An often engrossing, well-researched tale of one of American history’s most infamous generals during the most famous battle...
Pierce presents a fictionalized account of the Union cavalry at Gettysburg that focuses on the young Brigadier Gen. George Armstrong Custer.
Retired U.S. Navy Captain Pierce returns with his second novel in a planned trilogy about the Battle of Gettysburg, which begins at a pivotal moment in Custer’s burgeoning career. He’s 23, and it’s only been a few years since his court-martial at West Point, yet he’s managed—through heroism, say some, or through foolhardy recklessness, say others—to make a name for himself in President Abraham Lincoln’s Union Army. When readers drop into the timeline in mid-June 1863, the brash Custer is about to seize a moment that will make him famous, forcing his way into a cavalry charge led by Gen. Hugh Judson Kilpatrick. In a phrase that will come to define Custer’s place in the lexicon, he shouts, “Promotions or a coffin!” and flies headlong into battle. The gamble pays off; Custer survives, and he’s given the promotion he craves in order to prove his worth to a wealthy judge back home in Michigan, who’s also the father of Custer’s great love, Elizabeth Bacon. Such rolls of the dice become standard for Custer, whose fortunes on the battlefield begin to take on a mythic aura referred to as “Custer’s Luck.” Although Custer (and his flowing blond curls) remains the star of the show, readers also get to spend entire chapters with, among others, Brigadier Generals David Gregg, Kilpatrick, and Elon Farnsworth—all important figures, no doubt, but none of them will captures readers’ imaginations like Custer does.
The plot proceeds in lockstep with the real-life historical events, as one would expect, but the author manages to keep things suspenseful for Civil War buffs and novices alike. The prose sings most beautifully when in motion, and the scenes surrounding Custer’s charges into battle are truly exhilarating: “An enemy bugler trumpeted, and Rebel wolf cries howled….A gray, crested wave spiked with glittering sabers started jogging down the crest.” The author also portrays moments of compassion between gentlemanly combatants—often neighbors, friends, or old schoolmates—in which readers will most keenly feel the realities of Civil War conflicts. Pierce sticks to the history of the central battle, which is indisputably monumental. At more than 600 pages, the novel does feel overlong (even for historical fiction, which tends toward considerable length), and readers will find that wading through some of the tome’s more academic minutiae will require commitment. Readers looking for a breezy, biopic-style narrative of Custer’s life may get bogged down in such material, but the book has plenty of compelling information for those who might wish to dive deeper. Fans of the author’s previous work will be happy to return and spend more time with familiar characters, and newcomers are sure to be drawn in by the central character’s strange magnetism.
An often engrossing, well-researched tale of one of American history’s most infamous generals during the most famous battle of the Civil War.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781631070532
Page Count: 652
Publisher: Heart Ally Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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