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Mistress of Manifest Destiny: A Biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807-1878

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Related to Jane & William Cazneau.
I would loved to have been Jane
I would loved to have been Jane
A Woman's Place in the 1850's

Mistress of Manifest Destiny: A Biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807-1878
Linda S. Hudson
Manufacturer: Texas State Historical Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0876111797

Customer Reviews:

Related to Jane & William Cazneau........2002-10-16

I am related to General William L.Cazneau 1807-1876 and his wife Jane McManus Cazneau 1807-1878, the subject of this book. I met the author in November 1999 in Texas. A great amount of research has gone in to this book and it took years to collect it all. I am a direct descendent of General Thomas Nugent Cazneau 1812-1873 of California, brother of William. I am sending copies to libraries and friends. God Bless You !!

I would loved to have been Jane.......2001-11-30

History is a passion of mine and this book is so very good. I can not imagine how long it took to do all this research. It gave me a different understanding of our government history. Just to think if our politions had had the foresight that Jane McManus and Aaron Burr had, Cuba, Doninican Republic, and Mexico just to name a few, could have been States today. I would love to have been Jane because she was so smart and brave. I found her one of the most fascinating persons in history. I loved this book.

I would loved to have been Jane.......2001-11-30

A Woman's Place in the 1850's.......2001-03-23

Linda Hudson has done a wonderful job of following the travels and trials of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau from her youth in New York to her involvement in Texas land deals in the 1830's and her mission to Mexico City in the midst of the Mexican War in the 1840's to her life in Eagle Pass, Texas, (which she somehow did not at first realize was literally the middle of no where) to her exploits in Cuba and her return to New York City to play a role in the presidential campaign of 1852.

She has shown the complexity of the politics of the times especially as they relate to the question of slavery and its expansion into Texas. She has also related the very complicated life of a woman who was liberated long before being a liberated woman was considered cool. In doing so, she has created a far more complex view of society in the United States in the middle of the 19th century than many historians have uncovered...or been willing to admit to having uncovered.

Book Description

Disgraced outcasts, they hold the fates of empire and gods ...

A dedicated priestess of Boq'urak, Thia has spent the whole of her young life in devout worship -- until she inadvertently discovers the unholy truth about the deity she serves. Cruelly thrust back into a world she does not know, she has become an exile in a land torn asunder by terror and conflict. But Thia will not be making her journey alone. An outcast warrior priest, a mysterious healer, an enslaved prince, and an embittered spy must join with her to save a realm ravaged by invasion -- and rescue the future from the terrible wrath of a demon god.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent beginning to a new trilogy.......2006-08-12

Storms of Destiny was the first fantasy novel I've read in quite a while, and it grabbed me immediately. A first-rate fantasy requires that an author do several things simultaneously, and Ann Crispin does all of them well. One is to introduce a cast of distinct and interesting characters. The second is to create a believable new world. The third is to keep the story moving as the characters and the world come together. A fourth item that deserves special mention for military history buffs like myself is that Crispin has done a good job with armor, weapons, and tactics: the novel's major battle is a complex and compelling tale all by itself. Finally, she has written a good yarn that not only stands satisfyingly on its own but provides a nice set-up for the next book. Storms of Destiny is a winner.

Excellent First in Series!.......2006-05-13

This is the first book of A.C. Crispin's that I have read. I inhaled this book, and was unable to put it down. I am eagerly awaiting the next book in the series. It's a great fantasy read!

A Good Read.......2006-03-03

Storms of Destiny is a fantasy adventure from the word go. In retrospect I would say that it was a mix of Dragonlance and Planet of the Apes. A strange mix, you say? It won't seem quite as strange once you read the book.
"In a world at peril, five exiles must band together to stop a god.

Banished from their former lives, an unlikely group of comrades -- a warrior disgraced, a disillusioned priestess, a fiery revolutionary, a mysterious non-human healer, and an enslaved prince -- are drawn together in a desperate race to stop an invading army. But they soon discover the danger is infinitely greater, for their true enemy is none other than a malevolent, vengeful god who has destroyed many worlds..."

There are five primary characters (for the forces of good):
The Exiles of Boq'urain: Storms of Destiny is the first book in a trilogy about five adventurers who must defeat the demon Boq'urak. The story begins with the warrior-priest Jezzil infiltrating an enemy fortress. It goes horribly wrong and his comrades quickly find themselves outnumbered. His training tells him that he should fight to the death, but he wants to live. He flees for his life, instantly marking him as an outcast to the Pen Jav Dal

Thia is a 19-year-old novice priestess. A wrong turn in a forbidden tunnel, reveals the true nature of the god she worships; Boq'urak. She flees the temple, barely escaping with her life. She finds herself lost, not only in a world that she has never known existed outside the temple, but also in her spiritual direction. She had spent her life in the service of a monster and now has no one to pray to for help.

Khith is a generless, furred creature that lives in the jungles that surround the city of the ancients. He, er "it" is a sorcerer, healer and scholar. His thirst for knowledge about the ancients eventually gets him the boot from his community.

Prince Eregard is the youngest of the King's sons. The Crown Prince Salesin (his oldest brother) is an overpowering, greedy, manipulative tyrant and he isn't even the king yet. Even his own father (the King) fears him. In an effort to stop an uprising the King asks Eregard to sail to Katal to discover the source of the unrest (I bet you couldn't guess that Salesin's greed has a lot to do with it). On the long journey, the ship is captured by pirates (I love pirates) and Eregard is forced into slavery.

Talis Aloro hates men, plain and simple. She was savagely raped by her uncle and her father did nothing to set things right. She also happens to be the right hand...er, woman to the man who is plotting against Eregard's kingdom.

The story moves between the points of view of these characters, showing the reader the world through many different eyes.
There are a few places that seem to drag as she sets the stage, but they are few and far between. The first book of a trilogy always has the hardest duty; setting up the world and characters for the rest of the books to run with. She did a remarkable job of getting all of the pertinent information across without just spelling everything out for you. The story ends with several unanswered questions, setting us up to dive right into the next book the moment it is released.

Ann Crispin has wove an incredible story here. She fleshes out her characters to the point that they are almost tangible. Her battle scenes are brilliantly laid out; you can almost smell the blood on the battlefield. Swordplay, revolutionaries, magic, strange creatures (both good and bad), not one but two formidable enemies and an underlying moral about freedom (with it's many levels) and the cost of keeping it, this book has it all. If you enjoy fantasy at all, you will love this book. It was a fun read.

I can't wait to pick up the next one.

Tough book, but it ultimately shines.......2005-12-20

It's been a while since I've read an A.C. Crispin book, so I had forgotten how in your face she writes. Her Star Trek books are one of the few earlier ones to actually use the words "make love" or anything like that (back when Trek books just didn't acknowledge stuff like that openly, though the subtlety was always there), and she's not afraid to write about sensitive topics. Thus, Storms of Destiny hit me hard right at the outset. It's an extremely strong fantasy with vivid characters that don't fit any of the standard stereotypes, except in the broadest sense. Even better, the story is self-contained, though the ending opens up a lot of vistas for the rest of the series to explore. The book is brutal, but it's also quite effective.

Thia, a young priestess of the god Boq'urak, has never seen life outside the cloister. She also hasn't been much for the rules, being secretly taught to read and write by a mentor and how to get around secret passages in the complex. Using one of those passages to make it to dinner on time, she encounters a horrible rite that sours her entire belief system, revealing Boq'urak to be almost evil incarnate, and so she runs away. Eventually, she meets up with a warrior priest on the run from his own people for abandoning his fellow soldiers to die, a gender-neuter healer of a race of scholars who is exiled because he investigated the ancient ruins around his home too diligently, an enslaved prince who was captured by pirates as he was reconnoitering a rebellious province and sold into slavery, and a bitter spy for that same rebellion. Together, they must aid the prince's realm as it reels from invasion, as well as fight off Thia's demonic god before he can kill them all.

Crispin doesn't shy away from descriptions of battle, though she's no Michael Stackpole. No, it's the sex that's brutal (though thankfully, not "on-screen" much). Talis, the spy, was brutalized by her uncle and now has sworn off men. Thia's on the run from a god who brutalizes some of his "Chosen Ones" much the same way, and the woman who Prince Eregard loves has to marry Eregard's oldest brother, who is nothing but horrible to her. And he's not even the villain of the book! These scenes do not quite reach the level of rape, usually because either something happens to forestall it or because Crispin moves away from it in the telling, but it certainly isn't pleasant to read about. This roughness is a clear contrast with Thia herself, who is the ultimate innocent, as is Princess Ulandra, who is just as clean, and neither understands this sort of thing. The innocent love that develops for both of them (I'm not going to tell you who their partners end up being, because it's not clear until the end of the book) is quite pleasant when compared to all that came before.

Crispin has a way with her characters, grasping them and clearly showing us (rather than telling us) what makes them tick. She spends almost forty percent of the book getting them all together, so we get to see them as individuals before they are in a group. They all eventually end up in the same city, which is a bit of a coincidence, but one I can live with. The brother/sister relationship that develops between Jezzil (the warrior priest) and Thia is quite sweet and it's interesting to see just how sheltered both of them have been all their lives. When Jezzil finally comes to a decision about his loyalties, it's quite clear that the women who have befriended him are a big part of it, and it stems from the character we have seen.

In fact, all of them grow and change in believable fashion, and they are all a joy to read about. They're interesting, their backgrounds are interesting, and those histories always inform what they're currently doing. The only thing that I might have liked to have seen is a bit more foreshadowing for one sequence between Eregard and Talis after his secret is revealed (Talis was Eregard's final owner before it becomes known that he's really a prince). That came a bit out of nowhere, but it does show the effect that his wearing of the slave collar for over a year has done to him quite well. While I found the coincidence of them being in the same city to be a bit much, I did think that the reasons for them getting together, once they all had met, were quite realistic.

Finally, I'll mention the plotting. Crispin has given us an interesting story that moves from the demon chasing them all to fighting off an invasion, and the last two chapters suddenly turn all of the events of the book on their ear, paving the way for the next book. Crispin's description of action is quite good, but it's the quieter moments where she really excels. The unpleasant scenes are *quite* unpleasant, but the tender moments are a nice salve for those wounds. These characters form a bond that is a treasure to behold, and Crispin doesn't just give it to us. She shows it to us as it develops, and we believe it. The prose is wonderful and each scene does exactly what Crispin wants it to do.

I can't find any major faults with Storms of Destiny, and the only quibbles I have are mentioned above. If you go into the book knowing there are some harsh scenes and are prepared for them, then it's an even better book. Even without knowing, I quickly righted myself and could not put the book down. It will be a long wait for the next one, and I plan to have it as soon as it's published.

David Roy

Great setup, but a little draggy.......2005-10-16

A. C. Crispin has written a great introduction to a new fantasy world. Or maybe an after-Apocalypse novel. Or maybe just the first book of a decent trilogy. It's hard to tell, and it could be all of these things. The problem with this book, and why I didn't give it five stars, is that, while Crispin's writing is uniformly excellent, the book is overplotted, and the infodumps overwhelm the action. It is hard to keep going, but I persevered and it was worth it.

I am waiting patiently for volumes two and three.

Walt Boyes
The Bananaslug. at Baen's Bar

Average customer rating:

Excellent

Storms of Destiny
T.A. Von Reiman
Manufacturer: PublishAmerica
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1413737447

Book Description

Tara Stone is a very successful writer and career woman. But while working on her latest novel she becomes haunted by strange dreams that devour her every thought, and leave little room for concentrating on her work. Suddenly, it occurs to her how she knows the characters in her nightmares, and this realization sends her home with a desperate need to understand the past. Tara and her best friend Shelly return to the bayous of their childhood and are suddenly thrown into a dark world of voodoo, murder and betrayal. Tara's dreams become reality or her reality becomes a dream, and she can't distinguish between the two. But when the secrets of her ancestors are discovered and the mystery unfolds, the bonds of friendship, love, and family become frail. The veil between reality and fantasy is torn apart leaving Tara to ride out the Storms of Destiny.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent.......2004-10-30

In the beginning of this outstanding novel we are introduced to our main character, Tara Stone. A young woman, who makes her profession as a writer, Tara's life is about to be shaken and changed in ways she never thought possible.

Tara has been having dreams that haunt her every sleeping moment.
These dreams begin to consume her thoughts and her life even after she awakens. Who were these people in her dreams, and why did they seem to be calling to her. Her boyfriend Brad is concerned, but Tara has a problem with anyone trying to become to close to her, and this includes Brad.
Tara and her childhood friend Shelly make a decision to return to their families homes in the bayous so Tara can sort all of this out.

Here we are introduced to Tara's delightful family and to some very shady characters. When Tara realizes that the dreams she has been having are dreams of her dead relatives the story really heats up. Why were they contacting her, and what does it have to do with her life? She had to know and begins to dig deeper into family history.

There are so many twists and turns in this story that I could never describe them in a short review.
Let me say this; the reader is taken on quite a ride as we have all the elements of one excellent read.
We have mystery, love, hate, betrayal, suspense and the mystic power of voodoo as Tara runs for her life before being sacrificed.
Interested yet? You should be, this is one incredible story that will keep you turning the pages until the end.
Highly recommended! Fast paced, spell binding and budding with one surprise after another. Don't miss this one, well worth your time.
Shirley Johnson
Senior Reviewer
MidWest Book Review

Mistress of Manifest Destiny: a Biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807-1878.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Southern History

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Mistress of Manifest Destiny: a Biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807-1878.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Southern History
Nicole Etcheson
Manufacturer: Southern Historical Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Southern Historical Association on November 1, 2002. The length of the article is 542 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Mistress of Manifest Destiny: a Biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807-1878.(Book Review)
Author: Nicole Etcheson
Publication: Journal of Southern History (Refereed)
Date: November 1, 2002
Publisher: Southern Historical Association
Volume: 68 Issue: 4 Page: 943(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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The Storm Of Destiny
Vicki Richy
Manufacturer: Pagent Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H58ROY

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