Flight of the Sparrow: A Novel of Early America by Amy Belding Brown

This captivating story is based on a true narrative of Mary Rowlandson. Her family flees England in 1639, when she is two years old, “part of the Great Migration of Puritans to New England, seeking relief from the apostasy of King Charles.” Her family settles in Salem and later moves to Lancaster. 

She gets married to a minister at the age of twenty. She learns to submit her will to her husband and to accept his corrections. “He reminds her that a woman must be subject to her husband in all things.” 

She witnesses violence and terror of Indian attack and is taken captive. She observes their routines of straightforward way of life and power of woman over man, which seems frightening to her. “It undermines the order of creation – the order that God put into the world.” 

Her confused feelings are further complicated by her attraction to English-speaking native known as James Printer. He shows her a protective kindness and compassion, a side of a man she has not known existed. When Indians negotiate her price, she feels inflicted. She doesn’t want to return to the strict ways of Puritan life and she doesn’t want to be a slave to Indians, but she wants their freedom, which she has embraced. A day comes, when she has to make a choice.

The book is beautifully written with language appropriate for the time period, transporting readers to the period of colonial America.

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