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Synopsis:

Captain Kidd is an elderly widower enjoying or at least living his life of moving from town to town, reading stories from different newspapers. One day he is stopped and asked if he would return a 10 year old girl back to her aunt & uncle for $50. She’s been held by the Kiowa since she was 6 and they slaughtered her entire family. She now doesn’t remember anything but her life with the Kiowas and she’s now wild and uncivilized. But as the miles go on the two form a bond of trust in each other.

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Review:

It took me a while to get into this book (and now looking from hindsight) I know two reasons. First, it is written in a completely different style then what I’m used to. None of the “speaking” was placed in quotes. Because of this there was a few times it was left to the reader to decipher if it was the character speaking or just thinking the words. To me it just made the reading more confusing than it needed to be. Second, the storyline was very easy to predict. There really were no surprises with plot or anything along those lines.

That being said, Jiles did an excellent job of putting down on the pages the emotions felt by the characters. Even though the lack of quotation marks drove me nuts and I knew what was going to happen, the excellent writing still held me captive. As I turned each page, I could feel what the character was going through. Not just what Jiles wanted me to feel. What the character would feel if they were an actual person. Let me tell you. Paulette Jiles has a way with words.

A movie is slated to come out based on this book Christmas Day 2020 – it looks like they are in post-production now. Tom Hanks is starring as Captain Kidd and and a cutie, Helena Zengel is taking on the role of Johanna. I can’t wait to watch it and see how it compares with this book.

Overall, I feel this book deserves 4 out of 5 stars. The emotional impact of the writing was really outstanding. Even though it had a predictable plot and I felt had a lack of punctation, the writing was still worthy of ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Hey!!! If you’ve read this book or decide to read it – I’d love to hear your thoughts.