This was a childhood favorite of mine, and I was not disappointed reading it all these years later. This book imagines the life of a real Mayflower passenger, Constance Hopkins, who came to Plymouth as a teenager. I really appreciated the way that she is characterized in this book; the author does not try to pin down her character too much or make her unrealistically consistent, which I feel is a common problem in depicting teenage girls. Constance is at once curious, coquettish, kindly, selfish, playful, and discreet. My favorite scene is after she shares her first kiss on a beach and then promptly moves on to dinner: "I do love turkey!"

The book shies away from sentimental romance and instead explores Constance's education in the pleasures and pitfalls of flirting, as well as delving into the tragedies, triumphs, and anxieties in Plymouth colony. The book is marvelously well researched, and does not oversimplify the colony's heterogeneity (for example, Constance's family are not Pilgrims or Puritans--and they were not coerced into Pilgrim worship). Of course, treatment of the Indian-Pilgrim relations are problematic at times, but I can't expect more given the publication date.

Overall, this book holds up well as historical fiction, and as the bildungsroman of a complex teenage girl.