by Sandra Dallas
The Diary of Mattie Spenser was highly recommended. It is an epistolary novel, told by way of diary entries written by a young wife and homesteader in the Colorado Territory. This book was written in the 1990s, but the setting was in the 1860s, and the author's research is evident in the spinning of the tale as well as the language used. I would expect to read contrived language and unrealistic American English for the time period this book was supposed to represent. However, the author must have done her homework, because the phraseology and language of the text seem to be quite authentic. Suffice it to say, the book reads with humor and realism, authentic and historically accurate. Hard to put down!