Bonny Kate

by Mark Strength

Book Overview

Bonny Kate, Pioneer Lady, by Mark Strength Bonny Kate, Pioneer Lady, is a classic romantic love story which begins in July of 1776 when Lieutenant John Sevier meets Catharine Sherrill, pulling her over the wall of Watauga Fort to escape the deadly pursuit of Cherokee warriors. The lieutenant, considered the "handsomest man in the west," is also the most charming, fun-loving, and active man among the leaders of the fort. The beautiful, unmarried, Catharine...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1425757952
• ISBN13: 9781425757953
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: Xlibris
• Length: 356 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Great Read

For anyone with even a vague knowledge of the early history of the United States, John Sevier is a name recognized. Sevier, a courageous, daring woodsman and hunter pushed westward from what was North Carolina into what is now the great state of Tennessee. He was moving his family in the search for better land and life.He later became the first Governor of the State of Tennessee. Catherine Sherrill is a young pioneer girl who first encounters Sevier when he helps her over a fence and nicknames her "Bonny Kate." Kate believes that it is her destiny to marry an important man. She first believes that Sevier is that man, but she discovers that he has a wife and eight children. Mark Strength has used a passion in his writing to relate the life of Bonny Kate and how she befriends Sevier's first wife and later becomes Sevier's second wife. Through his use of colorful descriptions of the early frontier and utilizing the research that Strength has done for years, he brings to life this story of the early frontier life. Woven into his story is the Chrisitan values these people held dear. This is a wonderfully written historical romance with facts as its basis and Strength's ability to create what we might see as reality from all of the characters. It is a wonderful read for anyone who loves history and romance.

Bonny Kate

I must say that this is a wonderful historical fiction. I have been studying my family tree and the names and the events strike a cord. The names of Sevier, Shelby, etc are familiar. The locations are part of my heritage too including the Holston area set in the time of the Revolutionary War. The characters are belivable and have been given life in this excellent book. It gives some glimpse into the daily life of families during normal days and in the times of the days leading to the Revolution in the Southern colonies. I found out last year that I am a descendent of the Sherrill family and it made the reading more wonderful. Even if you are not a relation this is a wonderful read.

A Book To Treasure

This is the most wonderful book I have read in years. I hated for it to come to an end. In fact I am going to reread it soon. It made me feel like I lived with these families in these times. Now I can picture in my mind what their lives may have been like. If only history was taught this way many of us would have loved history in school. It is refreshing to have a book that inspires us to persevere as those generations before us did. It made it so real to me that people like us were the ones that made history. Mark Strength makes the people in the story so real they will become friends and family to you. This book is about our history and a love story but more than that it reaches somewhere deep inside that calls us to a higher level of living. Margarette Ann Stout

Review of Bonny Kate

As a sixth-generation descendent of Catherine Sherrill, and her famous husband John Sevier, I received notice of this new book and read it over Thanksgiving holidays 2007. Historical novels have not previously attracted me, James Fennimore Cooper and Kenneth Roberts notwithstanding, but I had trouble putting this one down to visit with my family. Mark Strength so vividly described the physical settings of my ancestors as they moved from Virginia south-westward to Watauga in what would become Tennessee that I began to smell the oak and hear and feel the splash of the cool waters as their journey took them on to the Nolichucky River. His fluency gripped me as he described frontier life; where homes were built from virgin stands of trees with axe and saw wielded by bare hands, food was cooked over a fire and served up on hand hewn tables in quantities needed to sustain those fresh from forest, corn field or hunt. Life itself depended on being alert to the arrival of strangers, and equally upon the need to find good neighbors; itself dependent on being a good neighbor. Mark speaks as one who has gone back in time to see what the land can tell us about what has happened there over past centuries and millennia. But with language, vignettes and vivid description evidencing his thorough research he shows yet greater depth in bringing those Sherrill and Sevier families and their neighbors to life for us some two and one half centuries later. It's not just about everyday life. Catherine's importance emerges as she sprints to warn the colonists at Ft. Watauga of an imminent attack by Cherokee warriors. She is lifted over the rampart to safety by John Sevier, who renames her Bonny Kate, and a prolonged friendship ensues. Later, as John works to achieve legal status for the new settlements in negotiations with the Governor of North Carolina, Kate proves herself not only a lady to be reckoned with but also the best marksman and fastest horseback rider in the territory. She becomes best friends with John's wife Sarah, and somehow finds time to help her parents' large family and Sarah's during John's long absences attending to military and governmental business during the years of the Revolutionary War with England. Her keen senses and skills help her single-handedly beat off Tory horse thieves, knee-capping them from cover with her muzzle-loading long rifle. Her warmth and tenderness serve equally well assisting in the delivery of a friend's first-born in a lonely outpost cabin. She would attribute such accomplishments to Providence. A great lesson of geology, Mark's other field, is that the past is prologue to the future. It's the missing link in a classroom where history is taught but not learned. This book might be a link for those who wonder how, or if, video games, lush lifestyle and fast cars will help us make the transition to the leaner days ahead when heating and fuel costs soar and abundance at our table dwindles. I heartily