Love is a Wild Assault by Elithe Hamilton Kirkland

The title makes this sound like a bodice-ripper romance, doesn't it! It is a romance, of sorts, but it is also the biographical novel of a true Texas heroine, Harriet Potter, who was a participant in the events of the most challenging days of early Texas, before and after the War for Independence from Mexico.

Author Kirkland was handed the plot of this novel on a silver platter, when she was given the long-forgotten manuscript of Harriet Potter's memoirs (written at the age of 83) by officials of the Texas State Historical Association, who asked if she would consider using it to write a novel. Although she already had several projects in hand, she agreed to read the account. She became fascinated. Several years and much additional research later, she produced this book.

What resulted is a true page-turner full of love, adventure, courage, hardship, and pain. Harriet's life encompasses settlement in a shack in a remote area of Texas, where she and her children almost die; the frenzy of the Runaway Scrape, as settlers flee in wagons, on horseback, and on foot before the threat of the Mexican army during the war; and life in an isolated home on beautiful Caddo Lake following the war, where her only close neighbors are the Caddo Indians. The novel is structured as a message from Hattie to her granddaughter to help her when she comes of an age to choose a husband.The book thus focuses on the three men who impact Hattie's life. She describes them this way:

"The gambler...in merchant's disguise...with the face of a hero. False spring love. Sudden flower and withered dreams.

"The statesman...duality of dove and serpent...Summer tempest in her heart. Violence and near destruction.

"The trader...the searcher...hands of goodness...eyes of wisdom...All the seasons of love."

The drama and sometimes scandal that is Hattie's life is such that she becomes known and talked about in all the settlements of early Texas, sometimes called a whore and a wanton, sometimes called "kishi-woman" (kindred to the Indian Earth Mother), and sometimes called "The Bravest Woman in the Republic of Texas."

It is hard for a modern woman to even imagine the hardships and challenges of such a life and to accept this as a true account, but it is verifiable. Harriet's life story gives us not only a first-hand account of the historic events of early Texas, but also a sense of a real woman's passion and pain.

For truth's sake, I must report that the last two chapters of the book are vastly inferior to the rest of it. Having finished with Hariett's story, Kirkland switches to the granddaughter as she reaches 18 and to the three suitors for her hand in marriage. They are obviously somewhat similar to Harriet's three loves. As she is trying to choose, the granddaughter finds the hidden journal of her grandmother. That is more than a little hokey, an unfortunate conclusion to what is otherwise an excellent novel.