Tag Archives: historical fiction

Review: Nathan Coulter

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Nathan Coulter was Wendell Berry’s first book, published when he was 27. This is the beginning of his eight novels set in Port William, a fictitious town based on his own Port Royal.

Nathan grows up on a family farm in Port William with his brother Tom, who he usually just calls Brother, and his parents. His father’s parents live next door on the farm that had been passed down through the generations.

Nathan’s mother is sick, so he and his brother are told to stay out of the house in the afternoons so she can rest. They wander all over, getting into various kinds of mischief.

When Nathan’s mother dies, he and Brother go to live with their grandparents. One source said this was so because the father blamed the boys for their mother’s death, but I don’t recall that being the case. One problem with an audiobook is that it’s hard to go back and look up details like this. Another source cited the father’s depression.

Whatever the father’s issues, he was a taciturn man, generally quiet, tending to motivate the boys by taunting them rather than encouraging them. His reason for living was work. He handled everything by working. He was determined to outwork everyone else.

We see events unfold from Nathan’s point of view, though he doesn’t say much. The book mainly describes life on a farm in a small Kentucky community. But the theme seems to be Nathan’s journey to becoming a man. One scene where all the men are working hard to get a tobacco harvest in on time reads with the tension of Ben-Hur’s chariot race as the father challenges Tom, who has never beat him before but is coming closer all the time. The men seem to be in the various stages of manhood: the grandfather lamenting his decline and inability to do what he used to, the father in his prime, the oldest son growing in strength almost to the point of the father.

Unfortunately, Nathan doesn’t have many good examples. His grandfather and father are harsh and distant. His uncle Burley is kind, but has a wild streak.

The version of the book I read ends with the death of Nathan’s grandfather, when Nathan was sixteen, almost like the baton is passing to the next generation. I’ve read that the book originally was longer, telling of Nathan’s growing into adulthood.

I got this audiobook (wonderfully read by Paul Michael) because it’s currently in Audible’s Plus Catalog of free titles for members and because I wanted to read more of Berry. I’ve only read his Jayber Crow until now, which I had mixed emotions about.

I had mixed emotions about this book, too. Berry’s writing is lyrical in places, his characters well-drawn, and with a strong sense of place. None of my relatives were farmers, but many did live in rural settings which Berry’s story reminded me of.

There’s a smattering of bad language. But the most offensive thing in the book is when Tom and Nathan go to a carnival, part of which has a strip-tease act–which, for some reason, boys were allowed into. Berry describes the act in too much detail, and I almost stopped the book there. The only reason I continued was because the act was presented as somewhat sad rather than titillating. If this is a story about becoming a man, unfortunately, men at some point come across this type of thing. Thankfully Nathan felt sorry for the woman and wasn’t attracted by the display. But I think the author could have gotten across his point with much less visual detail.

Also, most of the characters who are religious to any degree are odd.

I got Hannah Coulter at the same time as this book, for the same reason. I was going to review the books together, but I ended up saying more about this book than I planned to. So I’ll wait til next week to talk about Hannah, though I’ll say that I liked her story much, much more. Some of the themes Berry is know for are represented in seed form in Nathan Coulter but come to fruition in Hannah Coulter. Hannah is Berry’s seventh novel. It was written 44 years after Nathan, but its story begins just a few years later.

I started reading Berry because I know so many people who love him. His poem “The Blue Robe” is one of my favorites, along with “They Sit Together on the Porch” and “To Tanya on My Sixtieth Birthday.” I love the way he writes, lyrical and tender in places, with a strong sense of place and relationships. But I disagree with him in some areas. I’m still trying to figure him out.

Are you a Wendell Berry fan? What do you like about him?

Review: Ladies of the Lake

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In Cathy Gohlke’s novel, Ladies of the Lake, Addie MacNeill is orphaned at age twelve. Her older half-brother sells the family home in Prince Edward Island and ships Addie off to a Lakeside Ladies’ Academy in Connecticut.

Some of the older girls pick on Addie for her newness and different ways. But she surprises herself by finding three dear friends: Dot, Susannah, and Ruth. Eventually they dub themselves the “ladies of the lake” and plan to meet together regularly once they’ve graduated.

When Lucy Laude Montgomery publishes Anne of Green Gables, set in Addie’s beloved PEI, Addie writes to her. The two begin a regular correspondence, and Montgomery encourages Addie in her own writing endeavors.

But trouble stirs when Addie and Dot fall in love with the same young man, Stephen. Over time as he favors one over the other, jealousy and deceit escalate between the girls and ruins their friendship.

WWI is brewing, and Ruth lost her brother in the Lusitania bombing, so she’s prejudiced against Germans. Stephen Meyer and his brother, Jonas, are as American as they come. But their parents still have a heavy German accent. Soon the rest of the community joins in persecuting and ostracizing the Meyers.

Addie is called to Halifax to help her sister-in-law through the end of her pregnancy and delivery. While there, the colliding of two ships sparks the Halifax Explosion, which killed and injured thousands and destroyed homes and buildings. Addie lost her brother and his family and was deeply burned and scarred. Believing that Steven had chosen Dot, Addie decides to change her name to Rosaline Murray and make a new start.

Seventeen years later, Rosaline’s daughter, Bernadette, is about to graduate from Lakeside Ladies’ Academy and dearly wants her mother to come. Rosaline is sensitive about traveling outside of Halifax with her scars. But worse than that, she doesn’t want to face Dot, who is now the headmistress of the Academy.

Dot herself has struggled with secrets for seventeen years now. Believing Addie died in the explosion, Dot has no way to make things right. But when Bernadette starts reminding her of Addie, Dot wonders if Addie could possibly be alive. Could she ever face her again?

Rosaline and Dot resist the things they need to do the most: face each other and confess their wrongdoings and apologize. Their inner torment threatens to hurt themselves and those they love.

I enjoyed this story so much. I loved the characters and how the plot unfolded. The correspondence with Montgomery was a fun element. I had never heard of the devastating Halifax explosion. I loved how the author told it from the standpoint of those affected.

I listened to the audiobook which, sadly, did not contain the author’s end notes. I would have loved to learn more about what inspired the author.

Cathy Gohlke has written another winner that I can highly recommend.

Review: Yesterday’s Tides

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Yesterday's Tides novel by Roseanna M. White

Roseanna M. White’s novel, Yesterday’s Tides, has two related story lines taking place in 1914 and 1942 on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

In 1914, Louisa Adair helps her mother and “Grann” run an inn. She’d like to go to teacher’s college, but there isn’t enough money. Plus, she’s needed at home.

Though Louisa has blue eyes, her skin coloring is darker than most people’s. Her mother will not tell her anything about her deceased father except that he was a good man. A few people are prejudiced against her, thinking she must be of mixed race.

When two college-age cousins, one from Maryland and one from England, come to the inn for the summer, Louisa has no idea how her life will change as a result. Louisa has no plans to fall in love: she keeps a polite reserve with the inn’s male guests. But she and Remington Culbreth, from England, find themselves in each other’s company often. Just after they do fall in love, WWI breaks out and Remington is called to service at home. Will their relationship survive not only the war, but the differences in their families and lifestyles?

In 1942, Evie Farrow now runs the inn with her grandmother. One day while taking some baked goods to the neighbors, a loud explosion is heard in the distant waters. While Evie’s Coast Guard friends prepare to investigate and help, Evie heads home to pray. When a badly burned Englishman washes up near the inn, somehow Evie knows not to report him. He says he is military, but he’s not in uniform. What mutterings she hears as he goes in and out of consciousness alert her to the fact that he is an intelligence officer. But what would an English spy be doing in Ocracoke?

When he wakes up, she learns his name is Sterling Bertrand and he is tracking a German operative. But it will take weeks for his wounds to heal. Meanwhile, he wonders just how far he can trust Evie, who seems to have secrets of her own.

I’ve read many dual timeline novels, and usually there are enough differences between the two timelines to keep from getting confused. I had a little harder time with this one, since both stories took place at an inn in Ocracoke and involved a visiting Englishman. I think I would have had an easier time with reading rather than listening. I didn’t catch some of the names that were the same in both timelines, so I kept getting surprised at the connections. I don’t think that would have happened if I were reading instead of listening.

As it happened, partway through the audiobook I discovered that I did have a Kindle copy! So I went back and forth between reading and listening.

One delight with this book was running into some characters from Roseanna’s previous books. I won’t say which ones, as that might give away parts of the plot. You don’t have to have read those books to understand this one, but it was a fun surprise to see those characters again. Evidently Remington was in an earlier book as well, but, though I remember the story and situation, I don’t remember him.

I’m sorry to say I was not thrilled with the audiobook narrator. Some of her accents seemed a little off to me. Plus she had an odd cadence, her inflection going up when it didn’t need to.

There are so many layers to this novel, and so much more to it than there appears to be at first. I loved the stories, and after finishing the book, I just wanted to sit with the characters a bit more before saying goodbye to them and starting another story.

Review: Dreams of Savannah

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In Dreams of Savannah by Roseanna M. White, Cordelia Owens is a pampered Southern belle who loves to dream and write stories. She also loves Phineas Dunn, a lifelong friend newly recruited to the Confederate Navy, and promises to wait for him forever.

When she learns Phineas has been lost at sea, she weaves heroic tales for his mother and sister to help them keep up hope.

When Phineas was shot and fell overboard, he thought he was done for. But somehow he washes up on an island near Cuba. He’s rescued by a person he never imagined existed: an educated free black man from England. He has no way to let his family or his commanding officer know what has happened to him. All he can do is try to get well as fast as possible and get home. But his injuries are severe.

As the weeks drag by, a distant cousin of Cordelia’s comes to Savannah, assigned to the Confederate regiment there. Her parents are impressed by his manners, standing, and wealth. They like Phineas well enough, but his family’s credentials just don’t compare. They put pressure on Cordelia to turn her attention to her cousin. But even if she had not promised Phin she would wait forever, she would not have her cousin. There’s a predatory gleam in his eyes when her parents aren’t around.

When Phineas finally returns, he is still suffering from his injury. Worse, he has fallen in his own estimation. He wanted to be the hero of Cordelia’s stories. He doesn’t feel worthy of her, but he still vies for her hand. Her parents keep pushing her toward her cousin.

Both Cordelia and Phineas are from good families who are known to be kind to their slaves. Phineas’ father was, in fact, planning to free his slaves until doing so became illegal in Georgia.

But different experiences and people begin to change their perspectives. The question now is what to do. Is it enough just to be good to one’s slaves? Could they be mocked, scorned, or even arrested if their views on slavery changed? And how could their views change without changing their actions as well?

At the beginning of this book, Cordelia came across to me as young and somewhat silly (one of her fears for Phineas was that he might be attacked by a giant squid. . . ). I’m not sure how old she was, something hard to go back and find in an audiobook. Also, the Southern belle vibe came across a little too thick, replete with “fiddale-faddle” and “fiddel-dee-dee” (making me wonder for the first time why “fiddle’ was in so many expressions then).

But after I settled into the story, I began to enjoy it more. Cordelia is immature at the beginning. But the circumstances of the story cause her to grow. Even her story-telling matures over time.

It would be hard to write a book of changing viewpoints towards slavery and black people set in the 1861 South without attributing to the characters twenty-first century sensibilities. But Roseanna avoided that and had beliefs change and grow in the context of what was going on at the time.

A couple of my favorite quotes:

She certainly shouldn’t be refused happiness because of your convoluted ideas about your precious blood making her better than her mother . . . Because let me just tell you . . . your blood doesn’t have that power. There’s only one Man’s blood in all of history that can make us better than we are—and your are not Him.

She didn’t need to be a heroine in some fantastic tale of derring-do. That wasn’t what the Lord had given her. No, He’d given her words. Words to live by. Words to create with. Words that maybe, just maybe, could change the world beyond her house as surely as they had changed the one within.

I listened to the audiobook nicely narrated by Sarah Zimmerman.

So far, I have loved every book of Roseanna’s that I have read, including this one.

Review: In This Moment

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In This Moment is the sequel to When the Day Comes by Gabrielle Meyer. Maggie is the youngest daughter of Libby from the first book. Like Libby, Maggie is a time crosser. But because both Maggie’s parents were time crossers, she has three paths instead of two.

One of her timelines is in Washington D.C. in 1861, where she goes by Margaret and is the daughter of a senator. The Civil War has begin, and after hearing of Confederate spies in the area, she keeps alert. She helps Clara Barton nurse wounded soldiers, but incognito, because such work would be frowned upon in society. Maggie wouldn’t care what people thought, but she has to think of her father’s reputation.

When Maggie goes to sleep in 1861, she wakes up in 1941. Her time crossing parents reside in Williamsburg, VA. Maggie is a nurse who joins the Navy along with her sister, Anna. But when they are asked to join a team on a hospital ship in Pearl Harbor, Maggie wrestles with what she knows will happen.

When Maggie goes to sleep in 1941, she wakes up in 2001 in D. C., where she is in medical school training to become a surgeon.

Though it takes Maggie 30 years to get through 10 normal years, no time is lost between her timelines. When she wakes up in one timeline, it’s the next day after the last time she was there.

Like her mother, Maggie will have to choose which timeline she wants to stay in by her twenty-first birthday. Then her body will die in the other two time periods.

Her mother knew all her life which timeline she wanted, though she had to wrestle with the fact that her preference might not be what God wanted. However, Maggie has no clear preference. She loves all of her timelines and her families. She has important work to do in each one. She’s frustrated that God seems silent on the matter.

Maggie has determined not to become romantically involved in any timeline before her twenty-first birthday because she doesn’t want the complication for her decision-making. But an attractive man becomes part of each of her lives.

Since Maggie is involved in medicine in all three lives, it’s hard not to let her twenty-first century medical knowledge impact her work in 1861 and 1941. If she knowingly tries to change history in any timeline, she’ll forfeit her life in that timeline early. She also struggles with the knowledge of what will happen in 1861 and 1941 and the desire to warn people. But no one in any of her timelines knows that disaster is looming in September 2001.

i loved this book just as much as the first one. I wondered how Gabrielle could write another book about time crossers without repeating some of the same scenarios in the first book. But though Maggie and her parents wrestled with some of the same things, their circumstances and challenges were very different.

I liked the fact that the 1861 and 2001 timelines both occurred in Washington, D. C., but with vast differences.

Happily, the audiobook this time included the author’s notes about what circumstances and people were real and which were made up. I always enjoy that information after finishing a historical fiction book.

There were just a couple of small things I disagreed with here—one character saying he had to learn to love himself before others could love him, and another who determines to “follow her heart.”

But overall, I loved this book. I kept looking for ways to sneak in a few minutes listening more than my usual times. There is at least one more book coming in this series, and I am looking forward to it.

Sarah, Plain and Tall

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I saw the film version of Sarah, Plain and Tall with Glenn Close several years ago and loved it. I hadn’t known then that it was based on a children’s book by Patricia MacLachlan. I just recently read the Kindle version.

The story opens with Anna, her younger brother Caleb, and their widowed father living on the prairie in the late 19th century. Written from Anna’s point of view, she notes that her parents used to sing all the time, but her Papa never does any more.

Papa tells the children he has placed an advertisement for a wife and received a reply from Sarah, a woman in Maine. She lives with her brother, but he is getting married. She’s concerned she will miss the sea, but she’s willing to come out by train to the prairie and meet the family.

Sarah exchanges letters with papa, Anna, and Caleb until she arrives. Sarah is different and does unusual things. They all like each other, but the children are afraid Sarah misses the sea too much to stay.

This was a lovely story written in a simple yet beautiful style.

A few of my favorite quotes:

Outside, the prairie reached out and touched the places where the sky came down.

My brother William is a fisherman, and he tells me that when he is in the middle of a fog-bound sea the water is a color for which there is no name.

There is no sea here. But the land rolls a little like the sea.

I shook my head, turning the white stone over and over in my hand. I wished everything was as perfect as the stone. I wished that Papa and Caleb and I were perfect for Sarah. I wished we had a sea of our own.

This book won a Newberry Medal, and the Kindle version I read included the author’s speech upon receiving it. She said the story was based on a real Sarah from Maine who had traveled to the prairie to become the wife and mother of a friend of the author’s mother. This speech contained a couple more favorite quotes:

Every writer should have a loving reader who has the courage to write both “I love this” and “Ugh” on the same page.

When Julius Lester praises children’s literature as the “literature that gives full attention to the ordinary,” he echoes my parents’ belief that it is the daily grace and dignity with which we survive that children most need and wish to know about in books.

My parents believed in the truths of literature, and it was my mother who urged me to “read a book and find out who you are,” for there are those of us who read or write to slip happily into the characters of those we’d like to be. It is, I believe, our way of getting to know the good and bad of us, rehearsing to be more humane, “revising our lives in our books,” as John Gardner wrote, “so that we won’t have to make the same mistakes again.”

I knew there was one sequel to the book, Skylark. But I hadn’t known there were three more. The Kindle version contains the first chapter of each of the books. Someday I hope to read the rest.

I wanted to rewatch the videos of both Sarah, Plain and Tall and Skylark, but they don’t appear to be available to stream from anywhere. I might see if the library has the DVDs.

Have you read or watched Sarah, Plain and Tall? What did you think?

Review: When the Day Comes

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When the Day Comes by Gabrielle Meyer has an intriguing and unique premise for a novel.

Libby Conant is a time crosser. She lives in 1774 Williamsburg with her widowed mother and two sisters. She and her mother took over the printing of the Virginia Gazette after her father died, but they are barely making ends meet. Creditors threaten prison. Then the Conants are awarded the public printing contract from the House of Burgesses. They print Thomas Jefferson’s pamphlets as well as public notices. The Revolutionary War is about to break out, and tensions run high between rebels and loyalists.

Libby has loved Henry Montgomery since they were both children. She thinks he has feelings for her as well, but they move in different social circles. Plus he has secrets of his own. Whose side is he really on?

When Libby goes to sleep in Williamsburg, she wakes up as Anna Elisabeth Wells, only daughter to a prominent, wealthy family in 1914 New York. Her father’s fortune was self-made, which is not enough for her mother’s ambition for rank which values “old money.” Her mother has paraded Libby around for two seasons in New York, and now they are going to London to see what the titled male population is like there.

Libby does not want to marry, at least not before her twenty-first birthday. She enjoys working with the suffragette movement, which her mother disdains. Mother Wells is one of the most manipulative women ever and overrides Libby’s wishes and protests in her pursuit of the right suitor.

War is looming on this timeline as well, though no one knows it yet. Libby only knows because her mother in 1774 was a time crosser as well who lived in the twenty-first century.

When Libby goes to sleep in New York, she wakes up in Williamsburg again, with no loss of time in either place. Thus has it been since she was born and thus it will be until she turns twenty-one. Then she will have to choose which path she wants to live in permanently. Her body will die in the path she does not choose, but she will retain her memories of that time. If she tries to knowingly alter history in either path, she’ll forfeit her life in that path.

Libby is sure which path she will choose. She likes the conveniences of the Gilded Age in 1914, but she’s not interested in status and wealth. She’s needed in 1774 to help her family and the cause of freedom. And even if her love for Henry can never come to fruition, she wants to be where he is.

But unexpected circumstances may force her into a different choice.

This book came out last year, and I kept seeing it favorably mentioned among bloggers I follow. I still wasn’t quite sure I’d be interested, but I decided to give the audiobook a try. And . . . wow. This book was fascinating. The characters are well-drawn. It was fun seeing a few historical figures in the story. The plot kept a good pace, even with the intricacies of two timelines. I loved the eventual emphasis on the need to trust God rather than strive after our own way. I didn’t see the ending coming at all, but it was supremely satisfying.

As usual, the audiobook did not contain the author’s notes. I was curious about how she got and developed the idea for this book and found an interview with her about it here.

I enjoyed this book so much, I immediately started the sequel, In this Moment. Highly recommended.

The Shenandoah Road

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In The Shenandoah Road: A Novel of the Great Awakening by Lynne Basham Tagawa, John Russell is a widower in need of a wife to mother his four-year-old daughter. Leaving his daughter in his sister’s care, John travels back to Boston, where his father lives, to do some trading and hopefully find a wife as well.

Abigail Williams is the daughter of a Boston merchant. Her father approaches her with a proposition. His bookkeeper’s son is looking for a woman to marry and accompany back to a settlement in Shenandoah. The two men are coming to dinner tonight. Would she think about the possibility?

The settlement in Shenandoah is smaller and much rougher than what Abigail is used to. But John Russell seems to be a kind man. She decides to marry him and go.

Abigail has dutifully kept the commandments all her life. But when John shares with her part of a sermon by George Whitfield, her heart is troubled. Is keeping the commandments not enough? How can she be sure she’s right with God?

As the Russells travel the long road back to the settlement by the Shenandoah River, they face dangers in roving buffalo, Indians, and a dangerous ruffian. Abigail wonders how she will adjust to life when she gets to John’s home. She feels her lack of knowledge about everyday housewifery. She wonders if John’s daughter will accept her. But most of all, she struggles to understand the words from Whitfield and the Bible that her husband shares with her.

I don’t know that I have ever read a novel from this time period, though I was familiar with Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards and such. It seems like every believer would have been thankful for the “Great Awakening.” But just like in our times, people had different opinions about the various proponents and points of doctrine. It was interesting to see some of that discussed.

I enjoyed the historical aspects of daily life, as well. Abigail loved botany, especially the medicine use of plants. It’s unfortunate that we’ve gotten away from such knowledge today.

I enjoyed getting to know John and Abigail as hey got to know and appreciate each other.

Still, I wasn’t swept into the story and characters as often happens with fiction. I can’t quite put my finger on why. But even though I wasn’t spellbound, the book is still a good one.

Circle of Spies

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Circle of Spies is the third of Roseanna M. White’s Culper Spy Ring, a real life spy ring active during the Revolutionary War (Ring of Secrets was the first and Whispers from the Shadows was second). Although we don’t know that the ring continued, Roseanna said in the last book that someone in the CIA said it was possible. So Roseanna imagined how the spy ring could have worked during the War of 1812 in the second book, and now in the Civil War.

Marietta Hughes is an unlikely heroine at first. She has lived mostly for her own will and pleasure, not walking with the God of her parents. She married Lucien Hughes, wealthy president of a railroad company. But Lucien had been killed. Marietta had an understanding with his brother, Devereaux, that they would marry as soon as was proper after her period of mourning.

But then Marietta’s grandfather, Thaddeus Lane, informs her that the Hughes family is not staunchly Unionist, as they proclaim. Not only are they Confederate, but Devereaux is the head of a secret fifth column bent on killing Lincoln and seizing power.

As if that wasn’t enough to turn Marietta’s world upside down, Lane tells her that their family has been involved as a ring of spies since the Revolutionary War. Then he tells her that a Pinkerton man, Slade Osborne, is on his way to infiltrate the secret society to try to find proof that will lead to their arrests. Marietta’s job is to distract Devereaux as much as possible to facilitate Osborne’s investigation.

Thus begins a game of cat-and-mouse. Osborne is not altogether certain he can trust Marietta at first. Marietta is revolted at what she has learned about the Hughes family, but must keep pretending she is in love with Devereaux.

I ached with Marietta as she came to face what she had become and wondered if God could forgive her. Sometimes the realization of the magnitude of one’s sin breaks open to them more fully after they believe. Osborne, too, has a broken background, as well as complications from a twin brother whose values were the opposite of his.

By the end of this book, I wanted to put everything else aside to keep reading what happened. There were some quite exciting twists and turns!

I did disagree with one point, though, when a character says that God doesn’t speak for or against slavery. He does: I wrote once about the Bible and Slavery. But I did like what the character had to say about trying to reconcile the views of different Christians on the issue: “At last we realized we didn’t have to, because God so very rarely tells us what society should do—rather, He tells us how we, as believers, should behave in whatever society to which we belong” (p. 226).

In-between this book and the previous one was a little novella titled A Hero’s Promise. Julienne Lane has been helping a friend, Freeda, hide runaway slaves and get them to safety. Julienne is unsure whether to let her fiance, Jack Arnaud, in on the situation.

Meanwhile, Jack has postponed their wedding twice already but might have to do so again. A mentally unbalanced man is being set up by enemies to assassinate President Jackson, and the Culpers must intervene.

The assassination attempt was based on a true event.

I enjoyed these forays in early American history and spycraft. But even more, I enjoyed the journeys of faith Roseanna takes her characters through.

Whispers from the Shadows

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Whispers from the Shadows is the second novel in Roseanna M. White’s Culper Spy Ring series.

The story opens some 35 years after the Revolutionary War. England and the United States are once again battling each other, this time in the War of 1812.

So Gwyneth Fairchild can’t understand why her father is sending her away from England to America, to his old friends, the Lanes. How can crossing a sea filled with pirates and combatants be safer than England?

But her father is insistent. As they’ve said their good-byes, Gwyneth turns to the carriage and her guardians. But she runs back to ask her father one last thing—only to witness his murder. His last whisper as he sees her is, “Run.”

So Gwyneth runs. On the two-month long voyage, she can’t sleep more than two hours at a time. Seasickness, insomnia, and sorrow reduce her health and well-being to frightening levels. For some reason, she does not tell her guardians what happened.

When their vessel is overtaken by American privateers, they are delivered to Thaddeus Lane in Baltimore, the son of Winter and Bennet. Thankfully Thad’s parents are there when Gwyneth arrives.

Gwyneth slowly recovers from her ordeal, but still tells no one what happened to her father. Everyone suspects that her state is due to more than severe seasickness. Gwyneth takes refuge in drawing, and somehow Thad discerns that she has faced some kind of severe trauma.

On the surface, Thad is a merchant who knows almost everyone in Baltimore. Secretly, he’s a key member of the revived Culper Ring.

As Gwyneth and Thad discover each other’s secrets, the British invasion increases. In the midst of it all, Gwyneth can’t help but wonder if her father’s murderer will come after her, too.

I loved this book on so many levels. It was fun that Winter and Bennet from the first book were such a big part of this one as well. I enjoyed Gwyneth and Thad, their personalities and journey and especially Gwyneth’s growth. I loved Thad’s kind but non-nonsense cook, Rosie, who was a niece of Freeman from the first book.

There was also so much edge-of-your-seat intrigue.

I don’t know if I have ever read another book set during the War of 1812. So many write WWII novels, which is fine—I loved Roseanna’s books set then. But it’s nice to learn about other eras as well.

Wikipedia only details the Culper Ring activity through the Revolutionary War. Roseanna shared in her afterword of the first book that a CIA member said in an interview that “The Culper Ring may or may not still exist.” It’s fun it imagine that they continued on behind the scenes for so many years.

The next novel is set during the Civil War, and one more novella comes before. I am looking forward to them.