DWD's Reviews

Set in Eastern Indiana in 1842, this short novel does a great job of talking about slavery for a grades 4-6 audience. The Caldwell family has recently moved to Indiana from North Carolina. They are Quakers. Nowadays, Quakers are famous for their anti-slavery stand and participation in the Underground Railroad in the 1800s. But, in reality, the Quakers are split in two groups. All are anti-slavery but some believe that you should not break the law by helping runaway slaves. Others believe that helping people in need trumps the law. The Caldwell family embodies this split. Sarah, age 13, is anti-abolitionist and is quite sure her father is as well. However, her new young stepmother is certainly an abolitionist. She is close with Levi and Catharine Coffin, two of the most famous members of the Underground Railroad network who live in Newport, Indiana (now called Fountain City) and Sarah witnesses her helping a runaway slave. Sarah is sure that her father is anti-abolitionist and thr

Published in 2009. The year is 1665 and the English colony of Jamaica is surrounded by a constellation of Spanish colonies. The Caribbean is in a near-perpetual state of war as English privateers attack Spanish treasure galleons hauling literally tons of New World silver and gold to Spain. Charles Hunter is the captain of an English privateer ship named Cassandra (or, he is simply a pirate when Spain and England are not at war). He has learned that Spain has a fortress on a remote island called Matanceros to protect ships that attempt, but fail to make the trip to Spain. They cannot return to their port of origin alone. In fact, the less time they are alone and exposed to privateers, the better. So, Spain has built an impregnable fortress to protect such ships.  Michael Crichton (1942-2008) At least it is supposed to be impregnable. Hunter is very sure that he has figured out a way that the perfect team can infiltrate the fort and then take the ship that it is supposed to pr

Published by Random House Audio in June of 2014 Read by Paul Michael Duration: 19 hours, 42 minutes Unabridged Confederate General Braxton Bragg (1817-1876)   Jeff Shaara is well-known by fans of military historical fiction. This is his fifth book about the Civil War, the third about the campaign in The Western Theater. This book picks up a few months after Grant's victory at Vicksburg and focuses on Chattanooga. The crushing defeat at Chickamauga suffered by Union General Rosecrans was a terrible blow after the Union's massive twin victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg just two months earlier. Confederate General Braxton Bragg swept Rosecrans' army from the Chickamauga battlefield and they fled back to the safety of Chattanooga. Bragg's forces occupy the mountains that surround Chattanooga and have effectively laid siege to the city. Already, the Union forces are suffering and Rosecrans seems confused about what to do next. Luckily, Bragg is worried about d

First published in 1958 Winner of the 1959 Newberry Medal When I was a kid I read this book twice, which for me was rare. I have always been one to prefer reading a new book than re-reading an old one. I had an emotional connection to the book dating back to fifth grade. But, I hadn't read it since fifth grade. For me, it was a book that I fondly pulled off of bookshelves as an adult but I never had the courage to re-read it out of fear of spoiling the memory of the book. What if it wasn't nearly as good as I remembered? Finally, I decided to take the plunge and see if my memory was justified. The Witch of Blackbird Pond is set in colonial Wethersfield, Connecticut in 1687. 16 year old Kit Tyler is coming from Barbados to live with her aunt who lives in Wethersfield because she is her last surviving relative. Her arrival adds strain to a family that was barely eking out a living. More importantly, her upbringing in Barbados has not prepared her for life among the Pur

Published in in 2009 by MacMillan Audio Read by William Dufris, Callista Gingrich and Eric Conger Duration: 12 hours, 23 minutes Unabridged To Try Men's Souls is a powerful piece of historical fiction that focuses on three men in the American army at its lowest point in the Revolutionary War - right before the famed surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton. The story follows three men - one is a New Jersey private with family on both sides of the war, the other two are George Washington and Thomas Paine. The book is fairly complicated in its structure with lots of flashbacks and intertwining story lines. Through George Washington the reader learns the long sad story of the shrinking American Army's numerous retreats throughout the summer and fall of 1776 and how Washington gambled it all on a surprise raid to raise American morale. Thomas Paine's character was a bit more complicated. These are the months just after the success of his tract Common Sense  that

Published on July 7, 2015 by Jubilo In many ways, the fight over whether Kansas would be a slave state or a free state was the first fighting of the Civil War.  In a shortsighted move, the Congress of the United States decided to let the Kansas Territory decide for itself if it wanted to be a slave or a free state. It was shortsighted because it put off a festering political problem and let it be decided in a far away territory with little thought to what would happen in that territory. Immediately, this became a real-life struggle, the physical embodiment of the arguments taking place across the country about slavery and its future. Slave states rightly determined that they needed to bring Kansas in as a slave state and they immediately sent financial backing to support pro-slavery settlers and pro-slavery men from neighboring Missouri who would cross the border and illegally vote in the election. Abolitionists sent settlers, financial aid and weapons to counter. Soon enough,

Audiobook Edition Published in 2009 by Tantor Audio Published in hardback in 2006. Read by John Allen Nelson Duration: 11 hours, 13 minutes Unabridged The massacre at Fort Pillow truly stands out in a bloody Civil War in which hundreds of thousands of men and women died. Even though the American Civil War had so many casualties, the war itself was remarkable in that the two sides were often quite civil with one another off of the battlefield. There are numerous stories of local truces to trade coffee for tobacco and the like. My favorite is the story of Confederate and Union pickets (perimeter guards) who co-built a cabin in stages during the winter and agreed to share it in shifts as the day went along. Prisoners of War were generally cared for (there were exceptions, but they stick out as exceptions), the enemy wounded were treated by the doctors (the care was bad, but the best that was available), and so on. Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) The battle at Fort Pillo

        Watching a Tragedy Unfold Published by Thomas Dunne Books in 2011 During the long, hot, bloody summer of 1864 the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia found themselves in a long series of battles. General Ulysses S. Grant changed the situation on the front by changing the strategy of the Army of the Potomac and the way it dealt with the Army of Northern Virginia. Rather than fighting a battle, withdrawing from one another, regrouping and then seeking out the enemy again Grant just kept his army in constant contact with Lee. His plan was simple - he knew that the Union forces had a lot more soldiers and a near limitless supply of ammunition and food, at least when compared to Lee's army. The math was simple - Grant could afford to lose more of everything so long as he was depleting Lee at the same time.  Eventually, this settled down into a siege around Richmond and its suburb, Petersburg. Petersburg was a train hub and a vital link

Just Does Not Live Up to the Promise of Its Title Published by Endeavour Press Ltd. in 2013 Estimated length: 361 pages I am a huge student of the Civil War. I own more than one hundred books (fiction and non-fiction) on the topic, a fact that my wife tolerates but only sort of understands. I think that there is something to be learned in well-researched historical fiction as well as the history texts because excellent historical fiction has the ability to place the reader in someone's shoes at the moment. Taking on the topic of the Civil War in historical fiction can be a thankless undertaking - misstate the caliber of a weapon and the purists are all over you. Go on about slavery too much and the revisionists are after you. Fail to mention it at all and everyone else is after you. I thought Frye did just fine with all of those aspects in this book. I read nothing that did not seem correct as far as the details went.  The book is about a Confederate General named Willi

Originally published in 1970. Audiobook version published in 2013 by HighBridge Audio. Read by David Shih Duration: 7 hours, 34 minutes. Based on historical facts, the story of the 47 Ronin is a very popular one in Japan that has been told and re-told hundreds of times in books, plays, films, manga and more. A friend of mine that teaches Japanese compared it to the tale of King Arthur in England in that some versions feature magic, some extra characters, some are longer and some are shorter but there are some things that are consistent in every version. Of course, not being Japanese, Westerners often miss some of the power of the story. John Allyn's knowledge of the language, his time in Japan during the Post-World War II occupation and his extensive experience with theater made him a fairly unique talent to present this story to Westerners. Allyn explains quite a bit as he tells the story , including items that would not have to be explained to native Japanese. It is

"That's the trouble with a situation like this - you just don't know who is who." Published by Highbridge Audio in 2012 Read by Ray Chase Duration: 11 hours, 35 minutes Thomas H. Cook's Streets of Fire is set in Birmingham, Alabama in the spring of 1963 during Martin Luther King's famed "Birmingham Campaign" that featured the Children's March, "Bull" Connor, boycotts and fire hoses being turned on demonstrators. Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.  Photo courtesy of  Library of Congress,  Prints and Photographs Division, AL-898-5 Sergeant Ben Wellman is called away from taking detailed notes on Martin Luther King's speeches at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (one of many policemen that were used as spies who filled notebooks and turned them in to their superiors) to investigate a dead body found in a shallow grave in an abandoned ball field in Bearmatch, a black neighborhood. Generally, the all whi

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio  Published February 5, 2013 Read by Jason Culp Duration: 9 hours, 11 minutes As the title says,  Iscariot: A Novel of Judas  tells the the story of one of the most infamous people in history - Judas, the disciple that betrayed Jesus. Tosca Lee tells the story in a very sympathetic manner. At no point in the story is Judas an evil man. In fact, he is the opposite - he is an exceptionally good man who lives an upright life, tries his very best and truly loves Jesus, the man he calls "teacher." A close up of Judas Iscariot (front) in Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" Tosca Lee creates a sympathetic back story for Judas involving a life full of loss, pain and a tragic multi-generational search for the messiah. Judas has decided that searching for a messiah is the surest way to get hurt. Instead, he has joined a secret society that is working to push the Romans out of Judea. But, things radically change whe

Read by Will Patton Published by Simon and Schuster Audio 2013 First published in 1982 Duration: 5 hours, 23 minutes James Lee Burke is a prolific writer with more than thirty books, most set in New Orleans and Texas.  Two for Texas takes place in both places. Son Holland is the main character. He has been falsely accused of being involved in a crime ring and sentenced to hard time in a Louisiana penal camp by the French gentlemen that control the city. While in this camp, Holland meets Hugh, a loud-mouthed, opinionated, walleyed older man who engineers a chance to escape to Texas. But, when they escape they end up killing one of the two downright evil French brothers that run the camp. This is 1834 and Texas is a foreign country – technically still a part of Mexico but certainly preparing to rebel and create the Republic of Texas. Sam Houston (1793-1863) Hugh and Holland live among Indians, dodge the Mexican Army and flee the posse sent after them from

Published in 1991 by Pocket Books A-7 Corsair attack bomber during the Vietnam War This first novel by a high school friend of Tom Clancy concerns two U.S. Navy pilots named Mike Santy and Tim Boyle who are best friends serving during the late stages of the Vietnam War. They serve off of the coast of North Vietnam. Santy is a pilot of an A-7 Corsair attack bomber and regularly flies bombing missions over North Vietnam. Boyle flies a Sikorsky HH-3A Sea King Combat SAR helicopter. His job is to rescue downed pilots, both in the water and in North Vietnam. The book is a pretty typical war story novel featuring pilots reminding me quite a bit of Stephen Coonts' earlier novel  Flight of the Intruder . The story is solid. There is plenty of detail and jargon but not so much that the reader is overwhelmed. The story is paced a bit slow at first, but the end is very strong, assuming that the reader can overlook the overwhelming coincidence the brings the two buddies together at

Published in 2011 by Delacorte Press Conn Iggulden continues his historical fiction series about the Mongols with Conqueror: A Novel of Kublai Khan. This is the fifth book in the series, but you can easily jump in here, like I did, and not be lost so long as you have a rudimentary idea about the Mongols and their lifestyle. Iggulden comments that he was interested in writing another trilogy focusing on Kublai Khan but decided against it when he realized that while Kublai's life and reign were interesting (Marco Polo, attempted invasions of Japan, etc. ), they were not nearly as dramatic as his early life and would be rather anti-climactic in comparison. Kublai Khan (1215-1294)  as a young man Kublai is a grandson if Genghis Khan and he comes of age in a time of great political turmoil. The Mongols are undoubtedly the most dominant military force in Europe, Asia and the Middle East but they have no clear leader. Various relatives of Genghis Khan have a claim to the th

Published by Fireship Press in 2012 Set in 1613 Venice, Thirst: A Novel is a story of family secrets, racial purity, religion and raw power. This is the first novel for the author, Mary Donnarumma Sharnick . As a first novel goes, this one has potential, but also has issues, which is not uncommon.  The scenes throughout the book are very vivid and easy to imagine with fully fleshed out characters (which is usually the hard part for first-time novelists) but there just needs to be more detail to tie the scenes together to make the story flow, more explanation of Venetian society and the way it worked so that the story moves more smoothly and the reader can fully appreciate what everyone is doing, why it matters and the risks that certain characters take when challenging the powers-that-be. This is a very female oriented work with lots of details about menstruation, fears of first-time sex, rape, child rape and a very detailed childbirth scene with lots of detai