"You are a castaway on a coral atoll, and you find a Man Friday--only he turns out to be a convicted murderer--oh, what a story! Matthew Pearl tells it, this dark tale of the 1887 wreck of the Wandering Minstrel with flair and aplomb: transfixingly brilliant." -- Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of Knowing What We Know, on Save Our Souls "Save Our Souls is a story, not a study. The distinction is vital. You get to know these people and their relationships with each other. You live and die with every near-rescue that isn't. Most important, you keep turning the page." -- Boston Globe on Save Our Souls "A fascinating picture of frontier Kentucky. The story of Jemima's abduction, an exciting and revealing episode in the history of America's westward expansion, deserves to be retold.

To his credit, Pearl resists oversimplifying a history that has been too often presented as a frontier romance, showing us that it is as much about the women, children and Native Americans who played a part in it as the famous men who ensured it would be remembered." -- New York Times Book Review on The Taking of Jemima Boone "Not only did Matthew Pearl's clear and vivid writing immediately sweep me up in a father's fear, it pulled me into a larger and even more profound story, one that would change the course of three nations--one young, two ancient, all fighting for survival." -- Candice Millard, bestselling author of The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, on The Taking of Jemima Boone "It seemed Jemima Boone's fate to be taken hostage--if not by Kentucky Indians then by fiction and legend. Even a cousin had a go at her story, in verse. Sensitively and eloquently, writing his way around the silences, Matthew Pearl rescues her at last. Fearlessness seemed to run in the family; Jemima could neither read nor write, yet had an uncanny ability to communicate with her father, conspiring with him from a distance, assisting with his rescue, under gunfire, at close hand. A rousing tale of frontier daring and ingenuity, better than legend on every front." -- Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, on The Taking of Jemima Boone.