May Dodd endures every modern stereotype of life in a lunatic asylum for a woman in the 1800s (to the point where I literally rolled my eyes), and she jumps at the chance to escape -- even if it means joining a secret government program that offers 1000 white women as brides for Indians to work towards peace with the half-Indian, half-white offspring of these brides. On the way Fergus adds in a varied cast colored with racist Irish accents, racist Swedish accents, offensive white men, lots of rape, caricatures of the "noble savage" type, and stirs them all into a pot that ostensibly is aiming towards peace, but makes it clear from the get go that no peace is possible. Without spoiling it for you, I have to at least warn potential readers that the ending undoes any work done in the novel itself towards the idea of peace, and is as offensive as can be possibly imagined (though Fergus at least has the grace not to make either side look like heroes). Fergus' childish writing style reads like a seventh grader being asked to write a story from the perspective of pioneers, and he fails utterly at writing female friendships and well-developed characters. I can't think of a single nice thing to say about this entire book.