Review: When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky

When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky by Margaret Verble
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

Horse diving was risky business. That's why people liked it so much. 

When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky, pulled me in with the synopsis about a young woman Cherokee horse diver who worked at Glendale Park Zoo in Tennessee. While Two is the most centered character, the story was really about all the humans, animals, and other occupants of the Tennessee land. The beginning provides a summary of the land from prerecorded history to 1926, where the story stops to focus. 

This was a mish mash of historical fiction, mystery, and magical realism; I think the historical fictions aspects were the best parts. The author uses real historical places (Glendale Park Zoo) alongside fictitious people, but who are clearly based on real people. The first half had me struggling at some points because of the amount of characters and how we get a focus, background and following along with the issues in their lives in this moment of time, on them. I really enjoyed the character of Two, she admits that Two Feathers is a stage name, her real name is Nancy but that isn't colorful enough for the shows. She grew-up on a ranch in Oklahoma and always wanted to be a star, she's been riding horses since she was three and loves horse diving with her horse Ocher. She's a character that instantly grabs your attention and you want to spend time with her and that is where my struggling with the first half came in as the focus shifted to other characters too much. 

Along with Two at the Park Zoo, she lives in a dormitory run by a woman named Helen and also houses two plate spinning sisters Marty and Franny, Crawford who takes care of Ocher and the stables, Clive who oversees all the animals, new-hire Jack, and Park owner Mr. Shackleford. All of these characters have their own backgrounds and issues that get focuses, Franny starting to drop plates, Crawford romancing a girl named Bonita, Clive dealing with PTSD from WWI and starting to see ghosts, and Mr. Shackleford trying to hold it all together. The first half ends up feeling too scattered and divided, the second-half does bring and thread them together more but it does make for an undertaking beginning. 

The horse diving wasn't as much a focus as I would have liked, we do get a good descriptive scene of it but at 25% a horrific moment happens (there are multiple animal deaths in this) and the mystery starts to come in, along with the magical realism and supernatural elements. The mystery is more for the characters as the reader knows who is behind everything and why. It involves Two getting secret admirer letters from someone calling themselves “Strong-Red-Wolf”, she knows right away that the person isn't a real Native American by the way the letter is written, and the mysterious letter writer ties-in with the Park Zoo animal deaths. The supernatural elements have Clive starting to see ghosts after he recuses Two and a ghost, Little Elk, who starts to become a protector of Two. 

While the story did go off on other character tangents that did give the story a disjointed feel at times, they, mostly, found a way to come back to Two. If you go into this with more of the mindset of reading about a snapshot in time about that particular land's current occupants, you'd enjoy it more. This 1920s snapshot had the author infusing and weaving evolution debate, racism, segregation, shell shock, and the horrific impact of Manifest Destiny on Native Americans. I'm not so sure the ghosts aspects worked but, like I said, if looking for historical fiction elements, this had a good feel for the times in 1920s Tennessee.

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