Ride the Wind: A Novel

The author pulls zero punches in this epic masterpiece, painting a vivid, unbiased portrait of both the Native Americans and American settlers in all their heroism, humanity, and horror. Meticulously researched, based on real people and true events, engaging from beginning to end with fully-developed characters, cultures, and sprawling settings that will forever haunt you and you will never forget.Unbelievable that this is the author’s first novel. This could easily be turned into a multi-season TV series sensation, but I don’t know that it would ever measure up to the reality so immersively captured in this book.This is a long book, but worth the investment of your attention. If you commit to it, you will want to read it again before you even finish it. And you will learn so much about a long-forgotten way of life along the way.

This book is beautifully and often poetically written, with excellent use of research on the geographical locations of the Comanches' lives, the botanical and zoological details of the time and place. The story of the tribe and of the individual characters, including Cynthia Ann Parker/Nadua, a white child kidnapped by the Comanche, Wanderer, a real Comanche warrior and chief, and their son Quanah, among many others, is compelling. There is a strong element of romance throughout the plot. And the book is based on history. As you read you learn amazing details of how the Comanche used the resources of their natural environment.At firstI could barely keep going for fear of what would happen to Cynthia and the other captives. And there are horrible events for both the white settlers and for the Comanche in the story. But the writing and the story allow the reader to digest what is happening without faltering. There is much joy in the story.And you will get a valuable look at the contrast between particular Native American cultures and American European culture.

This is a fantastic story written very well. This book should be on the New York Best Seller's list. I literally couldn't put it down. After checking on the internet I found many people in this book actually lived and the author is very adept at telling their stories truthfully. I liked it especially that the author was even handed and didn't favor one side over another. Both sides did horrific things to one another only 150 years ago. It's hard to understand why. That was the frustrating part to reading this book. Why are these people acting like this and being so unspeakably cruel? I wish I could time travel back and ask them. But I wouldn't want to stay - those times were too hard! In the mid 1800's this country was changing lightening fast. The Indians who killed white people and collected their scalps when young would later attend reunions in their old age with the very white people whose settlements they had attacked - both sides sitting down and exchanging war stories. Life is weird. But this book is great, great, great. Sad story wonderfully told. The violence is deftly handled but still shocking.

This compelling, meticulously-researched novel is fascinating, thrilling and heartbreaking. I only demoted it to four stars (I would have given it four and a half if I'd had the option) because, like most mass-market paperbacks, it is first-rate story telling but only second-rate writing. That's OK with me, though, a novel doesn't have to be beautifully written to be worth reading.I enjoyed this book very much but as a mother I feel I must warn anyone who's sensitive that it is very difficult to read in places. In this account of the last years of the Comanche, babies and children are regularly placed in peril, and many of them die. They die from disease and from the elements but most of them are brutally tortured and murdered. The atrocities are committed not just by whites (in fact the whites seem to commit fewer atrocities against women and children overall) but by the Comanche and the other tribes, who don't seem to have any moral rules against torturing and murdering children. I often wondered how much of what I was reading was based on fact and how much was exaggerated, and when researching the question discovered that many of these accounts were taken directly from history.That is why I found this book so surprising. If you are looking for a romanticized version of Plains Indian life ala "Dances With Wolves," you will not find it here. The Comanche culture was beautiful in many ways, and it was far kinder to nature than European culture will ever be, but the Comanches were a culture of warfare. They did not believe in mercy. When they could, they tortured their enemies, and were not above burning women and children alive, mutilating and raping them. I was fascinated by the detail of the Comanche world but I found it hard to feel any sympathy for many of the characters in this book, on either side, since nearly everyone condoned that kind of warfare and it was difficult for me to relate to them. I can't imagine how anyone who exists in a society where murder and torture is no longer a part of our moral fabric could really feel much sympathy for someone who murdered a child.Having said that, this is a wonderful book for students of American history, or for anyone who is interested in the Plains Indians. The author has meticulously detailed almost every aspect of Comanche life, from building a lodge to making pemmican. I particularly recommend this book as a balanced look at the conflict between the Plains Indians and white settlers. This was indeed a clash of two cultures who would never be able to peacefully co-exist, and like in any war, there were heroes and villains on both sides.

I am only about 6 chapters into this 500+ page book and find it exciting and a well presented account of life as a captive in the frontier. The print is very small but it is a page turner. It can be graphic in places. All in all a good representation of the life in the old west.

A raw beautiful glimpse of the struggle for preserving existence for the Comanche people. Descriptive, truly the pen was a work of art. Painting the landscape and capturing the spirit of the people.

I found the story so haunting I had to find out more about Wanderer & Naduah. I had never really thought before of how arrogant white people were to just take what was not theirs, to kill an entire people off. Their ways, their culture gone. This story had me in tears. I hope they are together in the Hunting Grounds.....A truly moving tale based on fact, read it if you want to find out one explanation of what happened to the Native American Indians.

Another truly amazing adventure of life and death of the American Indians as they fight for the right of living off the land and raising theirchildren. The battles with the white people and soldiers that want to populate the land with their own people and take all the land for theirown. It is a very descriptive story and not for the faint of heart but it certainly gives one the insight of how it was at the time the land was open and free for these nomads and how at the time their was such an abundance of Buffalo, deer. wild horses and other animals that sustained the lives of the Indian people.Once more I would recommend this to the readers of Amazon. It is educational, adventurous, exciting and a page turner as you get to know the main characters of this wonderful novel.

Great book. Very intense and moving

Read this book when I was 13 after my dad said it was a good book and would help me learn more about my Native American heritage and history and I saw it here. It's even better than I remembered. Definitely recommend it.

This book an amazing look at a way of life and culture long forgotten . I was totally mesmerised in a look that although cruel, and a harsh way of life that very brutal outcomes I could feel through the words I was taking the journey with them and feeling all the emotions experienced. I would recommend this book as it a look at something precious and real strength courage a people loving laughing fighting as one to protect each other against all odds . What makes it is the fact it's based on a true story and you felt you were on every step of that journey with them. I think anyone reading this would find it hard to put down .