Joara

Joara transports the reader back to the early exploration of what is now known as North Carolina. Led by Captain Juan Pardo in 1566, the Spanish expedition of 125 soldiers finds new land and wealth, mingles with local tribes and finds itself in a battle of culture and expectations. Joara is the sequel to the novel Belmonte, wherein three young Portuguese men and an older Spanish Gypsy avenge a murder and escape the Iberian Inquisition by joining Juan Pardo's expedition to the New World. Blending recorded history with fiction, the action takes place in the Catawba town of Joara where Captain Pardo has built his principle of five regional forts. In Joara and the surrounding mountains, the four outsiders find adventure and romance. Their old world beliefs blend with those of the Native Americans they meet, transforming them into new men and survivors in the New World.

A Diamond in the Rough. It's not unusual to find outcasts in the center of stories about early North American exploration; that's part of our collective mythology. But I've never read outcasts like these-- Two Portuguese Jewish boys, a Gypsy from Seville and a North African Jewish/Arab--who are fleeing persecution from the Spanish Inquisition, not for what they believe, but for who they are. This gives the author the chance to explore the new world on terms that belong more to the Catawba and the Cherokee civilizations than to the old world. This is a story based on the real but little known history of Spanish exploration in the Southeast; a story that's not been widely told. It's a great read.

Joara is a fiction book; however, it is chocked full of history. The author's story timeline is impeccable, and his knowledge of the way of life during this period is astounding.

Bradley creates his picture of life in the New World by using captivating characters and vivid descriptions of the land, rivers, traditions, and people. The main characters leave their families behind as they flee the Great Inquisition. he reader follows their raw, tragic, and romantic stories as they survive the savage, yet beautiful new world.

The book in engaging and the story unforgettable highly recommend John Bradley, Joara, Tale of the New World.

John Harris Bradley is an American author of historical fiction residing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. With residence and extensive travel in Iberia and South America and long-term study of Native American heritage in North Carolina, Bradley puts this to use in a two-part series beginning in Belmonte, Portugal in 1565 and ending in the destruction of the Spanish Fort of San Juan in the Catawba village of Joara in 1568. This was Spain's first and only attempt to colonize the Mid-Atlantic area of North America.

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