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5.0 out of 5 stars
Often Ignored Historical Event, January 16, 2007
This review is from: Rebel Enchantress (Mass Market Paperback)
Leigh Greenwood proves his mettle as a historical fiction writer by writing `Rebel Enchantress'. I had automatically assumed it was set in the Civil War. Instead I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had chosen a little talked about era in US History: reconstruction after the Revolutionary War, and Shay's Rebellion. The events outside of the world created by Delilah Stowbridge and Nathan Trent are based on the build up and reasons for Shay's Rebellion.
Shackled by high taxes, Delilah Stowbridge runs to one person who her family owes a great sum of money by post-Revolutionary War standards. She is nothing but a farmer's daughter living on her brother's farm with his small family and she offers her limited but proper services to Nathan Trent's family. Nathan Trent is British born and suffers the wrath of his aunt's and many other local townspeople's dislike simply because he is British. A secret he keeps even closer to his breast is that he is as poor as Delilah. When Delilah lets her brother Rueben know of her plan to help their family, Rueben presses Delilah into spying on Nathan Trent, certain that he is helping the British make their lives as members of a new country worse with uncontrolled taxes and a desire to once again quell the insurrection that had happened only a few short years before. Their relationship grows steadily, and does not instantly give into their slowly budding realization of attraction. The cast of support characters Serna Noys (Nathan's aunt), Lester (a black servant), Pricilla (Nathan's cousin and Serena's daughter), Mrs. Stebbins (the cook) all contribute adding support to Delilah's passage from the farmer's existence to that of the grander company Nathan's world of an early American land owner.
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