Brighter Dawn [Paperback]

From the back cover:

She picked up a rifle...and began a battle for love.

Boston heiress Verity Talmadge marched into the one place a true lady dared not go--the Union Army's muddy, rancous campsite in Falmouth, Virginia. She had come to accuse Major Garrett Knox of being the Confederate spy who had caused her new husband's death. But no one would listen to her--a well dressed woman in buttons and bows, even if she knew how to prove her mettle, given the chance. So, disguising herself by slipping into a uniform, Verity Talmadge became a soldier...

Garrett Knox needed a sharpshooter for a dangerous raid, and the best man for the job was a woman--the new recruit he recognized immediately as the beautiful widow Verity. As desire stirred, he needed to win her trust, and soon he wanted to win her love. As the woman he adored and the war he hated marched ever closer on a collision course of glory and destiny, he could only hold fast to his dreams--of a land reunited, of a love fulfilled. And tomorrow, a brighter dawn.

And my review:

I cannot believe the rave reviews on this page. This book was silly, implausible, had awful characters, and to top it all off, was really badly written.

First complaint: terrible writing style. The author likes to mix up lots of little sentence fragments with run-on sentences. For balance, maybe? It doesn't work. The end result is a choppy writing style that the reader is never drawn into because the sentence structure is so awkward. Also, the author likes to have tons of dialogue with no prose to balance it out. I often had to find myself counting the lines of dialogue just to keep track of who was speaking. I shouldn't have to do that.

Also, the author jumped so immediately into the plot that it was very difficult to get a handle of what was happening. The characters kept alluding to past incidents, but the reader wasn't informed as to what the backstory was. I was left feeling as confused as if I'd been dropped in the middle of a jungle and left to find my way out without a map or a compass.

And the characters! Poorly sketched, and the heroine was just awful. She was such a screeching harpy. Immature to the point of idiocy. And full of ridiculous accusations to top it off! She leaps to immediate conclusions, adding two and two and geting about twenty. Garrett Knox must be a spy because he has a distant family member who's fighting in the Confederate army? And if he's a spy (a very big IF), then he's the one responsible for her husband's death? That's the same kind of reasoning that got American-born Japanese citizens locked up in internment camps after Pearl Harbor--they must be all spies because of their ethnic background! Which of course is a ridiculous charge. And her husband's dying declaration was that Garrett Knox was NOT the one--yet she still believes that he is. Why?It just made no sense at all.

This story was just so contrived. As if we haven't all read the "woman posing as a man" storyline a million times over. I don't mind reading a plot device that's been done before, as long as the author breathes new life into it. That did not happen here. I couldn't force myself to finish this book. It was just way too much work. Not recommended by this reader.

Stobie Piel followed up her wonderful saga of confederate Jerod Knox and Pippa, with this incredibly written story of yankee cousin Garrett and "watkins". Great romance, great action, great history and characters with a sense of humor. I've just finished it and know I'll re read it again soon. I am into "civil war" historicals and to that end have ordered and read a hundred to date and this is one of my all time favorites. (Jarod's story is also a good read and a keeper.) enjoy....and thanks Stobie. Great job.

This one is a winner even if the heroine is a bit too spunky at times. The great hero and the wonderful Reb characters make up for her. <g> Garrett is a fantastic hero with an acerbic delivery to his lines that I loved. There is also a wonderful secondary love story between a war veteran who feels he has nothing to offer a wife and the woman who refuses to give up on him. Piel doesn't stint on showing war in its true light along with its effect on the soldiers who fight them.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 4 reviews  4.2 out of 5 stars