Review: Nice story but lots of historical mistakes
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 16, 2011
I liked this story but I was continually snagged on historical mistakes. For instance, not only would a man, even a rough and tumble miner let alone a gentleman, never swear in front of a lady without begging her pardon, a woman would NEVER curse at all! It is highly unlikely that Jenny would attempt to sterilize either the needle or the wounds since modern knowledge of antisepsis was just becoming known to the scientific community at that time(and most doctors strongly resisted the very idea!) so an average woman like Jenny would be totally unaware of it. Also, stitching up a deep wound with a needle and thread when you are totally untrained is much more difficult than it appeared to be in the story. For Jenny to shoot as well as she did, she would have had to practice every day for years no matter how much natural talent she had. I simply could not believe the premise that Jason would be having trouble with his eyes; he could never maintain his reputation as a sure shot if that were true. As a married woman, Jenny could not have property in her own name, nor could she sign a contract or make a legal agreement alone. Although Jason would own Jenny's mine once they married, Jenny would not have any ownership of Jason's. Jenny would not do her own laundry and would be highly unlikely to agree to a divorce as 1) she would be shunned by society and 2) she would probably not be given custody of Lily. Some of the other mistakes would spoil the story too much so I'll stop with these. This story had a lot of potential but I don't really feel that it lived up to it. If you are not bothered by historical inaccuracies then you might very well enjoy this story more than I did. Since it's free, I recommend that you take a chance on it.