I’m so happy I read this. It was ones of my favourites so far in 2023.

I often listen to audiobooks on 1.5X speed, but not this one. I wished to read nothing else but The Orenda all week. I read it slowly, savouring every scene.

---

---

---

SYNOPSIS

In the remote winter landscape a brutal massacre and the kidnapping of a young Iroquois girl violently re-ignites a deep rift between two tribes. The girl’s captor, Bird, is one of the Huron Nation’s great warriors and statesmen. Years have passed since the murder of his family, and yet they are never far from his mind. In the girl, Snow Falls, he recognizes the ghost of his lost daughter, but as he fights for her heart and allegiance, small battles erupt into bigger wars as both tribes face a new, more dangerous threat from afar.

Traveling with the Huron is Christophe, a charismatic missionary who has found his calling among the tribe and devotes himself to learning and understanding their customs and language. An emissary from distant lands, he brings much more than his faith to this new world, with its natural beauty and riches.

As these three souls dance with each other through intricately woven acts of duplicity, their social, political and spiritual worlds collide – and a new nation rises from a world in flux.

REVIEW

The violence in this book made me queasy a few times. Not many books have this effect on me anymore. Some could see all this violence as excessive, but I enjoyed it because it felt human. It felt realistic for the area and historical period. I love historical fiction set in Canada, but they’re often depicting softer realities and avoiding all this darkness.

The Orenda made me uncomfortable, but history is supposed to.

This story spans over a decade of change & grows in complexity as it goes. I loved the scale. I hated Christophe in the beginning, but that hatred cooled into something different by the end of the book.

I loved the contrast between the 3 main Jesuit characters. They shared the same faith and purpose, but they differed in opinions and had disagreements among themselves. Their methods of preaching & their perception of the indigenous tribes around them were quite different. Their final decision also.

I loved Bird and Snow Falls. The beginning of their relationship was perplexing (he murders her parents before her eyes, then adopts her as his own daughter like nothing happened?) but Snow Falls gets her revenge, in a sense. The love and respect they built for each other slowly felt real. I enjoyed going on that journey with them.

Sad, sad ending… but that’s what I expected from the start.

---

---