Katy - reviewed on 11/27/2009 + 80 more book reviews

I really enjoyed this book. As a History teacher, I am pretty familiar with the events described in the book, and I was very impressed by the authentic feeling I got of the events as I read. I felt like I was there with the soldiers as they tried to retreat back to Boston after their clashes with the militia at Lexington and Concord. I became quite fond of the characters and felt invested in their story. I wanted to know what would happen next, and I was rooting for Elizabeth and Jonathan to finally reveal their secrets to each other. One thing that stuck out in my mind was when Elizabeth took some quinine to "little Jimmy" to help with his fever--doctors at that time used the bark from the Cinchona tree (which contained quinine), but quinine itself wasn't isolated from the bark until 1820 (honestly, this is a fact I am familiar with only because it is discussed in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series LOL!). I think some of the medical information in this book is a little bit modern for the time period being depicted.

Despite these minor problems, I still found the story and characters immensely entertaining and interesting. I love that Elizabeth is a brave and strong woman who is not afraid to put her life on the line for what she believes in. I appreciated the Christian themes within the book--Carleton comes to a point where Elizabeth helps him see that his past deeds were not too terrible for God to forgive. There is also a bit of discussion among the characters showing how Christians of the time were torn over how to deal with the events that were taking place--should they fight for independence and the rights God gave to them, or should they remain loyal to the government that God had put into place? I was also impressed that this was a book that depicted the losses of war realistically. Elizabeth's family faces some hard losses, and near the end I was brought to tears by the weight of those losses.

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