HARLEQUIN (Grail Quest 1) (audiobook) by Bernard Cornwell

Originally published in 2000.

Performed by Andrew Cullum.

Duration: 14 hours, 49 minutes.

Unabridged.

Also published under the alternate title "The Archer's Tale"

Harlequin is the tale of Thomas of Hookton during the early years of the Hundred Years' War. Hookton was a tiny English fishing village that was destroyed by French raiders from a ship. The raiders burn and loot the village, kidnap as many women they can, burn the village, and steal a religious relic - the famed lance that St. George used to kill the dragon.

Thomas heads off to join up as an English archer so he can get his revenge on the French noblemen that destroyed his hometown and get St. George's lance back. The bulk of the book is about his adventures in France in a series of battles in the Hundred Years' War serving as a harlequin.  A harlequin was the French term for an English long bow archer.

The battle scenes in this book are unbelievably well-told and Andrew Cullum's performance as the reader is fantastic - one of the best performances I have ever heard and this is my 799th audiobook review. 

But, I found the stuff in between the battles to be quite tedious. Normally, I am cool with all of the medieval rules and the posturing - but this was simply too much. This leaves me in the weird situation of praising a book, giving it a positive score (4 out of 5 stars) and choosing not to move on with the rest of the series.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Harlequin by Bernard Cornwell.

MY NAME IS SALLY LITTLE SONG (audiobook) by Brenda Woods

 

Book edition originally published in 2006.
Audiobook published in 2019 by Listening Library.
Read by Asmeret Ghebremichael.
Duration: 3 hours, 0 minutes.
Unabridged.

Synopsis:

This short piece of historical fiction focuses on a slave family in Georgia in the 1790s. The main character is Sally. She has a brother, a mother and a father. The one thing that this family has going for them is that their owners have a policy of not breaking apart families.

That is the policy until relatives of the owners find themselves struggling financially. In a couple of days, Sally and her brother and 3 other slaves are going to be sent to the other plantation to help it get back on its feet again. 

The family decides to run away together rather than be split apart.

After some discussion with a friendly house slave who has done some traveling with the family, they decide not to head north. They haven't seen a map but they know that the trip across northern Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Maryland to get to Pennsylvania is just too far.

However, rumor has it that if they can make it to Florida (at the time, Florida was owned by Spain), they would be welcome to live with the Seminoles...

My Review:

The author, Brenda Woods

This short book would be an excellent addition to any history classroom or school library. It has compelling characters, provides details but does not wallow in them, and is very honest about early American history from the point of view of slaves and Native Americans. 

There are a variety of characters and they don't all hit the stereotypes. For example, not all of the slaves are sympathetic characters. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: MY NAME IS SALLY LITTLE SONG by Brenda Woods.

Note: I reviewed this book because I read about it an article about Florida book bans in schools. I checked it out and this teacher doesn't find anything objectionable about this book. Here is a link to another article with a list of 176 books that were banned by a Florida county. 

RIOT (audiobook) by Walter Dean Myers

 

Published in 2009 by Listening Library.
Performed by multiple actors.
Duration: 2 hours, 36 minutes.
Unabridged.

July of 1863 was the height of the American Civil War. The month contained the Battle of Gettysburg, the end of the long siege of Vicksburg, and the battle at Battery Wagner where the 54th Massachusetts demonstrated that African American soldiers would be an effective and important addition to the Union Army.

It also featured one of the worst riots in American history - the New York City Draft Riot.

The riot was ostensibly a violent reaction to the imposition of a draft to fulfill state military quotas, but it was more than that and this short audiobook does a very good job of looking at those reasons.

The draft was unpopular for more than just the fact that the men who were drafted did not want to join the army. Rich people could afford to pay $300 to avoid military service if they were drafted. It took most workers more than 6 months or more to earn this sort of money. This encouraged that common refrain that happens in many wars - It was a rich man's war but a poor man's fight.

About 25% of New York City was made up of immigrants from Ireland. Those immigrants were at the bottom of the social and economic heap, but they were afraid that newly freed slaves would work their way to New York City and be willing to work for less, meaning that their wages would have to drop just to compete. 

Those factors combined to make this riot an ugly mix of economic, racial and anti-governmental violence that lasted for 4 days until Union troops arrived fresh from the Battle of Gettysburg to help New York State Militia restore order with gunfire.

This audiobook reads like a television script, including directions for camera cuts and the like. The actors who read the audiobook read it like an old-fashioned radio play. A narrator read the direction for the cameras and introduced the characters as they came into the drama.

This drama explores the complicated reasons for the riots and gives the listener a surprisingly nuanced view of the riots. This is especially noteworthy considering that the drama is so short.

The last half hour or so of the audiobook is a podcast-type discussion of the drama and the riots between the author and a history professor. This was especially well-done. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: RIOT by Walter Dean Myers.

WHEN WE'RE HOME in AFRICA (audiobook) by Themba Umbalisi

Published in 2021 by Next Chapter Audio LTD.
Read by Crawford B. Bunkley III.
Duration: 4 hours, 34 minutes.
Unabridged.

I have no idea where I found this book. I think it was a freebie on Audible through Amazon's Prime Reading program. I know that I got it because I am a big reader of Civil War histories and fiction and this sounded like it was right up my alley.

Synopsis:

The description of this book is accurate, to a point. It is about a freed slave who joins the Union Army and then goes from job to job and place to place with a goal of settling in Africa.

My Review:

This book is basically a Forrest Gump type of story - one man goes on an epic journey and ends up going through a lot of the historical movements of the era.

Warning: Lots of *********SPOILERS********all the way to the end of this review.

This audiobook comes in at almost exactly 50% of the run time for FORREST GUMP and covers maybe even more territory. Our hero (his name changes multiple times) begins as a slave in Georgia who is freed by the Union Army. He goes on to:

1. Join the Union Army as an infantry soldier.

2. Participate in the Battle of the Crater.
3. Muster out of the Army.
4. Meet a woman and live with her for a while.
5. Join the Cavalry.

U.S. Army "Buffalo Soldiers"

6. Serve on Indian patrol as a Buffalo Soldier. Fight a number of battles.
7. Serve on the U.S./Mexican border as a Buffalo soldier. Fight a number of battles.

8. Go on trial as a horse thief simply for doing his job.
9. Almost get lynched.
10. Flee into the wilderness to escape the lynching mob.
11. Meet another woman and live with her for a while.

12. Eventually arrive in San Francisco.

13. Get shanghaied onto a ship.

14. Go around the tip of South America to the Atlantic Ocean.

15. Get involved in a mutiny somewhere near the Falkland Islands.

16. Escape the ship with a friend on a little boat with a sail just before the mutineers turn on each other.

17. Sail/Row the boat around the tip of Africa and land on the Indian Ocean side of South Africa.

18. Meet native Africans.
19. Join the British Army in South Africa as a scout. Fight a number of battles.

20. Leave the British Army and join the Zulus.
21. Get married.
22. Become the royal firearms specialist for the Zulu.
23. Watch the Zulu loose to the British and flee to the mountains.
24. Find a group of refugees.

25. Become king of these refugees and make a people out of them.
26. Start a family.

Those are 26 big steps in a 4 hour and 34 minute audiobook. This could have been epic if it were slowed down and each of these steps were explored. I actually skipped things (lots of women end up sleeping with this man) and there were actually steps that were explored in detail, which means that the others got even more of the short shrift treatment.

For example, the women always end up being a side story and the hike from Texas to San Francisco is an epic trip going through multiple Indian territories and crossing the Rocky Mountains and it gets just a few minutes.

This book is really more of a serious treatment of a book series rather than a single book. It is too busy and not filled in with enough detail to make a story. It could have been a decent series.

About the narration. Crawford B. Bunkley III has a great voice, but he read this book too fast. Commas are ignored. Periods are ignored. Just this wonderful voice pushing forward as fast it can while reading a story that just wants to push on as fast as it can.

The only reason that I am giving it 2 stars is because I actually finished it.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: WHEN WE'RE HOME in AFRICA by Themba Umbalisi.

THE BRIDGE of SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder

 

Originally published in 1927.
Winner of the 1928 Pulitzer Prize.

This book has been on my To-Be-Read list since I was in high school. One of my English teachers back in high school used to talk about The Bridge of San Luis Rey quite a lot and I finally got around to reading it.

Synopsis:

The setting is Peru, back when Spain held it as a colony. Outside of Lima in the Andes Mountains there is a magnificent rope bridge for pedestrians. Baggage and animals take a long trail they take down to the river below and they cross a traditional bridge that takes a lot longer. One day the rope bridge breaks and several people fall to their deaths. 

A monk is approaching the rope bridge and sees it break and everyone fall to their deaths. He decides to investigate the lives of each person who fell. He wants to see if there is something in common - perhaps they were all adulterers or thieves or the like?

What follows are elaborate character sketches for each of the victims all ending with them walking across the bridge.

My review:

These character sketches are tedious to read. This is not a long book (123 pages), but I felt like about half of it could've been edited away and it would have only made the book better. I know that is a sign of age - the book is 93 years old and I am not the generation the book was written for. I nearly didn't finish it.  I hate to break it to my English teacher but I didn't find the book very memorable.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE BRIDGE of SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder.

1914 by Jean Echenoz (translated by LInda Coverdale)

 

Published in 2014 by The New Press

Synopsis:

It is 1914 and World War I is starting. This story is about 5 young men who live in a small town in France leave together to join the fight. 

If you have studied this war, you know that this war was a meat grinder from one end of it to the other, but the beginning of any war is especially rough. The technologies have changed but the techniques have not kept up. Men die and get maimed out of ignorance. This war is no different.

My Review:

I have no problem with the depiction of anything in this book. But, I do have a problem with the book's lack of passion. No one is particularly excited about life before the war, during the war and definitely not after the war. Everything is stated matter of factly. I lnow it's a style thing but it served to push me away from the story rather than draw me in. If the characters can't muster enough interest to care, why should I?

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: 1914 by Jean Echenoz (translated by LInda Coverdale).

NEWS of the WORLD (audiobook) by Paulette Jiles

 

Book originally published in 2016.

Audiobook published by Harper Audio.
Read by Grover Gardner.
Duration: 6 hours, 17 minutes.
Unabridged.

News of the World is a pretty simple book - on the surface. Set in 1870 Texas, a 70+ year-old veteran of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War is asked to travel more than 300 miles to deliver a 10-year old girl to her extended family near San Antonio, Texas. When she was 6, she was adopted by the Kiowa after they killed immediate family in a frontier attack. Their journey starts in Wichita Falls (near the Oklahoma-Texas border) and faces a lot of difficulties. 

The author

Jefferson Kyle Kidd goes by the name Captain Kidd because that was his rank in the Mexican War, where he served as a messenger. That is appropriate since his true love is bringing news to others. He worked on newspapers, he owned newspapers, he edited newspapers and now he is out of the newspaper business completely due to post-Civil War Reconstruction rules. 

Kidd can't stay out of the game, though. Since he can't be a publisher or a writer of the news, he becomes a newscaster of sorts. He buys all of the current newspapers, finds articles that would be of interest to local communities and then charges a dime per person for a reading of the news. He avoids local news (Reconstruction era politics were every bit as divisive as our modern politics) and instead prefers to read articles about faraway places and modern discoveries. He prefers to expose his audiences to news of the wider world to local news. 

The girl, Johanna,  has very few memories of life before the Kiowa and a great deal of the book deals with Kidd and Johanna, how they work out a way of communicating and the bond that forms between them. There are various adventures and outrages along the way, but the heart of the book is these two strangers traveling on a very long trip together in a wagon.

And, it is a fantastic book.

Grover Gardner read this audiobook. Gardner is a prolific narrator of audiobooks. He has read well over 1,000 audiobooks and I tend to think of his voice as more of a folksy style and it works perfectly with this book.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here:  NEWS of the WORLD (audiobook) by Paulette Jiles.

TREASON by David Nevin

 

Published in 2001 by Forge (Tor).

Treason has been in my to-be-read pile for a long time. I was inspired to finally read it after watching the musical Hamilton on a streaming service. As you may know, the character of Aaron Burr plays a large part and I got to wondering exactly what happened to Burr when he went west after his term as Vice President.

The problem, as the author points out, is that we don't really know exactly what Aaron Burr did. He went on trial for treason, but it was a hurried and botched trial and Burr was found not guilty.

Nevin does a solid job of explaining what Burr might have been doing. Nevin goes along with the popular theory that Burr was working with the commanding general of the U.S. Army, James Wilkinson. In 1854, letters were discovered that showed that Wilkinson was in the pay of the government of Spain and was feeding them all sorts of information.

Aaron Burr, 1756-1836.

Nevin supposes that Wilkinson gave Spain false information designed to make Spain attack the United States while Burr was bringing hundreds of men down the Ohio and Mississippi as part of a private army. Burr and Wilkinson were planning to use the Spanish attack as an excuse to initiate martial law in New Orleans, attack Mexico and combine New Orleans, Texas and Mexico into a new country, led by Burr and Wilkinson. Eventually, the states west of the Appalachians would join the new country and New England and New York would break away from the rest of the coastal states and the United States would simply cease to exist.

All of that was interesting, but David Nevin strung this book out and made all of that as boring as possible. He repeated conversations, rants, mental rants and made the pace crawl. The front cover features the Hamilton-Burr duel, but the book barely mentions it with just 6 pages out of a 545 page novel. Hamilton is basically a non-entity, which is weird because Burr is probably most remembered for the duel.

In short, this book is slow and tedious. It took me more than 6 weeks to read it. In the meantime, I read a completely different book because I thought it was more interesting. And magazines. And just goofed around on Facebook.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: TREASON by David Nevin. 2 stars for the coherent theory about Burr's conspiracy.

THE HESSIAN by Howard Fast

Originally published in 1972.

Howard Fast (1914-2003) was a prolific author with a particular love of historical fiction. He is most famous for the novel Spartacus, the book that the famous movie is based on.

The Hessian is set in rural Connecticut late in the Revolutionary War. The war has moved on south of Connecticut. The main character is Dr. Feversham, a veteran of the Revolutionary War and wars in Europe who is sick to death of war. He is not a particularly pleasant man. He is a lapsed Catholic while most of his neighbors are Protestants. There is also a scattering of Quakers in the area.

A British ship dropped off a squad of 16 Hessians who cause a panic. Hessians are German soldiers hired by the British to help supplement their soldiers during the Revolutionary War. They were particularly hated and feared because they were mercenaries (and they fought very well). The Americans could understand why the British fought, but what was the motivation of soldiers who were rented out by their lord back in The Holy Roman Empire?

The reason for this mission by the Hessians is never discovered, but they do hang a local man during their march. He was a simpleminded fellow who barely knew how to speak. He was following them because they were new and interesting. The Hessians seem to have killed him because he might be a spy, but it was just as likely that they did it because he was annoying and this was a war zone.

The local militia forms up to go after them and, using their superior knowledge of the countryside, they successfully surprised them and wiped out the whole force - except for the teenaged drummer boy who ran away.

The drummer boy shows up at a Quaker home in need of medical care. The Quakers do what all Quakers would do - they assist him and bring in the doctor. Being pacifists, they are not part of the war, but they do help those in need.

And that is the problem - is he a boy or a soldier? Is he lost and in need of help or is he a soldier looking to rejoin the rest of his army? Is he responsible for the murder of the mentally disabled man?

This book has moments of greatness in it. The premise is a powerful one and worthy of a book. But, there is annoying subplot about the doctor's marriage and his attraction to another woman that distract from the issue at hand. 

Also, in this book Howard Fast has a really bad habit of having long threads of dialogue without identifying who is speaking. Multiple times I had to go back and re-read these passages just to figure out who was saying what to whom. Even worse, sometimes he ends such a conversation and with a short sentence goes right into another one. At one point I was wondering why the doctor was having an argument about his love life with the family gardener until I realized that the conversation had changed with very little warning.

So, I am sorry to say that the book does not live up to its potential. I rate it 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE HESSIAN by Howard Fast. 

MOSES by Howard Fast

Originally published in 1958.
Published in 2001 by ibooks.

Howard Fast (1914-2003) was a prolific author of all sorts of works - poetry, plays, screenplays, essays, short stories, science fiction, fiction, articles for various publication and historical fiction. He literally worked as a professional author for his entire life, publishing his first book at age 18 and his last book at age 85.

I've decided to make a commitment to reading a Howard Fast historical fiction book from time to time after I read his novel about the Battle of Lexington and Concord, April Morning, this past summer. It was easily one of the better books I read last year.

Moses is the story of the towering figure of the Old Testament. It was intended to be a two part story, but as Fast notes in a forward to this 2001 reprint, he literally ran out of time to write the second half of the story. This novel covers Moses life up until the time when he kills the Egyptian beating the Hebrew slave and then flees into the wilderness.

You probably won't recognize many features of this story if you are expecting a literal re-telling of the story of the Bible. This 400+ page novel is covered by just 15 verses of the book of Exodus (Chapter 2: 1-15). If you include the setting described in chapter 1, you get to include another 22 verses. That is not much material to write a book with. Even less when you take the supernatural elements out of the story - an interesting choice for a book about Moses. It would have been interesting to see what he had done with the second half of the story - with the plagues and the burning bush and the pillar of fire and so on.

As I read this novel, I did a little research. Fast pulled heavily from non-Biblical traditional stories about Moses and adapted them. I enjoyed the adaptation up until about 3/4 of the way through the book. It was a story about a young, pampered man getting a rough education in love, war, friendship, slavery, and learning how the other 99% lives (you don't get to be any more of a one-percenter than being the son of Pharaoh.)

Howard Fast (1914-2003)

The book takes a turn at that point and Moses seems to realize something that changes his behavior. I am not sure what he realizes but the book seems to meander a bit. Pharaoh's behaviors are pretty random, but Moses acts similarly. For two people that are not related by blood, they sure act a lot like each other.

I think this book is limited by the fact that its ending was never written. Fast was going somewhere with this book and a sequel would have answered a lot of questions.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Moses by Howard Fast. 

APRIL MORNING: A NOVEL by Howard Fast

Originally published in 1961.

Howard Fast (1914-2003) was a prolific writer (more than 60 novels, plus scores of short stories, plays, articles and histories). He is most famous work is Spartacus, the novel that inspired the iconic movie by Stanley Kubrick.

April Morning is my second Howard Fast novel and if you throw in Spartacus you see a trend in Howard Fast's books - he likes to tell the story of the underdog who fights back.

In this novel, the underdogs are the colonists of Massachusetts. The April morning in the title is the day that the British army moved on the stores of gunpowder in Concord, Massachusetts. This is when Paul Revere makes his famous ride. This action is now known as The Battles of Lexington and Concord. The book takes place in and around Lexington.

Adam Cooper is a fifteen year old boy in 1775 and the troubles of Boston with the British Redcoats seems a world away. His father is deeply involved with the committees that try to workout a common response to the British government. When the British army marches towards Concord with nearly 1,000 trained regulars, the local militia forms up to confront them. The militia musters only 77 men, many with small hunting weapons.

15 year old Adam Cooper is in that militia...

This was a truly great novel. As I previously noted, this is only my second Howard Fast novel, but it won't be my last. He had a real knack for making the characters seem real and believable. His characterization of 15 year old Adam is perfect.

The book does not glorify war in any way. It can be graphic. The fighting has real-life consequences. Some of the passages were quite touching. 

Others passages were cleverly observant. I liked this line on page 88: "Blame the devil, Reverend, but I tell you that three-quarters of the misery of mankind is the result of plain damned foolishness."

I rate this novel 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: April Morning: A Novel.

FOLLOW the RIVER (audiobook) by James Alexander Thom

Published by Tantor Audio in 2010.
Book originally published in 1981 by Ballantine Books.
Read by David Drummond.
Duration: 16 hours, 10 minutes.
Unabridged.

As the American frontier pushed ever-Westward during the Colonial Era, there were multiple major conflicts between the new White settlers and the various Indian groups. The last, and the biggest, was the war that Americans know as the French and Indian War (1754-1763). It was truly a global war involving not only France and England, but also a variety of countries around the world such as Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Russia and the Mughal Empire in India.

The war began as a power struggle between French and English colonists along with their Native American allies. Technically, a young Virginia militia leader named George Washington started the war when he tried to remove French Canadians who were building a trading post in what is now western Pennsylvania. The entire frontier was soon at war and little settlements on the extreme frontier, like Drapers Meadows, Virginia, were exposed - even if they had only the faintest idea there was a war going on.

In 1755, a group of Shawnee warriors attacked Drapers Meadows, a settlement of just a few families and killed or kidnapped about half of the inhabitants and took them to a large Shawnee town near the Ohio River in what is now northeastern Kentucky. One of the victims was Mary Draper Ingles (pronounced Ingalls) and this novel is the fictionalized story of her capture (along with her children), her life among the Shawnee and her escape with a fellow female captive who spoke mostly German. Mary had watched as she was taken to the Shawnee village and she realized that all she had to do was simply follow the river system back to her home. If only it were that simple. It turned into a 42 day walk back to an English frontier cabin across some of the roughest terrain in the Appalachians. They left in mid-October and arrived on December 1, 1755.

Photo by DWD

Their escape covered more than 500 miles and crossed an estimated 145 rivers or creeks, with little or no food. Oftentimes, they had to get soaked in water, climb cliffs or rockfalls and starved as they walked and the temperatures dropped. This terrain is difficult nowadays with modern equipment. Their accomplishment is astonishing when you consider their physical condition and almost complete lack of tools, equipment, nutrition and warm clothing. This book was thoroughly researched by the author who walked as much as their route as he possibly could. You can tell - the landscape is as much a character in the book as any single character.

Follow the River is an amazing book. It is not a happy book - how can it be when it is full of suffering, violence, death and tragedy? But, James Alexander Thom told the story so well that I felt like I was along for the whole tragic trip. It is sobering and compelling. It is all the more tragic when you consider that she left her children behind with the Shawnee because there was no way that they could survive this extremely difficult trek.

The audiobook was read by David Drummond. He does an excellent job with the accents throughout the book (the area was quite international considering how hard it was to get there) and the rest of the book overall. I do think it was a bit odd to chose a man to read the book considering that most of the dialogue of the book is spoken by women. A great deal of the book also deals with the internal thoughts of Mary.

This was a re-read for me, although it had been 26 years between readings. I remembered it as an excellent book and I am pleased to say that I still think it is excellent.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Follow the River by James Alexander Thom. 

SUGAR MONEY: A NOVEL by Jane Harris

Published by Arcade Publishing in 2018.

Set on the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Grenada in 1765, Sugar Money is the story of two brothers. Lucien is thirteen years old and his older brother Emile is in his twenties and they are both slaves on Martinique. They are owned by a group of French monks who were forced off of Granada during the world-wide war commonly known as the French and Indian War in the United States. When the monks escaped Granada they left more than 40 slaves behind. Lucien and Emile are sent to Granada to organize an escape to Martinique - not an escape to freedom, just an escape to better working conditions and continued slavery.

The strength of this book is in it's descriptions. The descriptions of slave life on Granada and of the environs are top notch. Unfortunately, the story doesn't really pan out to be anything more than a "non-event" in my mind. There's a lot of build up for an underwhelming finish. Because of this, I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Sugar Money by Jane Harris.

Note: I was sent a free Advance Reading Copy of this book as a part of the Amazon Vine Program so that I could write an honest review.

FIRE in the WATER by James Alexander Thom

Published in 2015 by Blue River Press

Not many people know about the horrible story of the Sultana, a paddlewheel steamboat that sank into the Mississippi River in April of 1865. It is the worst maritime disaster in American history but was largely overshadowed by the events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and his dramatic funeral train tour from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois. The Sultana was grossly overcrowded. It was designed to carry 376 passengers, but it was carrying 2,155 passengers when three of its boilers exploded in the early morning hours of April 27, 1865.  Most of its passengers were survivors of the infamous Andersonville prisoner of war camp that were being shipped home. 

This book is technically a sequel to Saint Patrick's Battalion. It continues the story of a boy who traveled with an American army during the Mexican War. In Fire in the Water, that boy has grown up and become a famous war correspondent. He is traveling to Springfield with his newlywed wife to cover Lincoln's funeral. Along the way, he interviews as many of the former prisoners of war to work on a story about Andersonville.

This book starts out too slowly, but the last 50 pages or so are full of the kind of magic that James Alexander Thom can bring to historical fiction. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Fire in the Water by James Alexander Thom.

BEHIND REBEL LINES: THE INCREDIBLE STORY of EMMA REDMONDS, CIVIL WAR SPY by Seymour Reit

Published in 2014 by Clarion Books.

Behind Rebel Lines is the story of a real-life Civil War hero. Despite technically not being able to join the army at all because she was a woman, Emma Edmonds crossed the American-Canadian border in order to join the Union army for all of the action and adventure. She knew full well that she could keep up with the men because she grew up helping on her family farm. But, she never expected the adventures she experienced during the war.

Emma Edmonds
(1841-1898)

Seymour Reit tells a fictionalized version of this true story (the events are real, the details, like conversations, are made into a story) that starts out working in an army hospital but soon ends up dressing up in different outfits and crossing the enemy lines to act as a spy and had all sorts of close calls while generating plenty of usable information.

This is an immensely readable book. My fifth grader chose it to read for a school project and her enthusiasm for the book inspired my wife and I to read it as well. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Behind Rebel Lines: The Incredible Story of Emma Redmonds, Civil War Spy.

VICTORY at YORKTOWN: A NOVEL (George Washington Series #3) (audiobook) by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen

Published in November of 2012 by Macmillan Audio.
Read by William Dufris
Duration: 12 hours, 2 minutes
Unabridged

Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen conclude their Revolutionary War-based trilogy with an up-and-down look at the final year of real action in the war (October of 1780 to October of 1781).

The actual battle descriptions are quite good in the book. The book is absolutely great with its explanation of the strategies employed to maneuver Cornwallis into the Yorktown fortifications, the coordination between the French and American forces and demonstrates just how narrow this victory really was. 

However, the audiobook starts out with a two hour overwrought description of the execution of Major Andre. Andre was the British officer that conspired with the infamous American traitor Benedict Arnold. While this scene was used referred back to often throughout the rest of the book, the scene itself was very repetitious and entirely too long to make it's point. I nearly quit the audiobook completely after an hour of it.

William Dufris did a great job with all of the accents the book, especially the French officers.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found at Amazon.com here: VICTORY at YORKTOWN: A NOVEL (George Washington Series #3).

CAIN at GETTYSBURG (audiobook) by Ralph Peters

There is a problem with a book about Gettysburg in which George Meade is the most likable character...

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2012
Narrated by Peter Berkrot
Duration: 15 hours, 20 minutes
Unabridged

It is easy to give a simple shorthand review of Cain at Gettysburg as an attempt to re-make the magic of Michael Shaara's classic Pulitzer Prize-winning The Killer Angels from the Union point of view. To be fair, I will give more than a simple shorthand review, but I will be comparing the two books quite often.

The title Cain at Gettysburg is a biblical reference to the story of Cain and Abel - the story of when one brother killed another. It is the first of many religious references throughout the book.

Like the Shaara book, Cain at Gettysburg goes back and forth between the two armies as they draw together for the fateful Battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863. While The Killer Angels focuses on the senior Confederate officers, this novel focuses on the senior Union officers. The Confederate officers are probably the more interesting characters but Ralph Peters' strongest points in Cain at Gettysburg are when he focuses on the never-ending political rivalries at the top of the Union command. The constant strivings and squabbles of both sets of officers are readily apparent.  

Cain at Gettysburg comes up short in two key areas when compared to The Killer Angels. 

1) It fails to convey the larger overview of the battle to the reader. However, its battle details are much more gritty and it does include street fighting in Gettysburg itself, something that is often overlooked. 

Union General George Meade
(1815-1872)

2) It fails to create a character that the reader can really root for, with the exception of Meade. Peters manages to do something just short of miraculous in this book. He makes Union General George Meade the single most likable and sympathetic character in a book filled with characters of all backgrounds and ranks. Meade was, by all accounts, one of the most gruff and difficult officers in the entire Union army. He was nicknamed "Old Snapping Turtle", but in this book he comes off as a likable curmudgeon (Meade always gets the short shrift, so this was an interesting change of pace.) In contrast, Lee comes off as an uncaring megalomaniac. 

But, there is a problem with a book about Gettysburg in which George Meade is the most likable character - it means that there is really no one to root for as you read (or listen, in my case). There were a whole slew of regular Confederate soldiers as characters with complex back stories that all led to the same conclusion - religious faith is a fool's game at best. There were a similar number of Union soldiers from a German unit based out of Wisconsin. They were often funny and interesting but I found myself not really caring about them so much as wishing they would finally get the recognition that they deserved.

A rather long section of the book is all about the political stratagems of Union General Daniel Sickles. It is wearisome, at best.

A very big positive to the audiobook is the performance of the narrator Peter Berkrot. He is brilliant. He creates a number of accents (his German accent is fantastic!) and literally yells, whispers and growls his way through the book.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Cain at Gettysburg by Ralph Peters.

SILENCE by Shusaku Endo

Originally published in 1966.
Translated by William Johnston.

Rodrigues is a Jesuit missionary from Portugal who has volunteered to travel to Japan. The leaders of Japan have recently turned against almost all foreign contact and have cracked down on Christianity. Stories have come back to the Vatican of Japanese Christians being brutally tortured and priests renouncing their faith. 

Rodrigues is determined to face this challenge. He is genuinely concerned about the believers who are left without a priest and he is also sure that he will not fail if his own faith is challenged. He and a partner make their way into Japan and set up in a small fishing village. The local Christians are thrilled but, soon enough, the priests are discovered and Rodrigues finds out that his presence threatens the lives of his new flock and that his own compassion can be used as a tool against his own faith and that even the strongest believer can be pushed too far...

Shusaku Endo (1923-1996)

This is an absorbing work of historical fiction. The reader sees most of the action from the perspective of Rodrigues, so there is not a lot of historical background about Japan and its internal politics. Mostly, this is a look at one man's struggle with his view of God and why God allows the persecution of the people that profess to believe in Him. This is the "silence" referred to in the title. Some readers have struggled with the Rodrigues' conclusions (in truth, Rodrigues does, as well) but I found his internal debate to be a strong one. 

I am giving this book a rating of 4 out of 5 stars only because of the ending. It was not that I did not disapproved of Rodrigues and how he finally resolved his problem, it's that it was done so quickly and I felt suddenly cut off from the ebb and flow of his thoughts. 

William Johnston translated this novel. As a Spanish teacher, I recognize how hard translation can be and Johnston deserves to be recognized for maintaining a consistent feel and flow to this book. His notes at the beginning of the book are also excellent.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Silence by Shusaku Endo.

THE FORT: A NOVEL by Bernard Cornwell

Not Cornwell's Best Effort.

Published in 2010 by HarperCollins

Set in 1779 Massachusetts, Bernard Cornwell's The Fort tells the story of the Penobscot Expedition - a small scale invasion by British forces of a bay in what is now Maine.

The government of Massachusetts is determined to repel this invasion without help from the Continental Army. It calls up its militia and its fledgling navy. It does accept help from the American national Navy and its contingent of Marines. By far, the most famous American in this campaign is the commander of the Massachusetts' artillery unit, Lt. Colonel Paul Revere.

Cornwell does a decent job of developing the British officers as characters.  A young officer named John Moore gets his first taste of battle here. In the Napoleonic Wars, Moore was one of the architects of Napoleon's eventual defeat.

Cornwell's battle scenes are, as always, excellently described. He switches from naval battles to land battles with ease. I felt absolutely confident that I had a reasonable grasp of the strategy and tactics of the battle and the successes and failures of the various officers that led to the outcome of the battle.

But, this book has glaring weaknesses.

Paul Revere (1734-1818)

Cornwell never makes it clear as to why Massachusetts refuses to even ask for help from the Continental Army until it is much too late. My opinion is that Massachusetts was very interested in asserting its independence - not just from England but even from the Continental Congress. But, I am basing that on previous knowledge, not from anything that Cornwell provided.

Paul Revere is a star of the book even though he is actually a fairly minor character in the book when it comes to dialogue. He is not even in most of the scenes that refer to him - there are a lot of references to him not being present at locations where he certainly should be present because he is sleeping on a ship or he is waiting for his cook to prepare his breakfast somewhere. The reader just knows that he is a diva but there is no explanation as to why.

The reasons for the British invasion of this particular bay is also not even made clear. This is a fairly lengthy book, but if I were the editor I would have suggested the addition of a few more pages to make the historical context of the story a lot more clearer and make the importance of what is happening here give the story even more drama.

I rate this novel 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Fort by Bernard Cornwell. 

THE FATEFUL LIGHTNING: A NOVEL of the CIVIL WAR (Book #4 of 4) (audiobook) by Jeff Shaara

Published in 2015 by Random House Audio
Read by Paul Michael
Duration: 25 hours, 30 minutes
Unabridged

The fourth book in what started out as a trilogy, The Fateful Lightning concludes Jeff Shaara's story of the Civil War's Western Theater with Sherman's March to the Sea and the eventual surrender of the Joseph E. Johnston's army in North Carolina. 

But, the story is more than that. It is also the story of newly freed slaves discovering what freedom truly means. It is the story of a way of life being destroyed and the hope that a new, more equitable society can rise up in its place. It is the story of a legendary commander whose self-doubts constantly plague him. It is the story of an army that knows deep down that it is going to lose but still tries to survive - for pride if for no other reason. 

Confederate Lt. General
William J. Hardee
(1815-1873)

The story focuses on two generals - Union General William T. Sherman and Confederate General William J. Hardee. Hardee is trying to cobble together a little army made up of regulars and state militia in order to stop Sherman's advance. Hardee is greatly outnumbered and he has no idea where Sherman is going. Hardee literally wrote the book on tactics that both sides used, but Hardee was clueless as to how he should proceed because Sherman's March to the Sea was an unprecedented move. Hardee couldn't attack Sherman's supply lines because Sherman had no supply lines. Sherman kept his ultimate goal secret and made it look like he had multiple destinations. Hardee had to keep his small army thinly spread out just so that he could offer a token defense.

Once Hardee retreats into the Carolinas, Sherman's goal become obvious but by this point it doesn't matter - the Confederacy is collapsing all around...

********

The finale of this series is a definite improvement over the tedious second and third installments. The first book was excellent and this one was quite good. The tendency to get into the heads of the characters and repeat trains of thought was limited when compared to the middle two books.

I am a serious student of the Civil War and I was pleased to learn so much about General Hardee. Most books mention that he wrote the Army's book on tactics and that's about it. He was quite interesting.

Shaara's choice to make a main character out of Franklin, a slave freed by the arrival of Sherman's army, was interesting. The character has little to do with the actual military and could have easily been left out. But, Franklin's discoveries about what freedom really means away from the plantation make the reality of the changes brought by Sherman much more vivid.

The combination of scenes involving Lincoln and Lincoln's assassination are powerful. Some very strong writing.

The audiobook was read by Paul Michael. I do believe that he read for the entire series (I listened to volumes 2, 3 and 4) and his voice characterizations are consistent all of the way across the series. He is so good that you recognize voices without having to be told which character is speaking.

But, for all of his voice talents, Paul Michael is an exceedingly slow reader. His Southern drawls are magnificently slow. For the first time in my life I sped up the playback of the text (I listened to a digital file). I had to speed it up to play 20% faster just to make the characters speak at a tolerable level.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Fateful Lightning.