Jamestown, Angela Elwell Hunt's exciting follow-up to Roanoke: The Lost Colony (the first book in "Keepers of the Ring"), picks up immediately after the tragic ending of Roanoke as the survivors meet up with the first Jamestown colonists in 1607. The fate of the Roanoke colonists in Hunt's story is true to what most historians believe actually happened to them, and according to Chief Powhatan's words to John Smith: that Powhatan had attacked and killed the Roanoke colonists shortly before the Jamestown ships arrived.

As the second part in a five-part series, Jamestown (unlike later books in the series) begins with immediate reference back to the ending events of the previous book, which left the reader hanging. What will happen to the colonists about to be attacked, and what will happen to the three children on that small canoe? The earliest pages of this book answer those questions, and soon the three (Fallon, Noshi, and Gilda) are split apart by events beyond their control. The rest of the book continues the separate adventures of Fallon and Gilda, with Noshi appearing only as a minor character.

Thirteen-year-old Fallon soon meets Captain John Smith, and shortly thereafter travels to England, where he spends the next several years at a boarding school for orphan boys. Over the years, he meets new friends and later becomes the school headmaster. Yet he still feels the call of his charge, given to him years ago, to watch over the two younger children and is determined somehow to return to Jamestown and find them. Finally, he is given the opportunity to take a group of his students to Virginia, where they will work as indentured servants on the prosperous tobacco plantations, with the promise of their own land after seven years of service.

Meanwhile, young Gilda (not yet four years old) is taken in by the Powhatan tribe and grows up as a younger sister to Pocahontas. Like the true accounts of other young children of the colonial period that were captured by Indians and brought up by them, Gilda quickly forgets the English language, takes a new Indian name, and eagerly adopts the Powhatan ways. A vague, recurring dream is her only memory of the events before her life among the Powhatan. Only through association with Pocahontas (later Rebecca Rolfe), and then very reluctantly, does Gilda meet the English and learn their ways. While Pocahontas struggles to learn an unfamiliar language, Gilda (as would be expected of one who had learned English during her formative years), with little effort quickly learns the language again. Yet also characteristic of actual captured children, such as Eunice Williams of the early 18^th century, Gilda obstinately refuses the English culture, preferring the Indian life.

Through the story of Fallon and Gilda emerges the interesting history of Jamestown and its people, among them John Smith, Pocahontas, and John Rolfe. Through Fallon's eyes the reader experiences the wonder of the English as they read John Smith's account of his explorations of the New World. Through the young adult Fallon, we discover the horrors of seventeenth century shipping, when colonists were crammed into overloaded, disease-ridden ships, as well as the consummate greed of tobacco planters and the cruelties of indentured servitude at the planters' hands. Following the unsanitary shipping conditions and the frequent arrival of more and more English, it is no surprise when, later on in the story and in historical fact, Indians start dropping like flies in smallpox epidemics.

Other interesting historical figures include Opechancanough (Chief Powhatan's more-wicked brother), who actively opposes the English and finally starts the Powhatan war with his attack on the colonists on Good Friday, 1622. The book's end includes great detail about that event, along with an afterward by the author about the continued wars in Virginia during the next several years.

As is commonly known, much of Jamestown history is uncertain today, given John Smith's likely tendency to exaggerate, and historians doubt that the incident of Pocahontas rescuing John Smith actually took place. While popular legend portrays Pocahontas as a teenager, she was probably as young as age 9 or 10 at the time. For the purposes of this novel, Pocahontas is twelve years old when we first meet her (and does rescue John Smith): too young to be a romantic interest for John Smith but old enough to serve as a sister-parent to young Gilda.