Bowman, Erin. Vengeance Road.

Bowman, Erin.  Vengeance Road.  Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt Brace  2015  327p   $17.99  ISBN 978-0-544-46638-8  ms/jr      Historical fiction      VG-BN

Kate and her father lived in Granite Creek on a right fine piece of land. Times were harsh, but the two were managing to make an honest living.  One day, while Kate was getting water, her father was shot by a gang of outlaws.  She managed to get off a couple of shots with her rifle and injured one of the men.  After she has buried her father, she takes off after the outlaws to wreak her revenge.

It is a dangerous journey, during which she learns that her father had been a member of the gang.  When he left the gang and changed his name, he took a journal containing a map with the directions to a gold mine, and the other gang members who killed him were after that map.  In seeking revenge for her father’s murder, Kate is assisted in her journey by two brothers who are sons of her father’s good friend.  Readers see gold fever taking hold when Jess and Will sidetrack their cattle trip to Tucson in order to follow the trail to the gold mine.  Kate’s compassion is evident when she saves a young Apache girl from burning in a barroom brawl.  This act of kindness is later paid back in full when the girl safely leads Kate and the boys through Indian territory near Superstition Mountain.

Readers will be sitting on the edge of their seats.  As Kate fights off bad men and severe natural conditions, she also has to depend on her own sense of morality when she is faced with the end of the journey.
     

Summary: Kate Thompson sets out to avenge her father’s death at the hands of the Waylan Rose Rider Gang.  Her journey is filled with conflict, desperation, and the friendship of an Apache girl and two brothers who refuse to desert her.     

Robbers and Outlaws-Fiction, Wild West-Fiction, Gold mining-Fiction

                                                      --Linda McNeil