With the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America fast approaching, a small flood of novels set in the early days of colonization and statehood seems likely. Anneke Jans in the New World (She Writes Press, 2026) stands out because, rather than focus on the Puritans or the revolution and the founding of the nation, it explores the life of the author’s ancestor, who joined the fledgling Dutch colony known as Fort Amsterdam between 1630 and 1663. This is New York City as you can’t imagine it, an outpost on the mighty Hudson, surrounded by forest and mountains, with not a skyscraper or even a paved street to be seen.

Anneke crosses the ocean with her husband, Roelof Jans, under the auspices of the Dutch West India Company, which in the seventeenth century was expanding across the globe. Roelof, a former sailor, sees the opportunity to settle down as a landowner in the New World, and Anneke joins him at the urging of her mother—who both wants to see her daughter settled and establish a beachhead for herself as a future midwife to the new colony. Eventually, the whole family emigrates, and the novel follows Anneke through numerous personal upheavals and joys amid the gradual disintegration of Fort Amsterdam’s relationship with the Native American nations surrounding the fort.

This is classic historical fiction in its focus on one central character and the many evolving relationships that define her life. It works because Anneke herself is such a well-thought-out and appealing person, and that—as well as the richly portrayed and, to me, relatively unfamiliar world that surrounds her—kept me turning pages as fast as I could.

After a long career in academe, an interest in genealogy led Sandra Freels, a specialist in Russian language and literature, to the Council Records of New Netherland and the delicious stories of the people who once lived there. She claims descent from Anneke Jans and sixteen other major and minor characters in her debut novel, Anneke Jans in the New World. 

C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest book, Song of the Steadfast, appeared in 2025.

Sandra's website here.

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