Divided Nation, United Hearts
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
February 1862. The War Between the States has been raging for nearly a year with no end in sight. Philadelphia socialite Wilhelmina Fredericks is safe from the war’s clutches, yet she feels compelled to do her part to bring the madness to an end. Accordingly, she disguises herself as a man, takes up arms, and heads South to join the fight. What could possibly go wrong?
Clara Summers’s father and older brother are serving in the Confederate army. Forced to look after her two younger brothers as well as the small Tennessee farm the family depends on for its livelihood, Clara has no time for or interest in love. Then she meets a handsome Union soldier named Wil Fredericks, and her loyalty to both her family and the Southern cause is put to the test.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1862, Wilhelmina "Wil" Fredericks passes as a man to be a soldier in the Union Army, and is mustered into the western campaign. Clara Summers is left running her family's farm near Shiloh, Tenn., while the men in her family are away in the Confederate Army. Wallace (24/7) eventually brings the two together with a fair amount of chemistry, but the historical background doesn't feel lived-in, and the characters' attitudes towards gender and sexuality are far more 1960s than 1860s. The larger ramifications of the Civil War matter to the book only as much as they affect the plot, which winds up disconnecting the love story from the history it tries to incorporate. In particular, Wil's decision to leave the army to stay with Clara while remaining socially male is ill-considered, because Wil's original motivations were abolitionist, and she leaves them entirely unfulfilled and undiscussed. Lifeless prose does not assist Wallace's project.
