November 1587. A report reaches London that Sir Walter Raleigh’s expedition, which left England months before to land the first English settlers in America, has foundered. On Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, a tragedy is unfolding. Something has gone very wrong, and the colony—115 men, women, and children, among them the first English child born in the New World, Virginia Dare—is … Dare—is in trouble. But there will be no rescue. Before help can reach them, all will vanish with barely a trace.
The Lost Colony is America’s oldest unsolved mystery. In this remarkable example of historical detective work, Lee Miller goes back to the original evidence and offers a fresh solution to the enduring legend. She establishes beyond doubt that the tragedy of the Lost Colony did not begin on the shores of Roanoke but within the walls of Westminster, in the inner circle of Queen Elizabeth’s government. As Miller detects, powerful men had reason to want Raleigh’s mission to fail. Furthermore, Miller shows what must have become of the settlers, left to face a hostile world that was itself suffering the upheavals of an alien invasion. Narrating a thrilling tale of court intrigue, spy rings, treachery, sabotage, Native American politics, and colonial power, Miller has finally shed light on a four-hundred-year-old unsolved mystery.
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Writer rambled without much reason for it… presumably to fill space. I didn’t finish the book because it was tedious.
Interesting, imaginative story of what might have happened to the Lost Colonists; their journey, settlement and abandonment in the New World.
Opposed to past books on the subject which typically left the reader hanging on a series of possibilities for the English colonists on Roanoke island, this book intelligently and convincingly provided insight into the ‘why’ behind the fate of the Lost Colony. A good read for the historically inclined or mystery reader.
So you think you know about the lost colony at Roanoke? This book will give you a new perspective on the tragedy.
This was a textbook discussion about the Lost Colonists. As such, it was long. It didn’t read like a story, because of the extensive scholarly nature. Still, I could not put it away.
Ended up being just way too much detail to plow through. I didn’t finish it.
Have been fascinated by the Roanoke settlement since college. Interesting idea of early mixing with different cultures. Enjoyed the strong female characters. Look forward to reading Jamestown.
Roanoke and its mysteries is a fascinating topic. Author seems to have really researched it and it reads almost looks like a police case.
Makes reasonable deductions about what happened to these settlers and raises the possibility that they passed on their genes and language to the Mandan Native Americans (some of whom had red hair, blue eyes, and made glass).
Very insightful book. The alternative theories about the fate of the Lost Colonists are thought provoking. However, the novel can be redundant and wordy- could have been more concise.
A history mystery solved, great book!
Interesting story, and the mystery and drama of it are well set up. This book has good-hearted intentions to highly entertain while informing us. However … wordiness (chatty style), repetitiveness and bad grammar (WAY too many incomplete sentences, used to litttle effect) hamper the effort, and, frankly, annoy.
I read half this book and had to give up. A fascinating piece of history but I think the author ran into trouble when she decided to use a mystery format. There was so much hopping about from here to there I lost track of the thread. A lot of intrigue. I learned some things though.