Search - Seventh Son (Alvin Maker, Bk 1)

It was an imaginative alternative history of the early states. I liked the integration of magic, the alternate place names, and the concepts presented.

Using the lore and folk magic of the men and women who helped settle a continent and the beliefs of the tribes who were here before them. Orson Scott Card has created an alternate frontier America where folk magic works, and has colored the entire history of the colonies. It is into this world, amid the deep wood where the Red Man still holds sway, that a very special child is born...

From Publishers Weekly
From the award-winning Ender's Game on, each of Card's last three novels has featured a secular saint, less a character than a catalyst to galvanize those around him into reexamining the thorny moral tangles in which they live. This first volume of the Tales of Alvin Maker introduces young Alvin Miller Jr., the seventh son of a seventh son, who lives on the frontier of an alternate early 19th century America, where folk magic such as faith healing and second sight really works. While Alvin embarks on his mythic struggle against the Unmaker of all things, he is watched over by a flesh and blood guardian angel; he is pursued by the rigid, zealous Reverend Thrower; and he is guided by the wandering Taleswapper, William Blake. This beguiling book recalls Robert Penn Warren in its robust but reflective blend of folktale, history, parable and personal testimony, pioneer narrative. The series promises to be (in Warren's phrase) a "story of deep delight."