Under a Blackberry Moon: A Novel, by Serena B. Miller

From my church's library. Read and reviewed for LibraryThing in September, 2014

A Christian romance with excitement and danger. A young starving Chippewa widow with a baby seeks refuge in a lumber camp where she becomes an assistant to the cook and a friend of the owner and his wife. When danger of another kind threatens in town, she and her baby take off to reunite with her people, accompanied by Skypilot, an itinerant preacher. Their steamship explodes while navigating Lake Superior; the Indian Moon Song and her baby, Skypilot, and the young wife of an Army commander are the only survivors. Moon Song's native skills keep them alive; she can forage for food, devise shelter, swim, and find safe refuge. Knowing from past experience that white men are unreliable, she leaves Skypilot as she nears her village. Meanwhile, the young wife, Isabella, goes into a severe depression over the loss of her husband and baby in the shipwreck, and experiences a psychotic episode when she temporaily mistakes Moon Song's child for her own. There are other adventures before she reaches her homeland, and Skypilot has some decisions to make, as well. Then there is the attempt of the American government to take the native children far away from home to an "Indian school."

This was a surprisingly good book. I will look for more by this author.