An Unusual Dive

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I wanted to like When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky. As historical fiction the premise is incredibly unique-a young Indian woman who horse dives for a zoo in Nashville, where things start going haywire after Two Feathers has an accident. In addition to a unique premise, it has several other unique characters beyond Two Feathers; Crawford, a Black man from a wealthy, land owning family who prefers manual labor, Clive, an animal savant still dealing with PTSD from the Great War, the juggling Montgomery sisters, Jack Older, a white man who thinks he’s an Indian, and Little Elk, definitely an Indian, but a dead one. The story, as fascinating as it could be, tends to get bogged down with too many different intertwined storylines, many of which have their basis in real events that happened. And while it’s really quite amazing that many of these things DID happen, less would have been more to keep the plot cohesive and the reader engaged. While there technically is a conflict resolution at the end of the book it somehow feels very open-ended and incomplete. I don’t know if the author intends a follow-up, but it was hard for me to feel satisfied with the ending of this book.