The Scots-Irish, always at the edge of the frontier, had a saying: "The cowards never left home. The weak died along the way. Only the strong made it." If ever that was the case, it was true of Mary Ingles the pioneer wife and mother in colonial Virginia - present day West Virginia.In this historical fiction by James Alexander Thom, an author who specializes in this period and geographical area, we meet the young wife and mother Mary Ingles. Mary, her children, friend Bettie Draper and a few others are survivors of a savage indian attack on their frontier settlement. Those not killed outright were made slaves and taken to the land of the Shawnee - present day southern Ohio.The historical record is known: Mary Ingles was made a slave and sold by the Shawnee to a French trader. Mary Ingles, however, was determined to return to her husband and hatched a plan to escape her French owner and the Shawnee. After an epic march mainly on foot, Mary and a Dutch woman who was also an indian captive walked hundreds of miles from present day western Kentucky back to white settlements in present day West Virginia by following the rivers she had memorized during her initial march into captivity. The reader will marvel at the toughness of Mary and those who lived during that era.James Thom takes the historical facts and weaves an excellent fictional tale around the bare bones of the facts. He presents a Mary Ingles who is not only tough, intelligent, proud and, above all, determined. He gives us a Mary that is fleshed out from the simple historical facts. James Thom is able to present Mary ingles to us that thinks, feels, hopes and almost despairs. We know so little about Mary, but the author is able to gather a lot of information from a variety of sources including the direct descendants of Mary that still preserve her memory. the author also traveled parts of the route Mary took on foot during her ordeal of a march back to her husband.This is an excellent work of historical fiction that fills in a lot of blanks while remaining true to the times and what we factually know about Mary. I recommend this book highly with five stars. Not only that, but after you're done with this book, there's another excellent book called Long Knife by James Thom about George Rogers Clark and his conquest of the Northwest during the Revolutionary War. Good reading!