Malone also asserts that the Indians learned the way of total warfare from Europeans. Because of the harsh religious wars in Europe such as the Thirty Years’ War, it was usual for armies to make war against civilians by firing villages and destroying crops. The Indians were at first shocked by the new increased intensity of war and the larger numbers of fatalities, which were unexampled in their previous experience.

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While it seemed to be a good fictional account of the event, it lacked any kind of characterization, a protagonist or anything really concrete to make me want to read on. It really was just an account on a particular event during the war, and after a while the lack of all the other elements to make a good story, affected my overall impression of the book.

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The book is divided into two parts, Hewes’ life and times and an examination of the role that personal and collective memory play in influencing of understanding of history. This book is an interesting and accessible read for general readers who want a deeper insight into how is history is used by conservatives and progressives for their own social and political purposes.

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The author of this book has a background in screen writing and there are times you can tell, with some of the dramatic plot twists and turns. Sometimes that can be a bad thing because there is all plot and not enough focus on characters or the history, but in this case I think Thorland got the balance pretty much right, although there was a touch of melodrama.

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Diary of an Eccentric also read this for the challenge, check out what she said:

Thorland’s characters are well drawn and complex, especially Bayard Caide, who comes off as evil but has a story that makes you think twice about him.  I loved Kate and Tremayne, the passion and tension between them, and the obvious conflicts that arise between a Rebel and a Redcoat, a plain Quaker and an aristocrat.

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Bookworm’s Dinner read this one as well, and here’s an excerpt:

Donna Thorland fashions strong determined women characters pitted against men who exude the arrogance of entitled birth with enduring results.  THE TURNCOAT with plenty of sexual passion and perfidious turns promises plenty of hold your breath moments.

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The Maiden’s Court read Thorland’s book as well, and here’s a sample:

Four of the main characters were completely fictional, but engaged seamlessly with the historical characters. Within the first short chapter I was entranced with Kate and Peter. The pages flew and I couldn’t put the book down.

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Published in July 1776, he demonstrates the shallow stupidity of monarchial tyranny, hereditary privilege, patronage, and corruption. His irreverence was effective, calling William the Conqueror, “a French bastard.” His scorn is scathing when he asserts, “And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.”

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With this war within a war as background, this 1993 novel is about the lives of three literal head cases. Captain Hendrick Nellis, a loyalist, suffers migraines due to anxiety. His severe stress is caused by battle and fear of his entire world being turned upside down. “It is a strange thing,” he thinks during a skirmish, “to fight a war over ground where you played foxes and hound as a boy and courted your wife and watched your children tumble in the hayricks.”

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In 1977, this book won the prestigious Bancroft Prize, given for histories about the Americas. From the viewpoint of social history, Robert A. Gross (UConn) analyzes the effects of the American Revolution on Concord, Massachusetts. Gross makes clear how the coercive acts of Parliament in 1774 exacerbated pre-existing social and economic problems.

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Andreas pens a historical narrative of violence, crime, war, greed, corruption and that is a storyboard for an action big screen movie. For example, he documents the stories of smuggling guns and supplies for the American Revolution, smuggling and busting through blockades during the American Civil War and the smuggling of industrial technology from Europe.

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John and Moses Brown, two incongruous brothers were loyal to Britain. Yet, when a series of revenue raising taxes descended on the colonies, the Browns saw it as economic servitude to England. Charles Rappleye presents a history of Rhode Island and the Slave Trade through his research of primary documents and through letters of correspondence between the Brown brothers. Most people would be surprised to read about the significance of the Browns, and the relationship Newport and Providence and all Rhode Island had in the slave trade.

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What this book actually addresses is the history of early settlement, commerce and transportation in Berkshire County in western Massachusetts. What is now referred to as the Knox Trail followed the historic “Great Road” that passed from New York State through Alford Valley, the community of Great Barrington, across a range of mountains and forests known as “The Green Woods” and then continued east for Springfield. A branch of the Great Road led to the northwest through Stockbridge. This road began its existence as a series of Native American trails, and beginning about 1660 a handful of English fur traders began moving into the area. By the time that New York General William Johnson led an expedition against the French Fort St. Frederick at Crown Point in 1755, the area was still relatively sparsely settled, and the “Great Road” remained a crude road that had previously seen limited use.

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