Several years ago, one of my favorite reading buddies recommended a book to me and promised I would fall in love with it. I reluctantly agreed to try it, though the title sounded a little strange and I was afraid it would be cheesy. However, just as my friend promised, I quickly fell in love with the book and became an ardent proselytizer of its many virtues. These is My Words, by Nancy Turner, is one of my favorite books to share and I’ve rarely met a person who didn’t enjoy reading it. When I worked at a public library it was one of our top recommended titles and one of our most popular book group reads.

It’s been a while since Nancy Turner has published anything new, so when I discovered that she had published a novel this year I immediately put it on hold at the library. The next week at book group I told my friend that there was a new book by Nancy Turner—she and I jumped up and down and squealed like the fangirls that we are, and I hadn’t even started reading it yet. Well, now that I have read it, I may just have a new favorite Nancy Turner book, and I definitely have a new favorite book to recommend to people.

My Name is Resolute is the story of Resolute Talbot, a girl born into luxury on a plantation in Jamaica. In 1729, when she is 10 years old, her family home is attacked by pirates and she is sold into slavery as an indentured servant. Within a year, she has been kidnapped by Indians and sold once more, this time to a French convent. In the convent she receives an education and training as a weaver, but spends her years there longing to escape and return home. When she finally escapes at age 17 she finds herself alone in Lexington, Massachusetts and realizes that she must make her own way in the world. Resolute uses her skills as a weaver to build a new life for herself, raises a family, and eventually makes a valuable contribution to the American Revolution.

Nancy Turner has clearly spent the last few years researching and the attention to detail in this book is amazing—you will learn about growing flax, weaving, spinning, colonial politics, women’s fashions of the 18^th century, indenture laws, piracy, slavery, and many other fascinating historical topics. The American Revolution has never been a favorite historical topic of mine and I didn’t know much about it—while this is a work of fiction, I felt a lot less confused about the events that led to the Revolution and greater empathy for the colonists after reading this book.

Although the epic sweep of the plot and the historical details are good enough reasons to recommend the book, the best part for me was Resolute herself. She starts the book as a naïve 10-year-old thrust into a very difficult situation—sometimes I just wanted to hug her and tell her it would be all better. Turner does an excellent job depicting the confusion a child would have after being kidnapped and enslaved, while also providing enough information for the reader to understand things that the protagonist does not. I loved watching Resolute grow up throughout the course of the book and truly fulfill the promise of her name. Weighing in at about 600 pages and spanning the entire life of its main character, My Name is Resolute is a hefty read. It’s the perfect kind of book for a lazy summer afternoon on the beach (or on your back porch while the kids run in the sprinklers, if your summer plans are more like mine). If you’re looking to escape for a bit this summer, give Nancy Turner’s books a try.

Who are some of your favorite authors? Do you like historical fiction, and do you prefer some historical periods over others? What are your summer reading plans?