Customer Reviews

A Blue and Gray Christmas (Ladies of Covington)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is the story of two soldiers, Tom and John, during the Civil War and the dramatic turn their lives took after they were wounded and left for dead on a battlefield in North Carolina. Tom was a Confederate rebel, as Southern soldiers were known then, and John was a Union soldier from Connecticut. The thing that makes this story meaningful is the fact that the Covington ladies (Hannah Parrish Maxwell, Grace Singleton and Amelia Declose) became very involved with finding these soldiers' descendents over one hundred years later.

The ladies discovered the extraordinary lives of Tom and John when they opened a box that Hannah's husband, Max, had found at an excavation site. This box was muddy, battered, made of tin, and obviously very old. It was the size of two large shoeboxes and held journals and letters written by Tom and John - letters that contained names and relevant information of relatives in 1864, but were clearly never intended to be mailed home. The oddity, and the thing that drew the attention of the ladies, was the fact that it had been locked and buried all these years.

Crumbling letters, lifted from the box, tell how Tom and John were found and rescued from a gruesome battlefield by elderly Miss Ella Mae Evans, as she searched among the dead and dying for her own grandson who was killed in that battle. In an old straw filled wagon, Miss Ella Mae took the two men, feverish and in terrible pain from their wounds and broken bones, to her own home in the hills of North Carolina. It was there where she saved them from the bounty hunters, always on the prowl for deserters, and nursed them back to health.

As months passed and the end of the war was near, both men regained their strength and decided to repay Miss Ella Mae's kindness by staying and caring for her as long as she lived. Although their lives were happy and full, they always grieved for the families they left behind.

As they continued to pour over the letters and journals for many weeks, the ladies began to feel a deep affinity for the two men who had written them. Because of this, they felt compelled to delve into the unknown world of genealogy and find some of their descendants. Their motive was to bring them together in Covington for an exciting and wonderful Christmas they would never forget.

***** FIVE STARS! This is a fantastic Civil War story told from the soldiers' perspective and is probably one of the best I have ever read! It had a ring of authenticity about it, and it completely held my interest all the way through. To say I thoroughly enjoyed it would be to put it mildly. I enjoyed it tremendously! The soldiers' letters were undeniably appealing - descriptive, touching, and heartbreaking. A Blue and Gray Christmas is surely one of the best books Joan Medlicott has ever written! *****

Reviewed by Ruth Wilson for Huntress Reviews.

In this entry in the Covington series, the three housemates, Grace, Amelia and Hannah, discover a box which contains letters written by two Civil War veterans, one fighting for the Union and the other for the Confederacy. The women begin to read the letters and they become very involved in their stories. They do some geneological research and discover where some of the men's modern-day descendants live. This is a very good Christmas story and, in my opinion, it is the best book in this series.

At Covington, Max brings in a box containing letters and journals that had been buried until Frank Hays' backhoe dug it up. He gives the box to the ladies (his wife Hannah Parrish Maxwell, Grace Singleton and Amelia Declose) believing they might enjoy the contents.

The authors were Tom a Confederate soldier and John a Union soldier left to die in a pit in 1864. One from he South and one from Connecticut, but elderly angel Miss Ella Mae nurses both of them and conceals them from bounty hunters seeking deserters. Feeling an affinity, to the past, the three Covington women try to bring together descendents of Tom and John.

Although refreshing and entertaining, the story line is too sugary especially in the present, but even in the last year of the Civil War, the sweetening feels out of place. Still the cast is solid especially the three Covington women and the three heroes of 1864 who come alive through their writings. With a strong refreshing premise, fans of the series will relish A Blue and Grey Christmas; others might find the glucose too high.

Harriet Klausner

The Ladies of Covington strike again! If you enjoy anything to do with the history of the Civil War, this is the book for you...it combines the best of the Covington philosophy with just enough of a very original (and quite believable!) Civil War story to keep you turning the pages! All I can say is that Joan Medlicott has another winner in this book, and I hope she's writing as fast as she can, because this is the latest in the series and I need more! Enjoy!

What a wonderful book! This book isn't just for Christmas, but is a delightful story that should be enjoyed all year round. The plot of the story was unusual, and I loved that the women involved in the story were older, not the usual young heroine. I think it was nice to see older women in roles other than grandmothers. Kudo's to Medlicott for writing books for women of all ages!

Unless you have read the entire series, this book is a waste of time...especially for a book club. Read something else.

Loved the way the story unfolded about the Union and Southern solider.

with the happy ending of their families.

I have read and loved all the of Covington series by Joan Medlicott . This one was harder to read because it kept switching back and forth between now and the past. Ms. Medlicott did change the type so you knew which era you were reading but I did not enjoy this one as much as her earlier works, until the end, when we got back to the Covington characters I know and love. There was not another way I can think of that she couls have presented the information from the past, so this is not a condemnation of her writing, only that I did not love this style as much as her usual.

Three friends, Grace, Amelia, and Hannah, come across a box once buried full of the letters and diaries of two Civil War soliders: Tom from the South and John from the North. Both soldiers were injured during the war and ended up abandoning together, hiding deep in the Appalachian mountains that they made their home. Tom felt he had nothing to go back to and John chose to leave his wife and daughter to begin a new life. The letters the three women read and share with others express friendships, fears, loves, and the dramatic after effects of war. John is left with severe post traumatic stress, so he has to completely rebuild himself after the horrors of war he experienced.

When Tom and John decided to stay in the mountains, they took on a new last name to begin their lives anew. When Grace, Amelia, and Hannah find the letters and learn about the break up of families, they decide together that it would be the perfect Christmas treat to reunite the families and share with them the letters and diaries of their long lost ancestors, believed to have been killed in the war. It is not an easy thing for the women to do, and they search through records and graveyards to find and connect people together. A lucky break happens when they meet a relative of John's, Milo, who came from the line descended from John's second marriage. The threads start coming together for the women, and it seems all too soon that they are going to get the Christmas they want.

The best part of the book is the Civil War letters. Reading about the experiences and lives of Tom and John was very emotional for me. I chose to participate in the book's blog tour because I am a student of history and absolutely love a good historical fiction novel. The Civil War is in itself a very emotional war, so being able to read about it in such a personal way was very tender, sometimes sweet, sometimes painful. I felt especially bad for John who had such a hard time forgetting everything he'd seen and done. The intimacy of the letters really made me feel like I had connected with the two men on some level.

Unfortunately, I felt that I connected very little with the story apart from the letters. While I enjoyed very much the progression of Tom and John's lives, I found some other aspects of the novel quite not to my liking. The story line moves along in a way that is not only too quick, but entirely unbelievable. Everything just seems to fall into place and the initial roadblocks are obligatory. Something about the dialogue put me off, too. But what I disliked the most was that the book is full of unnecessary detail and lacks where there should be detail. We are given a paragraph about baking and the ingredients that go in and in what order, but the actual plot itself is rushed along. I would have liked a little less unnecessary dialogue and action and a little more that had actual substance or contributed to the plot.

Nevertheless, it is a very sweet book. One of those quick rainy or snowy day reads that will leave you feeling warm inside at the end of it all.

As usual, Joan Medlicott has written an excellent book about the Covington ladies and their friends. Reading her book was like spending time with old friends. The ladies concerns about health, family and friends are concerns we all have.

I'm amazed at the amount of research she must do for her books to keep them historically accurate.

A very good read. I would recommend it to anyone and especially those of "a certain age" (paraphrasing Joan).