Phoebe's Valentine [Paperback]

Alice Duncan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2003

Jack Valentine and Phoebe Honeycutt hate each other on sight when they run into one another by accident on the vast Texas plain. To Jack, who fought for four years in the Union Army against the secessionist South, Phoebe is just another worthless, simpering southern belle. Phoebe, whose life in Atlanta was ravaged by the Union Army Jack so admires, considers Jack a particularly despicable member of a species she detests: Yankees.

When they have to join forces in order to survive, Phoebe is certain God hates her. Jack isn't sure about God, but he figures he's being punished for some black sin in his past.

It astonishes both of them when they discover they're wrong, about themselves, about life, and about each other.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Pagefree Publishing (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1589610318
• ISBN-13: 978-1589610316
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,625,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In an effort to avoid what I knew I should be doing with my life (writing'it sounded so hard), for several years I expressed my creative side by dancing and singing. I belonged to two professional international folk-dance groups. Dancing made for a lousy living, but it was certainly fun. I also sang in a Balkan women's choir. I got to sing the tenor drone, for the most part. My first book, ONE BRIGHT MORNING, was published by HarperMonogram in 1995. What's more, it won the HOLT Medallion for Best First Novel. It was a good start, but my career has been . . . rocky, is the best word for it, I guess. Publishing's a brutal business, but I've got more persistence than brains so the publishing gods haven't killed me yet, although they seem to be trying awfully darned hard, curse them. In September of 1996 my herd of wild dachshunds and I moved from Pasadena, CA, to Roswell, NM, where my mother's family settled fifty years before the aliens crashed. We love it here. No smog, no crowds, no money, but I had no money in California, either, and you don't need so much of it here.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unexpected North-South romance on a dangerous Texas journey, June 18, 2011

By 

LaylaReader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Phoebe's Valentine (Kindle Edition)

Texas, Summer, 1870

At 25, Phoebe has survived the Civil War and tried to maintain her family property in Georgia alone as the only surviving member of her family. Despite her best efforts she is forced to sell and decides to take her young niece Sarah and nephew William to Santa Fe to start a new life with her uncle there. She is cheated and attacked by her guide and left stranded in the Texas heat.

Jack comes across a `Belle' with a veiled hat and Southern drawl in the middle of nowhere. He is instantly irritated as she reminds him of his fickle sister-in-law. He is a gentleman though and feels obliged to help a damsel in distress. She has no choice but to ask for his assistance even though he is a hated Yankee and represents all of the horrors of the war.

Jack soon sees that her hands are calloused and her clothes patched. There is more to Phoebe than a vain woman avoiding freckles. She also has to recognise that Jack is a kind friend and not at all like the stereotype Yankee In her mind.

They travel with the 2 children and grow to respect and care for each other, with humorous and dangerous incidents along the way to keep the tension and drama of the story. Initial impressions are proved to be very wrong as they discover and accept who they really are.