edicts that have guided her, torn between the life she knew and the wisdom the natives have shown her.
Based on the compelling true narrative of Mary Rowlandson, Flight of the Sparrow is an evocative tale that transports the listener to a little-known time in early America and explores the real meanings of freedom, faith, and acceptance.
Amy Belding Brown is the author of Mr. Emerson’s Wife, and her work has appeared in Yankee, Good Housekeeping, American Way, the Worcester Review, and other national, international, and regional magazines. Married to a United Church of Christ minister, and the mother of four grown children, she lives in Vermont and teaches at Granite State College.
Heather Henderson is a voice talent, theater critic, and dramaturg. In addition to narrating audiobooks, she has voiced hundreds of commercial and educational projects, and her arts reviews and poems have appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country. She holds MFA and DFA degrees from the Yale School of Drama. She lives in Oregon.
Reviews
“Brown retells the actual events surrounding Mary Rowlandson’s abduction to expose the difficult role of women in colonial Puritan society, explore Mary’s quest for freedom, and offer a fuller understanding of her faith. She eloquently allows Mary’s story to unfold, while transporting the reader into the rigid world of the Puritans and juxtaposing that with the more natural life of the Native Americans. Brown’s story is as much inspirational as it is historical, and more intriguing because it is true.”
“Brown’s second novel examines how the early English settlers made their way to the New World, built their communities, and related to the established Native American culture…Brown has written an engaging and enjoyable novel based on solid research. Students of history…will value the authentic representation of early Colonial America and the more sympathetic portrait of Native Americans.”
“Brown’s voice transforms a remote period into a fresh and immediate world and, in Mary, gives us a heroine who is broken by sorrow but determined to survive. This is a novel about the true meaning of faith and freedom.”
“Breathes life into a vital but oft-neglected chapter of our history. Amy Belding Brown has turned an authentic drama of Indian captivity into a compelling, emotionally gripping tale that is at once wrenching and soulful.”
“A mesmerizing tale of survival and awakening…Reminded me of Caleb’s Crossing.”
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