Customer Reviews

Sisters of Cain

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
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In the second year of the Civil War, people from all types of lifestyles throughout the divided country contribute to the war effort. In Seneca Falls, New York, Glynis Tyrone tries her best to contain a local typhoid epidemic. Her two nieces, Kathryn and Bronwyn play a more active role to help their beleaguered nation. Washington DC hosts many southern spies while the government includes numerous southern sympathizers.

Kathryn becomes a nurse working in the field with the Northern army while Bronwyn serves as an intelligence agent behind enemy lines working for the Treasury Department. In Virginia, Bronwyn breaks into the home of a renowned physician who is a rabid secessionist. She finds incriminating evidence exposing high-level federal officials working for the confederacy, but these conspirators now know Bronwyn needs to be eliminated before she can do any more damage.

Anyone who wants to attain a real feel for the early years of the Civil War needs to read SISTERS OF CAIN. The audience will taste petty politics, military maneuvering and posturing not always on the battlefield and surreal Hoover-like expectations of pending victory just around the corner. Miriam Grace Monfredo creates an exciting historical mystery that includes sensational characters with mainstream appeal. Waiting for a Ms. Monfredo novel requires discipline in the art of patience.

This book was the first one I ever read from Miriam Monfredo and I hadn't heard fo the Seneca Falls series yet. So I was glad that there were only few cross references to the other books of the series.

"Sisters of Cain" has its little weaknesses, e.g. when the main character Bronwen tries to get through enemy lines, an old friend of hers (who incidentally is of Native American heritage AND a scout) appears out of the blue and helps her avoid the Southern troops. No explanation is given why this person is at this particular spot at this exact time.

Nevertheless, this book is great fun to read. The suspense in the story is increasing until almost the end, so I had a hard time to ever put it aside. The fact that it combines fiction with history made even more interesting, particularly because the story integrates two issues that are probably not well known in public. No. 1) the existence of women spies on both sides. No. 2) the fact that female nurses only started to be accepted in public hospitals and the military. (By the way, nuns in European convents played a major role in nursing for centuries before - but nobody seems to acknowledge this.)

I'm looking forward to reading the next books in the series, the brothers and the children of Cain.

Glynis Tryon and Seneca Falls make only a cameo appearence; most of the action is in Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia and points between. The main character is Bronwen Llyr, Glynis' neice and a Union spy; and to a lesser extent, Bronwen's sister Kathryn, a nurse. There is adventure aplenty, and as usual, Monfredo brings American history alive, so you learn about it without even trying.

Great fun to read, and educational too. What more can you ask?

watziznaym@gmail.com

What makes Miriam Grace Monfredo's novels works of art, more than any other factor, is that the reader is there, immersed in the era and the setting. In "Sisters of Cain," you aren't reading about 1862 Richmond, you are in 1862 Richmond. The characters are vivid, to the point where when there's a movie version someday, if you've read the book you'll recognize the characters on sight. And characters like Bronwen don't behave like the cliched portrayals of demure, silent women of literature dealing with this era...they are real, even as they are different, sometimes wonderfully quirky, but always real.

Glynis Tyron's nieces are featured in this new book by the author. Bronwen works as a Union spy sent deep into Southern territory to gather information on the movement of the Confederate army. Her sister, Kathryn, is a nurse who is turned away by Dorthea Dix for being too young and too pretty in spite of her nursing experience. Kathryn finds herself in jeopardy when she says farewell to her sister at the Union dock, but is saved by a Union doctor, a man she finds utterly infuriating.

From a historical perspective, the book is a wonderful read. Monfredo's attention to detail is as sharp as ever. However, both Kathryn and Bronwen are irritatingly reckless and obtuse to the dangers around them. Bronwen is especially reckless, a trait that would seem to greatly reduce the longevity of a spy. Her tendency to be hotheaded quickly grew old.

Sisters of Cain has inspired me to learn more about the ironclad ships launched in the Civil War, but the female characters are the difficult types one usually finds in a romance novel, not populating Monfredo's work. The writing and plot are thoroughly engaging, so I hope the characters will mature in this new series.

Unfortunately this is not a Glynis Tryon mystery novel. "Sisters of Cain" features instead two of Glynis's neices: Bronwen, a Treasury Department agent, and Kathryn, a nurse.

It's 1862, and the Virginia Peninsula campaign is about to begin. Unfortunately for the Union, there seems to be a double agent within the Treasury Department who is not only leaking secrets but who also seems to be betraying agents behind the lines in the South. Bronwen and a group of agents have been recalled from various assignments in order to get new counter-espionage training so as to prevent further sabotage attempts from taking place.

An added complication for Bronwen is that she has been marked for elimination by a group of rabid secessionists who hold high-levels of office within the federal government. She had discovered evidence of this group's exsistence while on assignment in Richmond. Attempts on her life seem to dog Bronwen everywhere even in the midst of her new assignment, and Bronwen must learn to trust no one, not even her fellow agents. Unfortunately, Kathryn is pulled into the intrigue by virture of her relationship with her sister.

This novel is rich in historical detail -- a fact that I truly appreciate. However I didn't feel the tension or the sense of urgency that one would expect from espionage novel in spite of the fact that we are told over and over again that Bronwen is afraid for her life. Part of my problem (I suspect) was that Bronwen inspired a great deal of irritation. She seemed a totally unlikely secret agent because of her recklessness, foolhardy behaviour and her reluctance to follow orders. She seemed entirely too full of herself and her infallibility, and since she is relatively new to the job, I wondered at her sense of superiority. Conventional wisdom is that a secret agent has about a six month life span during a war -- and that's an agent that lies low and behaves in a circumspect manner! I'd be curious to know if Bronwen actually survives the American Civil War given her utterly reckless behaviour.

Historically, a 5*......romantically a 0......plot very interesting and riveting. Certainly a different read for me but because I love civil war stuff, I enjoyed the historical overload. It was a bit difficult to keep the names and places straight and our "heroine" was more annoying than likeable. Her sister, Kathryn, was much more likeable and a romance between her and the good doctor would not have hurt the book any. One part I found disingenuous was when our spy bronwyn tells her sister info she should not tell her and then makes her promise to keep everything a secret since it would endanger bronwyns life.....and then a few minutes later, Kathryn blurts out everything.......duh...........

This book is founded on the Glynis Tryon series, but we don't see anything of Glynis here. Instead we see her two nieces, the intrepid Bronwen and the ladylike Katherine. Bronwen is a US Treasury agent who finds herself in the middle of a Confederate plot. More than once she has to run for her life in the book, and more than once she has to kill an enemy. Katherine is a war-time nurse and she is drawn into Bronwen's plot so finds that her life is in danger too. There is lots of excitement here, and the historical facts are great! I love this era and this time and I think Monfredo does a very good job of portraying the hits and misses in wartime United States. There's even a bit of romance in the book to make it interesting. The book leaves a lot of stuff up in the air, so that means I can't wait to read the next one "Brothers of Cain".

Living on some of the turf fought over in the Civil War doesn't make one a history expert, but I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I gave my dad a HUGE set of CW reference books for Christmas; now I need to go borrow them to flesh out the real story. Aside from that, the suspense was quite engaging, and I spent some late nights reading. It appears that these books may be out of print, which is a true shame.