In the first of his Jubilee Walker series, Piper leverages real life figure Major John Wesley Powell in a delightful historical fiction debut set in 1860s rural Illinois. Seventeen-year-old Jubilee Walker and his widowed mother are desperate to make ends meet on their farm, but Jubil possesses a dreamer’s soul, wishing he could ride West into a life of freedom and adventure. When his mother dies, Jubil crosses paths with Powell, now retired from the military and leading expeditions out West, a chance meeting that lights a fire for young Jubil—and induces him to apply for Powell’s next quest.Though Powell denies Jubil’s application, Jubil’s fire never wanes. He vows to travel West on his own, despite a lack of experience and warnings of danger from nearly every quarter, a decision that kickstarts the adventure of a lifetime. Piper adds romance to the mix, through the steadying influence of Jubil’s childhood friend, Nelly, who represents the familiarity of home throughout Jubil’s wild escapades. Those escapades run the gamut, too, as he encounters a slew of famous figures—including General Sherman, Sherman’s Pawnee scout White Man’s Dog, and George Armstrong Custer, among others. As Jubil faces death in the most beautiful country he’s ever imagined, he still longs for Nelly back home—a stark dichotomy that soon forces him to decide where his loyalties truly lie.
Piper delivers the historical context that readers will expect for the genre, bolstered by very appealing main characters in Jubil—a naïve, yet endlessly brave young man—and Nelly, an independent woman unwilling to compromise her own dreams. Of course, Jubil’s heroes inevitably turn out to be more flawed than he imagined, lending the novel welcome authenticity and attesting to the pursuits of well-known men, venturing into “the great unknown,” too often willing to step on the backs of others in their own endeavors for fame.
Takeaway: A young dreamer seeks adventure alongside famous Western explorers.
Comparable Titles: Sandra Dallas’s Where Coyotes Howl, Carys Davies’s West.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A
