Starred review from November 1, 2024
In 1864 Virginia, Libby Steadman's prayers for her husband (a Confederate soldier) to return home from a Union prison camp have gone unanswered for so long that she has finally given up thinking that he's still alive. However, if she hopes to survive the war, she cannot give up running her mill, along with freedman Joseph and his wife Sally. Then Sally encounters an injured Union officer in an abandoned home, having heard his cries of distress. Libby cannot leave the man to die, even if he is a Northerner, so she and Joseph bring severely wounded Captain Jonathan Weybridge back to the Steadman home, and then Libby, Joseph, Sally, and Libby's niece Jubilee work to save his life. With the covert help of a local doctor who is competent and can be bribed with whiskey, they get Weybridge past the point of death. When it becomes apparent that members of a local guerilla organization have suspicions they're harboring an enemy soldier, the group realizes that it's not just Weybridge who is in danger. VERDICT This page-turner from bestselling Bohjalian (The Princess of Las Vegas) will not disappoint fans of American Civil War narratives. The vividly drawn characters and historical details make for a compelling read.--Lucinda Ward
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from January 1, 2025
A gravely wounded Union soldier heals with the ministrations of a Southern woman. It's 1864 in Virginia, and Union Captain Jonathan Weybridge loses his right leg and several fingers on the battlefield at Gilbert's Ford. A fellow soldier stanches the bleeding by applying a tourniquet, but otherwise leaves him to die. Then, a formerly enslaved woman named Sally discovers him and brings him to the home of 24-year-old Libby Steadman. She is a white woman whose husband, Peter, had freed the people enslaved at the gristmill he inherited and is now in a Yankee prison, if he's even still alive. Sally and her husband, Joseph, now work at the gristmill, but the other freed slaves have long since skedaddled. Libby has a 12-year-old niece, Jubilee, who refers to Weybridge as a jackal, a not uncommon insult hurled at Union soldiers. Weybridge's health slowly returns while he frets about his wife in Vermont. Libby and her family come to recognize his human decency, that he's more than simply a jackal or a "bluebelly." Meanwhile, rumors circulate that Libby is harboring a wounded Yankee, and she and her family go to great lengths to hide him. She and the captain will quickly hang if discovered. She secretly enlists the help of a local doctor and part-time drunk whom she isn't convinced she can trust, but she has no choice. Will Libby and the captain ever hear from their beloved spouses again? She refers to him as "someone...I kept alive at a price I could not afford." Bohjalian's inspiration for the novel comes from documented historical events--a Virginia woman really did save a Union soldier who'd hailed from Vermont--and the set-up has led to a masterful yarn. No one knows how close to each other the real people became, and there's no evidence that the real Libby ever shot two Confederate soldiers dead with a Colt pistol or that a freedman (Joseph, in the story) killed a man who'd tried to rape her. Those and other details are a credit to the author's imagination. If there is a nit to pick, it's with a title that might misdirect readers' expectations. It's not wrong, but don't expect anything steamy or licentious. A compelling story about two people who long for their spouses in a time of war.
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Starred review from February 1, 2025
Compassion is arguably the first casualty in any war, but for Virginian Libby Steadman, whose Confederate husband is missing in action behind Union lines, the plight of a grievously wounded Union captain abandoned by his troops spurs her to care for Jonathan Weybridge the same way she hopes a Yankee wife would tend to Peter should he be caught in similar straits. Hiding Weybridge in her meager home is a fraught situation. She is already distrusted by her Shenandoah Valley neighbors, thanks to Peter's having preemptively freed his family's slaves, Joseph and Sally. Libby is only tolerated because the gristmill they cooperatively run provides sustenance for the rebel army. Their safety, along with that of her orphaned niece, young firebrand Jubilee, becomes even more precarious as rumors abound that Libby is, indeed, aiding and abetting the enemy. Based on the true story of a formidable Virginia woman and the Vermont solider she saved, Bohjalian's latest historical tale, following The Lioness (2022), is elegant, poignant, and richly atmospheric. In Libby, Jubilee, and Sally, Bohjalian, also the author of The Princess of Las Vegas (2024), once again demonstrates his profound respect for women, endowing his female protagonists with depth and nuance in an indelible testament to the transformative powers of resiliency, trust, and loyalty.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Bohjalian's latest will attract his steadfast fans as well as avid readers of historical fiction, especially those seeking novels starring resourceful women.
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