Category Archives: South of the Border

This is a dandy historical novel of the 1840s German settlement of the Texas Hill Country which I recommend with caveats. I was familiar with the basic facts but learned a few things, such as the details of Baron Meuesbach’s peace treaty with the Comanches. It was unique in Texas and more or less held until the murderous tribe was exterminated by the U.S. Army. I also didn’t know how inept the pre-Meusebach Verein leaders were or that they employed their own uniformed soldiers to protect the settler families.

As a two-time indie author, I finally realized that it had been a long time since I had read someone else’s indie book. I figured Hayes (the blogosphere and Milblogging’s “Sgt. Mom”) and her Adelsverein trilogy was the best place to start. It was a good decision. This first book paints an epic in satisfying old-fashioned style that effectively lures the reader on.

Unfortunately, Hayes leaves almost nothing to a reader’s imagination. That can grate on folks raised on movies and television. Unlike readers of the 19th century, we don’t need exhaustive description of major and minor actors. I also could have done without all the adverbs. Seemingly every speech is characterized, rather than trusting to the context to convey the meaning. Despite those annoyances, the main characters seem real and lovable and their tragedies and joys won my empathy and spurred my curiosity to find out what would happen to them next.

The typos and misspellings, by my count on 46 of the book’s 365 pages, do slow things down as you try to puzzle out the author’s intention. Surely, most of them could have been avoided, and a second edition to fix them is warranted. However, Hayes is sufficiently talented and her story so well crafted that I’ve bought the second installment, “The Sowing.” I want to find out how the Beckers and the Steinmetzs fare in the turbulent Civil War years. Tragedy ahead, I expect. I’ll be hoping to find that the proofreading has improved.