It’s 1850, and Juanita, proud daughter of a family of Californios (Hispanic settlers), flees the Monterey rancho previously owned by generations of Castros. Deciding she can no longer act as manager for her former lover, the yanqui who bought her late parents’ holdings, she heads on horseback toward her married sister’s home. Juanita’s goal: locate her teenage son, Joaquin, who she’d sent away before his resemblance to his Irish father became obvious to his father’s wife.
Her sister and brother-in-law are troubled. With the recent US invasion of California, they need to prove ownership of their land. They think she’s crazy for seeking Joaquin in the goldfields, so after translating some legal documents, Juanita steals her sister’s old dresses and silverware to sell and travels through a multicultural land whose future feels unsettled. “We were no longer Mexico, nor Spain,” she cogently explains later, “and that, in itself, was a terrifying mystery.”
Juanita’s inner strength seems designed for adventure, something this impeccably paced novel offers in plenty. From driving a mule train into the muddy chaos of mining towns to running a Sonoma boardinghouse, through mishaps and terrible danger, Juanita picks herself up again and again while accumulating a motley assortment of friends, including a would-be high-society San Francisco madam.
Every time Juanita visits the city, the changes are dramatic. Will she find Joaquin? Will she ever pay her sister back? While Juanita sometimes gets derailed, she never forgets her objectives. Full of color and incident, this on-the-ground view of early California through a brave woman’s eyes is a thoroughly entertaining trip.
Unfamiliar Territory was published in 2025 by the author’s own imprint, mks publishing, and I reviewed it initially for the Historical Novel Society. While it’s described as a sequel to In This Land of Plenty (2020), it reads fine on its own. I haven’t yet read the first book, which is a multigenerational novel opening in 2018 and focusing on a modern woman learning about her ancestry, after which a saga about California’s history unfolds. I plan on getting myself a copy. Juanita is listed on the family tree of that novel’s opening pages. The author, Mary Smathers, is a California native and bilingual writer who has also written children’s picture books in English and Spanish. I enjoyed reading her profile in Canvas Rebel, speaking about her background, perspectives on writing about historic California, and approach to writing and publishing. She also has a launch interview with the Historical Novel Society that posted today.
For readers in search of other recent novels about the courageous, independent women who populated the landscapes of the American and Canadian West, I recommend scanning through the website of Women Writing the West, which also offers an annual WILLA Literary Award in the historical fiction category. Indie-published and small press novels are well represented here, as they are in the winners and finalists of the Spur Awards from Western Writers of America.
